The Scrivener: Being A Bishop
…I recall a little boy asking his grandfather what his actual name was. Grandad replied, ‘It’s Mr Johnson’. Then, after a stiff military pause and a bristling of the neat grey moustache, ‘Well, Major Johnson, actually’. It occurred to me that as I had served my country diligently in the battlefield of Education, I should be called Manager Barratt...
Brian Barratt muses upon gangs, and the grand titles which are a key element in gangdom, then recalls investigative youthful days when he was a Bishop. Yes, a Bishop.
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Boys like to form gangs. Some of those gangs are militant. Anthropologists understand that sort of thing. It would need a developmental psychologist to explain the gang we had at school in England in the 1950s. We were The Tractavians.
We didn’t wander the streets and make a nuisance of ourselves. We had no plans to attack anybody. Rather, we met to discuss Life, The Universe, and Everything Else. Indeed, we planned to compile an encyclopaedia on the subject(s). Guess who was appointed to write the section on Theology. Well, we all had our specialities.
Titles were another speciality. We had a President, or perhaps he was Prime Minister. There were Ministers for other Departments. I was the Bishop. Tractavia was a self-contained, eclectic and highly intellectual concept, I’ll have you know. The fact that one of us was attacked by a gang of less spiritually inspired boys did not deter us from our purpose. Guess who that boy was.
This business of gangs and titles continues in adulthood. Some of my friends are titled The Reverend. One of them is The Very Reverend. Another has recently retired from being The Most Reverend. The funny thing is that I don’t revere any of them. We’re just good friends.
If you go further up the ladder, you can become His Eminence, His Beatitude or His Holiness. Home-made autocephalic churches, which usually have fewer members than bishops, use grander titles like His Excellency, His Sacred Beatitude and His Whiteness. For really poetic designations, though, you must become a Freemason.
Starting as a Brother, you can be raised to the degree of Master, becoming Worshipful and Most Worshipful along the way. Depending on which Lodge you belong to, you may then proceed to such elevated offices as Royal Ark Mariner, Most Wise Sovereign, Knight of the Holy Sepulchre, and Certified Master of Harodium.
Hereditary rulers and the landed gentry have their fair share of grand titles, too. In Britain, you can be Right Honourable, Your Grace, and Your Lordship. In Germany you might be a Serene Highness but, due to certain changes in administration, you may no longer be an Imperial Highness in Russia. Not officially, anyway.
In another arena, it seems anomalous that men who haven’t worn a uniform for years can hold ranks such as Major-General and Lieutenant-Colonel. I recall a little boy asking his grandfather what his actual name was. Grandad replied, ‘It’s Mr Johnson’. Then, after a stiff military pause and a bristling of the neat grey moustache, ‘Well, Major Johnson, actually’. It occurred to me that as I had served my country diligently in the battlefield of Education, I should be called Manager Barratt. Actually.
In some branches of the Church, women can also rise to levels above The Reverend. In others, they must remain Sister or, at best, Reverend Mother. Military service offers a wider scope, having overcome some of its traditional practices. In Freemasonry, however, a woman cannot even become a Sister, let alone rise through the degrees, unless she belongs to one of the officially unrecognised Lodges which accept males and females alike.
Long after leaving school, I came close to another attack because of my beliefs at the time. In youthful ignorance, I wrote to the local paper about the blood-curdling Obligations which were then still used in Masonic rituals. My point was that they were sworn on the Bible and that this was surely not a Christian act. The local vicar, who had hitherto been a friend, wrote a damning response.
The problem was that he took my letter as a personal insult. I had been totally unaware that he was chaplain of the local lodge. If I’d been familiar, as I am now, with certain pass-grips, then I would have been taught to be cautious. My letter of apology was to no avail. The next time we met, he was monosyllabically disdainful. When his snarling dog approached me in attack mode, he made no effort to hold it back.
But we should not speak ill of the dead — the Reverend probably did espouse forgiveness and brotherhood. Nevertheless, I felt safer in my own gang at school. And it’s nice being a Bishop
© Copyright 2006 Brian Barratt
