[Jane Fawcett] (0:00 – 0:03)
Good morning Nick, lovely to see you.
[Nick McKinnel] (0:03 – 0:04)
Nice to see you too Jane.
[Jane Fawcett] (0:05 – 0:15)
You were the vicar here during the storm that blew the church spire down in January 1990. What are your main recollections of that day?
[Nick McKinnel] (0:15 – 1:09)
Well it was a very stormy day and my wife walked down to the school, we had children at the primary school, and she noticed that the spire was swaying a bit. I was sitting at my desk and then I got a phone call, I suppose just after lunch, from the headmaster of the school, Frank Znideric , who said, Nick, does your church have a spire? And I said, yes.
He said, well it hasn’t any longer. And I looked out of my window and there was just the battered top of the tower that was there. So I obviously went down straight away, assuming it had blown onto the graveyard somewhere.
And no, it had smashed right through the middle of the medieval barrel roof. There was an enormous hole that the rain was pouring in and the wind was blowing everywhere. And it was just like a bomb had gone off.
The pews were smashed, the floor was smashed, timbers lay everywhere. It was a picture of devastation.
[Jane Fawcett] (1:09 – 1:30)
That’s an amazing description of it. And I’ll just add here that I was actually in the school at the time when it was happening and had to keep my class contained in the classroom while I was in absolute fear as well, because the roof tiles were blowing up and down and we were just waiting instruction. Nobody really was prepared.
[Nick McKinnel] (1:31 – 1:56)
And the town itself, I mean, it wasn’t just a church. Other people lost tiles, roofs, corrugated iron off their barns. I remember walking down through the street and it was ankle deep in thatch that had blown off.
One of the vicarage tiles had blown off and I hadn’t noticed, but very kindly Brian and John of the builder had put it quietly back on without even telling me, just quietly. I think they knew I was having a stressful time.
[Jane Fawcett] (1:57 – 2:01)
Wonderful. So had there been any warning at all of this storm damage?
[Nick McKinnel] (2:01 – 2:43)
No, none at all. And churches, as you know, have a quinquennial (survey) every five years to check that they’re sound. And we were all in the clear as far as the architect was concerned.
What they had done, and I think, or maybe 30 or 40 years earlier, had put on cheaper, lighter shingles, wooden tiles on the spire. So it had originally always been oak. They’d put on cedar ones, which were lighter.
And I guess nobody had really checked properly the wooden foundation, the medieval foundation that the spire was resting on and was attached by. So, but that’s all in retrospect. At the time, we all thought we were all fine.
[Jane Fawcett] (2:43 – 2:45)
So there was no real warning of it?
[Nick McKinnel] (2:45 – 2:45)
None at all.
[Jane Fawcett] (2:45 – 2:51)
I don’t remember a weather forecast that had predicted such intense storms.
[Nick McKinnel] (2:51 – 3:13)
I think the storm was, there was a famous one, wasn’t it? In the southeast, with all those oaks that came down. And I think ours was fiercer than that.
Someone recorded 100-mile-an-hour winds in Hatherleigh. But because it was winter, the leaves went on the trees, so the damage wasn’t quite as obvious. But the storm was every bit as bad.
[Jane Fawcett] (3:14 – 3:19)
It really was. So how did the church carry on following this damage?
[Nick McKinnel] (3:19 – 4:47)
Well, that was a very good question. That was a question I was asking myself. We already had a service once a month with the Methodists.
And so we went down on the Sunday to their church. And I think I remember preaching on that the church was people, not a building, which was a relief at the time, theologically. And we held a service in the town square for the whole town to just mark what had happened to the town and the band played.
And I think we probably sang, Oh God, Our Help in Ages Past and similar hymns like that. And of course, there’s the old schools in the square, on the side of the square. So we cleaned that up, set it up, bought some nice, more comfortable chairs, and carried on holding services in there.
Well, it was nearly for two years, or probably a bit more than two years, with the chairs in a semicircle, carpet at the front for the children to sit on. And there was a really nice feel. I think some people were quite sorry to go back to the medieval church afterwards, because it was informal and comfortable.
We could serve coffee very easily. The children behaved well. You could see other people’s faces.
Often in church, you just see the back of the head of the person in front of you, but you could see joyful faces around. There was a nice tapestry that Caroline Ash put up that’s still hanging in the church. I see.
So, you know, that gave us a bit of colour. And it worked well for us.
[Jane Fawcett] (4:47 – 5:01)
That’s very good. There have been occasions since then when it’s been particularly cold. We’ve used the old schools, and I must say, there’s a lovely atmosphere there for a service.
So how did you set about fundraising to repair the damage?
[Nick McKinnel] (5:01 – 5:52)
Well, there was a worry that the whole South Wall might collapse. So, I mean, the various people, the architect Jonathan Lomas, and the Diocese people, and so on, were really quick and helpful. And we shored up the South Wall and got scaffolding and covering over the whole thing.
That sat there for a very long time. And that was quite impressive, really, the speed with which people all acted then. And then, yes, there was a big need to raise money.
So, of course, the church insurance policy was not as good as we thought it was. They would only pay a certain percentage. English Heritage were helpful and came up with the bulk of the rest.
And we had a lovely major general, Jeremy Rouget.
[Jane Fawcett] (5:53 – 5:53)
I remember him.
[Nick McKinnel] (5:53 – 6:12)
He used to be headed up the Royal Artillery in his military days. So he was the obvious person to put in charge of the fundraising efforts. He got a helicopter, I think slightly illegally, but he borrowed a helicopter, a naval helicopter, to come and fly over and take dramatic aerial pictures of the damage.
[Jane Fawcett] (6:13 – 6:13)
Oh, this was before drones.
[Nick McKinnel] (6:14 – 6:47)
Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. He got an RAF Chivenor, as they were then, to send over a helicopter. So that gave us really good fundraising pictures.
And then we just did lots of events. I remember we did a… Do you remember being part of a sponsored Bible reading?
We read the whole Bible from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation. And people… I don’t think we’re allowed to call it betting, but people were allowed to “estimate” how long it would take and pay some money to do so. And we read all the way through the day and the night. It’d be interesting to know how long it did take, but…
[Jane Fawcett] (6:47 – 6:49)
I can’t recall how long it took.
[Nick McKinnel] (6:49 – 6:51)
Three and a half days, something like that, I would have thought.
[Jane Fawcett] (6:51 – 6:55)
I remember the event very, very well. And it was a good event to hold in the Square.
[Nick McKinnel] (6:55 – 7:21)
Yeah, and it got lots of local publicity and so on. Set up a little booth. So…
You’re going to ask me how much it all cost. No, I wasn’t going to ask that, but if you’d like to tell me, you can. I know the Spire, which was a separate project later, was a bit over £200,000. And I think the church itself was about half a million. It’ll be in the record somewhere, but…
[Jane Fawcett] (7:21 – 7:24)
Well, that sounds very reasonable under the circumstances.
[Nick McKinnel] (7:24 – 7:26)
Well, this is 30-odd years ago, isn’t it?
[Jane Fawcett] (7:26 – 7:33)
Yes, of course. So lots of people have been asking, did you manage to jump over the weather vane?
[Nick McKinnel] (7:35 – 7:40)
That’s right, we set up the weather vane in the square and lined up all the primary school children, didn’t we?
[Jane Fawcett] (7:40 – 7:40)
Yes, we did.
[Nick McKinnel] (7:40 – 7:47)
They all, they leapt over it. Again, we got good publicity for this. I think I must have done.
I can’t remember doing so much.
[Jane Fawcett] (7:47 – 7:48)
You must have done. How could you resist?
[Nick McKinnel] (7:48 – 7:56)
And then they could all tell their grandchildren, days come, see that there cock? weather cock… I’ve jumped over that, you know.
So yes, that’s right.
[Jane Fawcett] (7:56 – 7:58)
There’s no photographic evidence of you doing this?
[Nick McKinnel] (7:58 – 8:01)
Not of me doing it. There is of the children doing it, isn’t there?
[Jane Fawcett] (8:02 – 8:04)
That would be lovely to have a photograph in.
[Nick McKinnel] (8:04 – 8:11)
I think I’ve got one somewhere. The North Devon Journal covered it quite well. So they would have…
[Jane Fawcett] (8:11 – 8:13)
It would be worth asking them.
[Nick McKinnel] (8:13 – 8:16)
Yeah, I’m sure I have got a picture, actually, if you’d like one.
[Jane Fawcett] (8:16 – 8:27)
Thank you. Thank you, that would be good. Now, I understand there was some controversy over the colour of the shingles.
And so what actually determined the colour of the shingles on the spire?
[Nick McKinnel] (8:28 – 9:27)
Yes, this was a problem with English Heritage, who, for some reason, told us that the old medieval spire would have been whitewashed. And so some people felt very strongly that if that was how it had been in the past, lime washed. If that’s how it had been in the past, then it should be done again.
And that’s how we should do it. And everybody, well, most people were up in arms at that, because we’d never seen it like that. And it turned out in the end that that wasn’t true, that English Heritage, the young architect who was working for them, had made a mistake.
But it did cause an awful lot of trouble. There were public meetings and quite a lot of outrage. In the end, the head of English Heritage, Rebecca, came down and apologised in person to the Parochial Church Council for all the aggro that it had caused. Emma Nicholson, who was the MP at the time.
[Jane Fawcett] (9:27 – 9:28)
I remember her too.
[Nick McKinnel] (9:28 – 9:34)
Brought her down. And it caused a lot of unnecessary ill will and unpleasantness.
[Jane Fawcett] (9:34 – 9:55)
That is such a shame. I understand there’s a photograph with the spire looking very bright and white, but it was probably the sun shining on it that was creating this image of a whitewashed or lime washed spire. So anyway, it’s the colour it is now, and that hasn’t changed.
[Nick McKinnel] (9:55 – 10:08)
It’s weathering nicely. It has weathered very, very nicely. And it does look quite silvery.
And I think that was why they thought it had been limewashed. And I think they found what they thought were traces of limewash on an old shingle, and actually it turned out not to be.
[Jane Fawcett] (10:09 – 10:11)
So the matter was resolved.
[Nick McKinnel] (10:11 – 10:15)
Well, it was slightly unnecessary. It left a bad feeling at the end.
[Jane Fawcett] (10:15 – 10:16)
Which is unfortunate.
[Nick McKinnel] (10:16 – 10:16)
Yeah.
[Jane Fawcett] (10:17 – 10:26)
Is there anything else you’d like to add about the damage that was done, about the time that you were there during the restoration?
[Nick McKinnel] (10:27 – 11:26)
Well, in a curious way, it drew the community together. And lots of people who I think wouldn’t necessarily think of themselves as practising Christians, or particularly involved with the life of the Church, couldn’t have been more helpful in supporting and valuing it, and helping in all sorts of ways, and offering their help. And it just reminded me that really the Church belongs to everybody, and all sorts of people feel that it’s their Church.
I often think of a Church as being like a history book, but a history book written in stone. So you’ve got round the walls the names of the great and the good, and so on. But it’s also the place where over centuries the ordinary people have come to pray, and to learn, and to be there for sad times, and happy times.
And an English parish Church, it does embody deep feelings.
[Jane Fawcett] (11:26 – 11:48)
I certainly feel the same. And we had a similar experience last week after the Hatherleigh Festival, when the community got together in the square and had a church service. And there was just that similar feeling that it belonged to the community.
The Church is a part of the community, it’s at the very centre of it, and it is very important, even though people don’t attend Church every Sunday.
[Nick McKinnel] (11:49 – 12:05)
People do value it deeply, don’t they? And I think even in a day when congregations aren’t as large as they have been in the past, we do well to remember that, that it belongs to the community, and is valued by most people.
[Jane Fawcett] (12:06 – 12:24)
And you have weddings, and funerals, and everything in between, and people do come, and they do appreciate it. So if there’s nothing else you’d like to add, Nick, then we’ll end this interview. And thank you very much for coming along and meeting me, and I’m sure people will appreciate what you’ve said – thank you.
[Nick McKinnel] (12:25 – 12:26)
It’s lovely to see you again, Jane.