Stella Maris Meals

“St Mary-on-the-Quay is central to the history of the Catholic Church in Bristol.” Mervyn Alexander, Bishop of Clifton 1974-2001 (✝2010)

Fr Michael Cleary moved into St Mary’s presbytery on the feast of the Triumph of the Cross, 14 September 2004. Ably assisted by Frs Nico and Anil, he thus became the first SVD (Divine Word missionary) incumbent priest. SMQ is usually understood to enjoy the special protection of Our Lady’s Immaculate Conception. However, before his untimely passing in October 2008, Fr Michael told me his firm conviction that the true dedication is to Our Lady, Star of the Sea. Of course, ‘on-the-Quay’ was an accurate qualifier when the church was consecrated in 1843, though the docks were covered over in the 1890s. And he went on to explain that Bristol itself is under the patronage of Stella Maris (‘Star of the Sea’ in Latin). The same title of Our Lady is also likely to have been the original dedication of St Mary Redcliffe: described as “the fairest, goodliest, and most famous parish church in England” by Elizabeth I on her visit to Bristol in 1574.

In 1992, at Craig Lodge, Dalmally, salmon farmer Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow founded an aid agency, Scottish International Relief (SIR), in his Dad’s slightly wonky all-purpose shed. On the face of it you wouldn’t expect a Stella Maris tie-in here. She’s the patron saint for instance of the Netherlands, associated with seafaring and maritime communications. Located twenty miles or more from the nearest jellyfish-infested waters, it hardly seems worth floating the idea that Dalmally is a beachfront holiday resort. Even so, one could mention that the beautiful wider region, Argyll, has a name said to derive from Old Gaelic Airer Goídel, meaning ‘Coast of the Gaels’. Might a Star of the Sea connection be worth taking on board after all?

In the cold light of day it’s more likely pie in the sky. The relevant passage is in Chapter 6 of The Shed That Fed 2 Million Children, Magnus’s bestselling page-turner which he updated last year. Englishman Tony Smith came up with the name Mary’s Meals in 2002, while living in landlocked Malawi. His inspiration was a television interview with onetime US presidential candidate George McGovern. Bemoaning the lack of idealism in US politics, the former Senator from South Dakota extolled the virtues of providing nutritious meals every school day in the world’s poorest communities. The evidence showed three important effects in every one of thirty pilot programmes in different countries. Enrolment almost doubled; academic and general health standards rose sharply; and girls were able to benefit. This last outcome is crucial, not least because educated girls almost invariably marry later and go on to have roughly half or less than half the number of children (on average 2.9 per mother, as opposed to 6). As McGovern put it:

“Nutrition is not only the handmaiden of education, in that it gets children into school and enables them to learn when they get there. It’s also the handmaiden of a responsible birth-rate”.

Still, SMQ wouldn’t be the only example of an obscure or disguised dedication to Stella Maris. In the 2000s there was a centre in downtown St Petersburg, Russia, providing food, medical care and basic education to homeless and underprivileged children. Its name, ‘Morskaya Zvezda’, translates literally into Russian as Sea Star – ‘starfish’. But the Marian connotation wasn’t lost on staff and administrators, many of whom were Byzantine-rite Catholics from Ukraine or RCs from western countries. And when the author of this article was in the famous Shed at Craig Lodge in May 2013, about to embark on a largely overland (and walking) pilgrimage to Malawi, there was a measure of providence in the fact that Magnus told me to visit Liberia.

Like neighbouring Sierra Leone, Liberia was founded in the nineteenth century as a homeland for freed slaves. It falls into the challenging subset of relatively young countries which also happen to be among the world’s poorest. SIR/Mary’s Meals has been active there since the years of devastating civil war in the 1990s, and has made an incalculable contribution since the fighting ended in 2003. I was powerfully struck by the contrast between the calm and confident demeanour of folks in villages benefitting from Mary’s Meals, and the often woebegone ambience of communities it hadn’t reached.

Another notable thing about Liberia though, is its lack of a clearly stated patron saint. True, various possibilities have been suggested, including Jane Rose Roberts, who served as First Lady twice in the mid-1800s. Born in Petersburg Virginia and brought to Liberia in 1824, Mrs Roberts worked hard to improve the lot of the poor and reconcile different tribes. Yet in the absence of any swift progress towards her beatification, the Star-Spangled Banner she may have helped design surely offers the best clue as to who Liberians should turn to in their hour of need. Monrovia, the capital, has a shipping registry containing more vessels than anywhere else in the world except Panama. I began the modified ‘flag of convenience’ below in the Monrovian suburb of Virginia on the feast of St Nicholas (patron saint of seafarers), 06 December 2013. Since my as yet unfinished account of the pilgrimage as a whole has a tongue-in-cheek Indiana Jones theme, the Liberia chapter is projected to be called ‘The Template of Doom’.

“Look at the Star, call upon Mary … With her as your guide, you shall not go astray; while invoking her, you shall never lose heart … if she walks before you, you shall not grow weary; if she shows you favour, you shall reach the goal.” St Bernard of Clairvaux

Until 31 January 2023, all donations to Mary’s Meals will be doubled by a group of generous supporters, up to £1.5 million. It is hoped this will enable the charity to overcome difficulties caused by conflict and increased food insecurity.

The Amber Dog

Tsar Nicholas II’s uncle by marriage, King Edward VII (d. 1910) was the first British monarch to decree that since his birthday was in wet and grey November, its ‘official’ celebration should be moved to the summer. His great granddaughter Queen Elizabeth II was born in April, when the weather also tends to be a bit mixed, so Saturday 11 June 2016 was appointed as her official 90th birthday. What made this particularly interesting to me was that it coincided with an important football match between Russia and England.

When I arrived at the Mamonovo border crossing on 25 May 2016, the official who checked my passport decided I should be given extra scrutiny, so I was interviewed by two of her colleagues. To put their minds at rest I cited Inga as one of my contacts in Kaliningrad; and indeed my two previous visits, as a guest of IKBFU in 2012 and 2014 (without which I could never have realised my aims on this trip) were made possible only by Inga selflessly sparing time to clear bureaucratic obstacles on my behalf. Moreover I was keen to see her of course, my former colleague and friend whom I’d first met seventeen years earlier, though I had no wish to believe it would be my last opportunity. But meanwhile I explained to the guards that my principal objective was to give a talk at a church in the small town of Znamensk, about a charity called Mary’s Meals. The delay caused by this interview however, meant the coach I’d travelled on from Gdansk had to leave without me, so I ended up being given a lift to Kaliningrad by an Azeri truck driver. In conversation with him, it was very useful that I knew the name of Tofiq Bahramov.

According to legend, the man known to countless English football fans as ‘the Russian linesman’ (in spite of his hailing from Azerbaijan) was given a gold whistle by Queen Elizabeth in gratitude for his award of a controversial goal to England in the 1966 World Cup final. In fact it was customary for the referee of the final to get a gold whistle; in 1966 there was only a slight change when both his assistants received them too. [1] [2] Nonetheless, to this day there are those who think the Queen intentionally sought to ensure that Mr Bahramov’s part in England’s victory over West Germany did not go unrecognised.

Queen Elizabeth’s sense of humour surfaced more unambiguously in April 2014, when she met Pope Francis for the first time. Presenting the Pontiff with a set of signed photographs of herself and her husband, she said,

“I’m afraid you have to have a photograph, it’s inevitable.”[3]

Clearly she found this particular protocol a bit of a bore; and no doubt she would have had exactly the same reservations about the identikit pictures given to Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, on his visit to Buckingham Palace on 18 October 2016. Even so, in view of the prevailing chill in relations between Russia and Britain at the time, an important thing to note about this meeting is that it exceeded all expectations. Before his departure from Luton Airport, the Patriarch told journalists:

“I am very pleased with the [results of] this meeting and I must say that I did not expect it to take place in such an atmosphere and at such an active level as it did. She has bright beaming eyes, a wonderful reaction to words, to questions, to the conversation. She herself talked a lot and said very right, clever things that were interesting to listen to. This conversation made a very pleasant impression on me intellectually and emotionally.”

What’s more however, on this occasion there is reason to suspect that a certain high-profile Royal may have been behind a decision to furnish her guest with a souvenir that certainly doesn’t find its way into many a tourist’s hand luggage. The day before the palace meeting, Patriarch Kirill’s entourage had its ranks unexpectedly swelled by the addition of a yellow Pembrokeshire Welsh Corgi puppy. 

Archbishop Justin Welby looks on as Patriarch Kirill receives a Pembrokeshire Welsh Corgi puppy, London, 17 October 2016 [4]

On the face of it this was a gift from the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of the Dormition in London, where Prince Michael of Kent, the Queen’s cousin who bears a striking resemblance to Tsar Nicholas II, is known to worship. Patriarch Kirill was delighted with his present:

“The dog is wonderful, and since I spend a considerable part of my personal life completely alone, it is very pleasant for me to know that there will be a reliable friend to share my solitude.”

But the intriguing thing is that Pembrokeshire Welsh Corgis are exactly the breed to which Queen Elizabeth has been especially devoted, for almost all of her 91 years.[5]

There’s a picture of a dog sculpted out of amber (Figure 2) on page 91 of a book Inga gave me for my 40th birthday, which I celebrated in September 2014 with a few friends in one of Kaliningrad’s ‘Britannica’ English-style pubs.

Figure 2: amber dog on p.91 of The Poetry of Amber, Mastery and Discovery by Gennady Losets[6]

In Figure 3, Gennady Losets’ The Poetry of Amber, Mastery and Discovery is visible underneath the box of chocolates she also gave me, next to my glass of ‘amber nectar’.[7] Incidentally, underneath that book one can just see the corner of another tome, Robin Dunbar’s fascinating Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language, which I would never have read if Inga hadn’t given it to me, but which turned out to have a direct bearing on writing I’ve been doing, about Africa.

Figure 3: the author's 40th birthday celebration, in the company of Inga and other friends, Kaliningrad, September 2014. Two books are visible, underneath the box of chocolates.

Inga’s scientific interest in differences between male and female communication perhaps helped her to tolerate the occasions when I talked about football. In one of our last conversations, I told her how appalled I was to learn that someone had shone a green laser into Russian goalkeeper Igor Akinfeev’s face, just before Algeria’s equalizer against Russia in the Brazil World Cup (I’d seen similar behaviour in Morocco, in a game featuring one of Casablanca’s teams).[8] I also made a ‘Soviet-era’ joke, that if Akinfeev had a very traumatic time in the game against England, then perhaps Russian TV would feel obliged to show Swan Lake. Approximately, this was also when Inga put her birthday tribute for Queen Elizabeth inside another book, which I later sent from Kaliningrad.

The Shed That Fed A Million Children, which tells the story of Mary’s Meals, should one day appear in a Russian edition, thanks to the translating efforts of another of my dearest Kaliningrad friends. As regards the copy I sent to the Queen however; Inga was one of about a dozen local residents who put birthday greetings inside. Although I don’t have a photograph of those messages, I do have pictures of the card I sent at the same time (Figures 4-7). The front shows the scene in the Britannica pub where I watched Russia vs. England; another friend did the enlargement of the image of the Queen holding a pint of amber nectar, as if to toast her own birthday.

Figure 4: front of card showing the interior of Britannica pub on the Queen's official 90th birthday. The match between Russia and England finished 1-1.

Figure 5: Message inside card sent to Buckingham Palace from Kaliningrad, June 2016

Among the things inside the card, Inga tipped me off about the building rumoured to have been the residence at one time of a British government representative.

Figure 6: information about Kaliningrad inside the Queen's birthday card

Figure 7: back of the Queen's birthday card, showing Britannica pub, Kaliningrad, with Russian, British and EU flags. The card was dated and sent from Kaliningrad on the day Britain (England) voted to leave the EU

Having put the book and card into the post on 23rd June 2016 (the day of the UK’s vote to leave the EU, after which England’s footballers went to pieces), the letter dated 14 September from Balmoral Castle showed that the Queen received them (Figures 8-9). The question then is whether they might have made any difference to her meeting with Patriarch Kirill a month later. I think they did, firstly because she and her daughter Princess Anne are well aware of Mary’s Meals and its founder, Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow OBE, who wrote The Shed That Fed A Million Children.[9] More specifically however, I think the things she received from Kaliningrad made an impression because although footballing honours were shared in the game between Russia and England, it was marred by hooliganism between rival supporters. Without dwelling on who was to blame or who came off worse; the point is that an opportunity for the two countries to ‘let off steam’ turned into an excuse for yet more bad feeling. Since it took place on her official 90th birthday, the Queen at the very least would have stayed informed of the score-line; inevitably therefore, the violent disturbances must have left her with some measure of disappointment. That’s why I believe the book, with its cheerful and affectionate birthday messages, and the card, would likely have helped restore her sense that far from wishing Britain any harm, Russians are naturally inclined to be friendly towards us.

So can one infer from all this that Inga played an indispensable role in the events which led to Patriarch Kirill being given a Corgi? In my opinion it’s reasonable to think so. I only wish it was possible to ask her what she thinks.

Figure 8: card and letter sent from Balmoral Castle, Scotland, September 2016

Figure 9: text of letter sent on behalf of Queen Elizabeth II, dated 14 September 2016

[1] Brian Cronin, Sports Urban Legends Revealed, 22-06-2014

[2] ‘Azerbaijan set to unveil golden whistle from 1966 World Cup final’, Gulf Times, 30-07-2016

[3] Nick Squires, ‘The Queen Meets Pope Francis on Visit to Rome’, Daily Telegraph, 03-04-2014

[4] ‘Patriarch Kirill is given a corgi puppy’, LENTA.RU, 17-10-2016. Photo: Alexander Volkov https://lenta.ru/news/2016/10/17/korgi_patriarha/

[5] Andrew Pierce, ‘Hug for Queen Elizabeth’s first corgi’, Daily Telegraph, 01-10-2007

[6] OOO «ЖИВЁМ» Калининград, 2012. ISBN 978-5-903400-24-9

[7] Australian colloquialism, meaning light-coloured beer

[8] ‘World Cup 2014: Russia goalkeeper targeted by laser’, BBC News, 27-06-2014

[9] See MacFarlane-Barrow, ‘The Shed That Fed A Million Children’, HarperCollins, 2015, pp.237-8. In May 2017 Magnus gained first-hand knowledge of Princess Anne’s interest in the work of Mary’s Meals, when he was placed next to her at a formal banquet at Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh.

Winning Run of the Rovers

What is the chemical formula of the gas, nitric oxide, understood to help brain cells transmit messages to each other? And is this related to the term ‘gashead’, applied to Bristol Rovers fans? The answer to both questions is NO. Followers of Bristol’s more cerebral football team acquired their nickname in the 1960s because Eastville Stadium was in shouting distance of a gas works.

Eastville’s proximity to Stottbury Road, Horfield, also explained the Blue and Whites’ strong claim on the loyalties of St Thomas More’s RC Secondary School pupils. St Tom’s fifty-year life span, until its closure in 2005, corresponded more or less to that of St Thomas Becket Catholic High School in Huyton, Merseyside. Although St Tom B’s intake was never quite so captivated by the blue side of Liverpool, gifted student Joey Barton dreamed of playing for Everton.

Mind you, Joseph Anthony Barton had a tough childhood. As a result, his career has been punctuated by numerous contretemps and bust-ups, and he’s served time in prison. One might say this-or-that individual was dealt a similar or worse hand in life, yet was never such a turbulent character. Maybe so; but if others – including some of those who judge Barton – had had to contend with the disadvantages he faced, they might have gone off the rails even more than he did.

So let’s not go there. Barton was a tenacious and hardworking midfielder. One of his finest moments came in the second half of a UEFA Europa League match between Olympique Marseille and Borussia Mönchengladbach in November 2012. He scored directly from a corner to equalise for the Olympians, whose fans voted him their best player of the following month. Only Paris Saint-Germain prevented Élie Baup’s side from capturing the 2012-13 Ligue 1 title.

From its HQ in Dalmally, Argyll, Mary’s Meals provides nutritious meals every school day to 2,279,941 of the world’s poorest children. The story of the charity’s rapid expansion, and its origins in an aid agency called Scottish International Relief (SIR), is told in a bestselling book by founder Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, The Shed That Fed Two Million Children. Among many prominent celebrities who’ve lent support, Real Madrid playmaker Luka Modrić used his profile to promote an outstanding film called Child 31 (now available on YouTube). As a refugee with his family in the Croatian city of Zadar in the mid-1990s, the future Ballon d’Or winner was a beneficiary of humanitarian aid from SIR.

I had this in mind last December when I decided to send Joey Barton a bright blue and white Mary’s Meals Christmas card, adorned with a snowbound image of Dalmally’s famous shed. Inside, underneath the festive greeting I wrote a message which went something like:

“A few months after you were born, on 20 November 1982 I attended my first ever football match; an FA Cup tie between Chester City and Northwich Victoria at Sealand Road. It finished 1-1 and Northwich won the replay. They went on to reach the FA Trophy final at Wembley, as I’m sure you know.”

Joey Barton’s Dad, another Joseph, played semi-professionally for Northwich Vics and is likely to have featured in the Chester game.

“Come on you Blues!”

On New Year’s Day Bristol Rovers languished in 18th place, just a handful of points above the relegation zone. January however turned out to be an excellent month, in which they recorded three wins and a draw. While a lot of the credit for the transformation in the Pirates’ fortunes is laid at the door of loan-signing Elliot Anderson, he didn’t make his debut until February. Besides, it was no doubt important that Rovers were on a bit of a roll when the Geordie starlet was enticed to tear himself away from St James’s Park.

Saturday 7th May, the climax of the 2021-22 season, will always have a special place in Rovers folklore. In order to pip Northampton Town to the last automatic promotion place, Barton’s protégés knew they were likely to need a cricket score against Scunthorpe. At the interval they were only 2-0 up, but moved to 6-0 on 79 minutes. In the 85th, Anderson headed home goal number seven. The scenes which followed can only be described as pandemonium.

We may never know if Barton’s Mary’s Meals Christmas card made a difference, but stranger things have happened. Leicester’s rise from the bottom to the top of the Premiership in 2015-16 had nothing to do with the arrival of a new manager or any particular player. Incontrovertibly, the timing of the Foxes’ turnaround coincided precisely with the boost to civic pride generated by the re-interment of Richard III in Leicester Cathedral. When LCFC were crowned champions, fans waving banners of England’s last Yorkist king knew what they were doing. York City, whose burgesses had tried but failed to have Richard’s relics translated to their own famous Minster, were banished to the Conference a few days before.

With last season’s stunning finale still fresh in the memory, Joey Barton has now been sent a DVD of Child 31. Maybe it’ll inspire him to take his charges to the Championship, or a Wembley final. One thing every intelligent Rovers fan knows, is that it’s high time we were back on level terms with our south Bristol rivals who shall remain nameless.