Picture Gallery
About …

  • Light in the darkness: Happisburgh lighthouse on a cold April Sunday

  • Boat house: Low tide at Blakeney

  • North-west Norfolk: storm approaching

  • Heading for the beach

  • Westwick Arch, now demolished

  • Inland sea at Salthouse

  • Grin Low, near Buxton, Derbyshire

  • Luskentyre beach in Harris, Outer Hebrides

  • Clouds at Harder Kulm, above Interlaken

  • The Eiger from Kleine Scheidegg

About …

I am a writer who spent most of my working life as a journalist. I used to write offbeat commentary pages for the Eastern Daily Press, based in Norwich, England, and earlier a weekly piece called Square One for the Church of England Newspaper – hence the title of this site. I am also a poet, a walker, a chess player, a driver, a husband, a father, a grandparent, a guitar player, a reader, a TV watcher, a pensioner and a Christian, among other things. I love Norfolk, Scotland, the coast, deserts, rivers, mountains and almost everywhere I find myself, though not necessarily in that order. I like to look at things sideways, wherever possible. I have published seven  poetry books: Mist and Fire (2003), Off the Map (2007), Running with Scissors (2011), Stillness lies Deep (with Joy McCall, 2014), Iona: The Road Ends (2015), Waving from a Distance (2017) and Under Cover of Day (see below). I have been a member of the poetry group Chronicle and edited a book on the Pastons in Norwich, which contains directions for a walk, a bit of history and some poems by myself and others. It’s called In the Footprints of the Pastons. Click here for more information on the Pastons.

I also enjoy photography, without being in any way an expert. Some of my pictures can be found on Flickr, and some are included in Stillness Lies Deep and Iona: The Road Ends.

Poems under cover

My most recent poetry book, Under Cover of Day, has been published by Paul Dickson Books. It is available from pauldicksonbooks.co.uk or from Amazon, priced competitively at £6.

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Latest article

The curse of management

If you want to kill something, bring in management consultants. You may think this statement a little sweeping, but we live in a world where it seems almost routinely true. 

In fact the management class has taken over to such an extent that everything that makes life worth living, which expands our experience or promotes freedom, is at risk of being stamped out by people whose only real motivation is to promote their own wellbeing.

Amazingly, this is true even of the Church. 

Historian Peter Hennessy once said: “If management consultants had drafted the Sermon on the Mount, there would be no Christians anywhere.”

Happily, management was not consulted by Jesus at all, which is what makes the Kingdom of God so attractive. But the current leaders of the Church of England – with some notable exceptions – lean ever more towards solving problems by implementing management “solutions”, often combined with fashionable groupthink. 

Why does this happen? Well, managers as a whole – including lawyers, politicians, administrators and consultants – are grossly overpaid; so naturally they want to preserve the status quo. Therefore every solution they come up with aims to avoid disruption of any kind: in the words of Joseph Heller, they routinely “distort reality for the sake of neatness”. They want to smooth things over; keep things quiet. 

Which is why inquiries are largely a waste of time, unless they are conducted by an independent spirit who can not only see through the fog but withstand the pressure. Not many of those about.

Of course, the Church of England has never been perfect. Back in 1978 Canon John Collins was saying: “I can assure you, after nearly 50 years in its ministry, the Church of England is riddled with, if not obsessed by, questions of status and precedence.”

This is a very human trait – even the early disciples occasionally fell prey to it – but it is destructive, especially when those caught up in it have real power. And it has nothing in common with Christianity. Quite the opposite.

Of course the Church at a local level contains many people who actually believe, who are self-effacing and want to do good. So against all the odds, I am optimistic. After all, individuals make a difference in the real world. 

And then there’s Piers Brandon, who summed it up rather well: “Anything is possible in the C of E,” he said. “Even  Christianity.” 

Latest poem

Angels should live in trees

Angels have got into churches
all over the county:
climbing the ancient walls
they beam brightly and carry hammers

They look down on our flimsy worship
as if nonplussed,
somehow restraining themselves

and we look back
holding our strange grey books
singing uneven songs
safeguarding the saints
in odd ways

We do not reach up, 
they do not reach down:
it is an impasse

Angels should live in trees

Elsewhere

  • And the Paston Letters: my other life
    I was also a trustee for many years of the Paston Heritage Society, which aims to promote knowledge of the Paston family and their achievements, with special reference to the letters they wrote, mainly in the 15th century.
  • Art and design
    Website of Norwich artist Sandra Rowney, with whom I collaborated for the groundbreaking Norwich Twenty Group exhibition, Voicing Visions.
  • Earth history ‚Äì a new approach
    Confused by the inconsistencies in the different views of how life began on Earth? Try this intelligent new approach, which contains some surprises.
  • Here are Paston Pictures
    Website of Lucy Care, founder of the Paston Heritage Society, historian, artist, poet, film-maker.
  • Lindisfarne to Lowestoft
    Website of poet, liturgist and laid-back theatre owner Ian Fosten.
  • Love Lakeland?
    A guide to walkers on the Lakeland Fells, together with some stunning photographs that make you want to get up there right now.
  • Message from God to you
    Clever use of Bible verses to get across God’s love for his children. In case you were wondering, you’re one of them.
  • Norwich Christian Meditation Centre
    The many and varied activities of St Augustine’s, Norwich: a church with a difference.
  • So how far is that?
    Want to know exactly how far it is from Kathmandu to Moscow, or Canberra to Fiji? This is the site for you. It also tells you the exact position of each place and includes a currency converter. Plus, handily, a short course in Indonesian.
  • Up in the air somewhere
    Keeping track of flights, especially those over US air space but also many others. Includes information about the flights least likely to incur delays, which might be useful.