St Vincent de Paul Catholic Primary School

The Return to School – My Views

Julia, Year 6

After the long break in isolation I had started to run out of ideas of what to do in the summer days at home. I started to miss the friends I only knew and saw at school. I could not wait to get back to school, even though I knew that only months before I had been itching to leave school and start the holiday: well, not for a while as I still had to do work every day at home to make up for the work that I would be doing at school if not for that irritating Covid-19 taking charge of our lives.

Now that I am back at school I can compare what it used to be like before the virus. All the classes are coming to school at different times to make sure that our ‘class bubbles’ – as we call them – don’t mix. The times of our breaks have also changed, so that there are only two classes in the playground. Each class has half of it, so we do not have as much space as before to roam around. But we make do with what we get.

I sincerely hope that by next summer we will be able to go on school trips and Year 6 (my class) will be able to go on the traditional week-long class trip to Sayers Croft, which we missed because of the pandemic. I am sure all my classmates cannot wait to pack their luggage and to set off on this adventure.

Something funny has come out of this new routine too. The teachers have found that antibacterial gel is the best thing for rubbing out our class white board – what a coincidence! We need to clean it after a student writes on it or there is no space left, so this was a very helpful discovery.

Another novelty is our new material for Religious Education. Every week, we used to receive a colourful newsletter with the next Sunday’s Bible reading – ‘The Wednesday Word’. It was published especially for children and contained activities for us to complete. But now the school has discovered a new resource called ‘Ten Ten’, which provides daily prayers and Catholic themes for learning in school and at home. We have easy access to this resource through our school website.

Due to Covid-19 we cannot use the Cathedral facilities as we normally would. As a school we are hoping to celebrate the Feast Day of our patron – St Vincent de Paul – in a special way. All children from KS2 are keeping their fingers crossed to gain entrance to the Cathedral next door (Westminster Cathedral – you know, the one that you got this very magazine from) for at least a little while. Meanwhile KS1 may do some activities focused on St Vincent and his life. Although our school routine has changed a lot, we try not to lose hope but stay cheerful,

even in these hard times.

Caroline Webb R.I.P.

Michael Drury, Cathedral Architect Caroline discussing a lettering proposal with John Maddison

Caroline Webb died on 18 August. A renowned lettering designer, for many years she advised on questions relating to such matters at Westminster Cathedral. In this role Caroline proved invaluable in maintaining the highest design standards. Such projects included decorative chapel schemes and the commemorative dedications that record benefactions. In the past we have been fortunate to have avoided peppering the walls with the little brass plaques that clutter the walls of so many great church buildings and as cathedral architect, keen to ensure that this remains the case, I have implemented a policy whereby commemorative texts should only be recorded in the pavements. Here Caroline’s skills have been evident. Some she designed herself, others in conjunction with other artists and letter cutters but whatever the situation, her consummate ability shone through, offering her advice and opinions with careful consideration for the interests of all concerned. She was always a pleasure to work with and her thoughts and deliberations on the niceties of lettering design were fascinating and informative.

Of these pavement inscriptions, her finest is that relating to the 2010 papal visit. The occasion warranted a suitably fitting memorial and when I suggested a prominent location within the threshold of the west porch, Caroline was the obvious person to design it. The footfall of thousands of future visitors demanded durable materials and I think it was her who suggested pietra dura, a way of working in which hard stone is precisely cut and set into decorative surfaces. It was

certainly Caroline who recommended Thomas Greenaway to cut her lettering, from red and green porphyry, into its Carara marble setting. A visit to his workshop during the long and painstaking process revealed the method he learned from one of the last Italian masters of the art. The slab was first indented to take the letter shapes, each section of which

was cut and then carefully finished by hand in the hardest

Caroline with her finished memorial to the 2010 papal visit

materials imaginable, to the closest fit. The font Caroline designed especially was both scholarly and beautiful and its combination with her lay-out and Thomas’s patient skill produced an enduring result that has welcomed all those who have entered through the cathedral’s great west doors since their work was completed in 2013. Its lasting qualities, both in design and execution should ensure that it does so for centuries to come. As such I hope it will serve as a memorial not only to a significant moment in the cathedral’s recent history but to Caroline too. Do give it a careful look next time you have a moment to spare when entering the cathedral this way. It is time well spent for any who are interested in the finer points of lettering design.