Chronicle January 2021

39 ST EDWARD’S CHRONICLE

details. Eventually, the whole of the sun was gilded with four-inch-square leaves of 22 carat gold, each leaf beaten out so thinly that it would disintegrate with the slightest draught. Finally, the surface was burnished with a small agate and in places dulled with pumice powder until the reflections danced off the carved angles, planes and shapes beneath. I remember driving my sun home from the Coopers’ workshop, seeing it glinting, now safely in the back of a van, and it made me smile to think of it starting to work. I was pleased it would sit behind the crucifix and radiate light. For my figures on the right-hand roundel I depicted Mary, a mother with Jesus in her arms; Peter, the fisherman; Barbara, patron saint of architects and builders; Francis, who reminds us to care for the creatures of the world; Cecilia, patron saint of music; and Christopher, patron saint of travellers. To the left of the altar, the roundel features Dorothy, the patron saint of horticulture; Ambrose, patron saint of beekeepers, chosen with the school beekeeping society in mind; Catherine, patron saint of scholars; St Nicholas, patron saint of children; and Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who devoted her life to the poor. St Edward, with his dog, cup and dagger, patron saint of our school, echoes the small painting above the side chapel. The three roundels were put in storage at the beginning of the first lockdown and it was not until Maintenance Supervisor Martin Giles asked me one morning in early September if I would like to see the triptych that I saw it hanging for the first time. The pieces had been hung just as discussed and the sun aligned perfectly with the crucifix. Working on this project also allowed me to feel a connection with a nearby church of some importance to me. My grandfather, The Rev Ioworth Lloyd-Jones, had been Vicar of Old St Mary’s in Kidlington in the 1920s and the porch was built in his memory. It was a great privilege to have been asked to do this work for the School in which I have taught for the past 15 years. With grateful thanks to the St Edward's School Society who funded the triptych commission. To see more work by Peter Lloyd-Jones visit his website: www.peterlloyd- jones.co.uk and his Instagram page peterlloydjones1.

The True Vine

As a boy aged eleven, I was very excited about the prospect of moving to Hampshire – I had been living in the North East, Durham and North Yorkshire, for four or five years, whilst attending a school in (bizarrely) Sussex. One of the features of the house my parents had bought in Hampshire was a greenhouse specially built to contain a grapevine; the idea of growing something as exotic (in 1970) as a grape was highly attractive to the eleven-year-old me. To the writers of the Gospels of course, vines were something of a commonplace. Everyone understood what a vine was – how it grew and its economic and social importance. When Jesus says “I am the true vine…” then he is speaking to an audience that understands the metaphor. He is also speaking at a time just before his crucifixion, and reassuring his friends that, although he is about to leave them, he will always be an essential part – perhaps the essential part – of them as a community: “I am the vine: you are the branches” he says.

For us now, this reading might help us reflect on our own community – our School which is based on a community spirit, centred in Chapel, and in our shared lives together. Jesus is the vine and all of us are the branches that depend on that central community spirit. That is what it is to be part of the Teddies community; to be a part of St Edward’s School. The new triptych, conceived and painted by Peter Lloyd-Jones, is inspired by the “true vine” idea… The panel in the centre reflects to us the Son and the sun, and highlights the cross; whilst the two side panels, each carrying six specially chosen saints, are decorated with vine leaves. It is therefore absolutely right, and proper, and good, that the triptych sits in Chapel reminding us not only of Christ, the true vine, but also of ourselves, as branches; together these make the whole – our shared community within this School. THE WARDEN

Peter Lloyd-Jones