Catholic South West
View from the Pew
July 2023 9
By Dr Jay Kettle-Williams
Messages in The Bottle CSW (Catholic South West) covers an area falling across three Catholic dioceses: (1) The Diocese of Clifton (under The Rt Rev Bishop Declan Lang, appointed the ninth bishop of Clifton on 27 February 2001); (2) The Diocese of Plymouth (currently sede vacante but formerly under The Right Reverend Mark O’Toole, appointed the 9th Bishop of Plymouth on 9 November 2013, then translated to both the Archbishopric of Cardiff and Bishopric of Menevia on June 20th and 22nd 2022 respectively) and (3) The Diocese of Portsmouth (under The Rt Rev Bishop Egan, appointed the eighth Bishop of Portsmouth on 11 July 2012). Each of these three dioceses enjoys a long and marked maritime history: Bristol has been a trading port stretching back over 13 centuries; Plymouth’s rich maritime heritage, based on fishing and trade, is keenly identified as having a long and continuing association with the Royal Navy. But it can be reasonably argued that Portsmouth, hosting the oldest naval base in the Royal Navy, might be most keenly applauded for standing out for so long at the forefront in the naval defence of the realm. Portsmouth is a two-cathedral city occupying Portsea Island which, as I often remark, is shaped like an inverted thumb or perhaps more appropriately like a Barrell bottle of old, such as traditionally used for liquor and spirits. Portsea Island in parallel with the Gosport promontory to its west offers a sheltered inlet which leads up to Portchester, the site established by the Romans as a military camp (Latin: castra). As you drive into Portsmouth (aka Pompey) and work your way across
Photograph © jlkw St John The Evangelist
Photograph courtesy PHCJ Philip Jackson
Photograph © jlkw: The Yomper
town from the bottom of the M25, perhaps on your way to Gunwharf Quays, you pass the Catholic Cathedral of St John which, a mere stone’s throw from Portsmouth & Southsea Rail Station, puts a firm and resolute Christian stamp on the centre of town. It’s then, immediately on your left as you approach the lights at the corner of Victoria Park, that you see the piazza at the west end of the Cathedral with the 3metre high, bronze statue of St John the Evangelist, one of the fishers of men, so apt for a coastal establishment. St John stands there pointing resolutely to Heaven while looking stoically at the traffic passing by. The statue of St John the Evangelist is one of two works in town by the internationally renowned sculptor Philip Jackson: the one referring to the Church, the other to the State.
sculptors in Britain today, is noted for his modern style and emphasis on form. Being Royal Sculptor to the late Queen Elizabeth II, his work appears all across the UK as well as abroad. Football fans for a kick-off (I can’t resist the pun, however arch!) will be well aware of Jackson’s bronze statue of Bobby Moore, standing 6 metres tall, at the main entrance to the new Wembley Stadium. Readers may also recall that the herald imaging at the foot of this column is modelled on a further work by Jackson, Exultate Jubilate.
was the Royal Marines who popularised the word ‘to yomp’, meaning to carry full kit on a long-distance march. Having disembarked from ships at East Falkland on 21 May 1982 they yomped 56 miles in three days, each carrying 80-pound loads of equipment, en route to Port Stanley, the capital of the Falkland Islands, which had been occupied by Argentine military forces. The iconic photograph taken at the time shows a yomper with the union flag flying defiantly from his radio aerial.
That other work by Jackson in Portsmouth is the Falklands War sculpture of a Royal Marine: The Yomper, bronze and twice lifesize, watching the shipping and keeping an eye on the many ‘keep-fitters’ exercising up and down the seafront at Eastney, near where the Royal Marines Museum used to be, that museum now being in the dockyard. It
Note: To see other works by Philip Jackson visit www.philipjacksonsculptures.co.uk
Scottish-born Philip Henry Christopher Jackson CVO DL (born 18 April 1944), one of the foremost, award-winning figurative
Dr J L Kettle-Williams is an experienced business communications consultant and wordsmith (tutor, writer, translator).