The stuff of nightmares, except this was the actual final question in the exhilarating 6th form conference held today at the Abbey and I was asked to respond first.  I was a last-minute stand-in when Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood had to leave at half-time.  My fellow panellists were Chris Bryant MP, Giles Fraser (the resigning Canon Chancellor at St Paul’s), and Judge Andrew Bright from St Albans Crown Court.  Former Channel 4 presenter Samira Ahmed in the chair.  I just wish she hadn’t picked out that question about Justin Bieber and then fingered me to answer.

So I had to start by confessing to having only the vaguest idea as to who he was.  A singer – Canadian I think?, I know my own daughter can’t bear him – and have it patiently explained to me that one of his teenage fans is alleging that she is pregnant by him.  After that I was able to launch into my response – that teenage pregnancy is a fact of life, stuff happens, but that I know friends of my children who had babies as teenagers, love their children, but have definably had their life chances narrowed, missing out on going to university etc.  Sexual activity starts at a younger age here than in most countries so one thing is to teach people about relationships as well as the mechanics of sex, and ensure that everyone has self-respect so that they can manage relationships better.  Politicians are not necessarily the best people to lead on this.

Other questions we had to answer in the second half were “Do you think the occupying protesters outside St Paul’s Cathedral should be moved on?”;  “Having helped out in Libya, why did we not intervene in Bahrain and Syria?”;  and “Do you think that the London riots in the summer serve as evidence that society is breaking down?”

In the opening half, questions covered George Osborne’s economic policies, should the 50p tax rate be lowered, were university degrees worth £9,000 per year and would young people from socially disadvantaged backgrounds be discouraged from going to university, how can the government claim to understand the needs of ordinary people when so many of them come from privileged backgrounds, why do footballers earn more than soldiers, and do young people get a full voice in modern politics?

Well they certainly got a full voice today and it made for a most invigorating morning.  So I was very pleased to see so many local school sixth forms represented – Beaumont, Francis Bacon, Loreto, STAGS and St Albans School all caught my eye, I am sure there were others, and I had good feedback on the event when I went to my daughter’s 6th form open evening tonight.

The whole thing is funded by the Abbey Education Centre and they should be applauded.

I confess that I was not gagging to go – no tents are allowed and the thought of having to sleep on snow (even with groundsheet and thermarest) filled me with no joy.  But daughter Dora was determined, she had roped in schoolfriend Albie, and so off we went looking like Michelin men.

In fact the Dean in his wisdom had opened the Abbey nave for the less foolhardy but Dora didn’t think it counted if we didn’t sleep outside.  Fortunately we managed to bag places in one of the west porches – I ended up perched like a gargoyle wrapped round some columns on a higher niche – the whole west end is a truly hysterical piece of Victorian gothic pastiche courtesy of Lord Grimthorpe.

During the night it sleeted and snowed, flakes drifting in to where we lay, and then it rained.  My thermometer at home showed a minimum temperature of -3 degrees centigrade, and there was a sneaky wind blowing up and over the hill on which the cathedral stands.

The real headbangers were outside in their plastic survival bags like glistening orange cocoons.  For them it must have been truly horrible.

I probably could do without the self-styled “worship event” which happens early on in the proceedings at the cathedral crossing (though there is no compulsion to attend) but the fact that even last night about 140 mostly young people were prepared to endure considerable hardship while a host of volunteers preovided security, hot drinks, first aid etc, says volumes about all that is good in our community.

And unlike genuine homeless people, we were able to drive home to a hot bath and a warm bed.  That is why facilities like Open Door are so important.  It deserves your support, and if you feel like donating you can do so via my Justgiving page, http://www.justgiving.com/Sandy-Walkington .

As the then Sub-Dean at St Albans, he came and knocked on the front door of my first flat in St Albans very soon after I had moved in.  Do clergy still visit I wonder? Anyway he was quite undeterred by the smell of burnt apple crumble (witness to my bachelor cooking skills), and his charisma and warmth did more than anything else to make me a regular worshipper at St Albans Abbey.

A keen supporter at that time of the Liberal/SDP Alliance, in the 1983 election he stuck a poster board up in his front garden at the entrance to Sumpter Yard.  The cathedral chaplain then put a Labour poster up in the flat over the Deanery.  I suspect Peter Moore, then Dean, was more blue in his political persuasions but wasn’t going to be so vulgar as to advertise it.

There were mutterings in the congregation and eventually a poster truce was declared.  All were removed from Abbey property though the stake which had supported our board remained defiantly in place in Colin’s garden carrying a telltale shred of dayglo orange paper.

When Francesca and I were married, Colin was our first choice to take the service.  It was at the high altar of the Abbey, and the whole building shook when he used the full volume of his great voice to declare that we were indeed man and wife.

It is very hard to believe that he is dead.

But her life encompassed far more than politics.  I am indebted to Suzanne Watts who took down Babs’s dictation earlier this year of her remarkable life.  What follows is based on that text.

Babs was born 90 years ago  with achondroplasia (dwarfism).  She was only 4 foot tall.  Her father was a schoolmaster at Haileybury. She was brought up in Much Hadham but never went to school because no school would have her.  So she and her sister were both taught at home by her father.   In her own words:-

I was always very competitive as a girl, but the only opportunity I had to compete with other girls was at Guides:  I loved camping and being with all the others. I was made Patrol Leader – I was always very confident and outgoing with people.

I was always good at art, and I loved sketching tall, elegant fashion models and designing and making clothes. I took on a lot of seamstress work for people in the village, and when I was 18, I was accepted to study fashion design at the St Martins College of Art. I commuted to the college by train from my home in the village.

Unfortunately, in my second year at college, the war broke out and I was unable to travel to the course anymore so I had to give up.  I worked on the land and then I was assigned to do technical training at Watford Training School.  I was trained as an instrument maker and I was very accurate at this kind of work. I was sent to work at Marconi Instruments in St Albans where I became the only female instrument maker and worked there until my retirement in 1980.  I was heavily involved in the sports club and organised many works trips, and took part in the Marconi Instruments Theatrical Society. In my 40’s I made friends with some young graduate trainees. My social life really took off then. I lived in digs in St Albans with some of the girls – we went on wild weekends in a farm cottage near Cader Idris.

While working full time, I also became a committee member of the Restricted Growth Association (RGA) and this took up a lot of my time. We helped people get the right medical help for their children born with achondroplasia and other conditions. I become the “Clothing Co-ordinator” and designed dress styles to flatter and suit the girls.  Even now, nearly all my clothes are hand-tailored by me, otherwise I would have to wear children’s.

All my life I was a keen cyclist – I cycled to work everyday and regularly at the weekends from my digs in St Albans to my family home in Much Hadham (about 23 miles each way).  I learned to drive when I was 58, and bought my car in 1978.

After I retired in 1980, aged 60, I worked for another 20 years as a volunteer in the refectory in St Albans Abbey.
I have been a member of the Abbey Theatre in St Albans since the 1960’s and I was given life membership there at the age of 80. I worked as a prompt, front of house and in the wardrobe department.

In my 80’s I lost the use of my legs so I could not drive my specially adapted car. Nevertheless,  I continued to live at home with my cat with the help of a student called Kenneth who stayed in my home, and helped me in return for lodgings.

In 2006, I received a medical injury while having a catheter fitted. It went very wrong and I was in hospital for ages.  I recovered enough to leave hospital. I had a special bed made for me and now I live in a nursing home.
My interests include all handicrafts. I attended classes at St Albans Art College and worked in clay, paint, ceramics and in my 70’s I learned stone carving.

I may be small but I have a big ambition – to return to St Albans and live independently in my own house again.  The social services are trying to make this happen for me. I hope to be out of this nursing home and back in my house for my 90th birthday in July 2010.

Suzanne notes that Babs did manage to get back to her house in Upper Culver Road after this brief autobiography was written, and she spent the last months of her life there with her carer Anna and her cat Tinker, whom she had missed very badly during her time in the nursing home. In July 2010, Babs celebrated her 90th birthday at the Help the Aged Centre on St Peters Street in the company of friends and family of all ages, who had travelled from all corners of the globe.

On October 1st, Babs attended a national convention of the RGA where she was presented with a “Lifetime Achievement Award” for her contribution to the association.

Less than a month later, Babs died on 31st October 2010 after being taken into QE2 Hospital, with pneumonia.   It was a privilege to have known her and to have had her support.

Solomon is a work I have never heard performed before and it was a treat, both musically and verbally for I found the poetry of the libretto most moving too.   The choir and the accompanying Sinfonia Verdi filled the Abbey nave with glorious sound.  My old friend John Manning said he had never heard them in better voice.

The big surprise for me was hearing Solomon sung by a counter-tenor (the brilliant Tim Travers-Brown), presumably to indicate his youth, and the trio between him and the two harlots portraying the Judgement of Solomon was particularly beautiful.

You can read all about the St Albans Bach Choir and find out about their future concerts (highly recommended by this audience member) by visiting their website at http://www.stalbansbachchoir.org.uk/

And how about the last two lines of the oratorio as a theme for the coming election?

The name of the wicked shall quickly be past,

But the fame of the just shall eternally last.

Great stuff!

It must be true – it’s in the bible.  Isaiah chapter 32, verse 8 to be exact.

The New English Bible has a different translation from the original Hebrew  – “The man of noble mind forms noble designs and stands firm in his nobility.”

I am of course very happy to have theological affirmation that it is indeed a noble undertaking to be a Liberal.

I have scoured the bible from end to end and find no reference to Conservatives.  As for Labour, we know that the lilies of the field were praised for not going there, “neither should they spin.”

It certainly makes you think.

Why am I writing this?  Because yesterday I went to St Albans Abbey to speak at the men’s breakfast organised by Dean Jeffrey John.  The verse from Isaiah seemed a suitable introductory text!

I have heard a sermon preached on this verse.  It was given by former Archbishop Michael Ramsey at the great Westminster Abbey service to celebrate the centenary of the Liberal Party in 1977.

The Liberals were the first modern political party, what is less well known is that Michael Ramsey had himself been a Liberal candidate – for Cambridge, though he never stood for election as his religious vocation came to the fore.  But when he was at Cambridge he was told he was a future Liberal Prime Minister and he became Archbishop of Canterbury.  When Gladstone was at Oxford, he was told he was a future Archbishop of Canterbury and he became Liberal Prime Minister.

As I wrote above, it certainly does make you think.

PS I had the privilege of meeting Michael Ramsey once.  It was after he had retired as Archbishop and he came to preach through Holy Week at Little St Mary’s, the parish church I attended at Cambridge.  Ramsey was staying with the James Owen, the vicar.  I was a young man working temporarily as a letterpress printer in the town, and with a couple of friends cheekily invited myself to dinner.  To our amazement we were indeed invited, I scrubbed up as best I could (printers ink being very stubborn) and we presented ourselves at the vicarage for a meal of irish stew followed by a cheeseboard.

I remember Ramsey was wonderfully vain.  He kept asking his wife Joan if his hair was all right (a wonderful silky white mane, he looked like a biblical prophet).  She would produce a silver comb and all was kept tip-top.

At one stage we asked him what he thought of Enoch Powell as a theologian.  “Ah Enoch.  Enoch has read many books and some of them have been about God…”

St Albans is special in so many ways, and the longstanding interfaith group (which predates 9/11) is evidence of that.  The initiative came from the Rev Tony Hurle of St Paul’s Church, who wanted to create a regular dialogue between the local religious communities.

On Saturday we had speeches from Kevin Walton, the Canon Chancellor at the Abbey, who made the point that our city’s origin stemmed from Alban, then a non-Christian, reaching out to protect a persecuted Christian; a luminous talk from Dr Khalid of the Islamic Centre, St Pauls’ close neighbour in Hatfield Road; speeches from the United Synagogue in Oswald road and the Masorti congregation; the Bahai; and the Society of Friends, who are currently hosting the Masorti congregation at the Friends Meeting House in Upper Lattimore Road.  Also spotted were friends from Marlborough Road Methodist Church, as well as other Anglican churches in town.

My apologies if I have omitted anyone.  They are all Abrahamic faiths, and there is far more that unites than divides us.  I found this event an uplifting and moving experience.

There are so many different grounds why this proposal is wholly unsuitable for the site -

• “coalescence” of currently separate communities destroying any remaining sense of a rural setting for the south of our city and district
• massively increased lorry traffic on a highway infrastructure which is already close to breaking point
• much of the workforce operating the site having to be imported daily from miles away adding to unnecessary traffic congestion
• a whole mass of unanswered questions about the impact on commuter rail services which are vital to the economy of St Albans and the surrounding villages, and
• the terrible impact on the quality of life of those living near the site.

But I wanted to highlight in particular the loss of the long-distance view from the south of St Albans Abbey. There are good grounds for saying this was the very cradle of Christianity in Britain. It is the only British cathedral built on the site of a martyrdom – Britain’s first Christian martyr. I have always believed that St Alban would be an ideal patron saint for Britain.

St Albans Abbey may not be the greatest piece of ecclesiastical architecture in Britain – but miraculously given its proximity to London it still sails above a recognisably medieval town with a skyline punctuated by Abbey Tower, clock tower and St Peters Church. Tens of thousands of rail travellers see this view every day – and religious or not, their spirits must be uplifted by the sight.

Suddenly that view is to be expunged and and the view from the railway line will be of great slab-sided warehousing. St Albans Civic Society has commissioned a brilliant poster designed by Roger Harlow which makes the point more powerfully than any words can.

What happened in Roman Verulamium nearly two thousand years ago was an act of huge significance for the history of our nation. The great church standing on a hill has been a beacon for pilgrims and travellers for a thousand years. To expunge this view is no less than cultural vandalism showing total contempt for the history of our island.

It must be prevented.The full text of my letter to the Director of Planning follows:

Director of Planning
St Albans District Council
St Peter’s Street
St Albans
AL1 3JE

Dear Sir

Re: Proposed Rail Freight Terminal, Park Street

Planning Ref: 5/2009/0708

I am writing to express my whole-hearted objection to the proposed Helioslough development.

Quite simply the proposed freight terminal remains a wholly inappropriate use for the proposed location:

• It completely destroys the careful separation of St Albans, Park Street and London Colney
• The impact on the local road network will not be addressed by the proposed fairly minor remedial works.
• It does not address any employment need local to St Albans.
• There remain many unanswered questions about the rail access – not least the impact on current heavily used commuter services which are vital to the economies of the communities between Luton and outer London; and whether the Elstree Tunnel will ever be brought up to full W10 railway gauge to allow it to accommodate full size European container trains or if that will always be an “aspiration”. .
• There can only be damage to the quality of life of the large residential population living adjacent and near to the site.

The argument was made by the previous Inspector and endorsed by then Secretary of State that a so-called “strategic” railfreight terminal had an economic importance that outweighed most normal planning and Green Belt objections provided there was clear evidence that no alternative Green Belt or non Green Belt site existed. I have inspected at least one alternative site at Sundon north of Luton which has been identified by ProLogis and it has clear advantages over the Park Street site.

But I wish to highlight the implications of the potential catastrophic impact on the iconic distant view of St Albans from the south and in particular from the Midland Mainline as illustrated in the specially commissioned St Albans Civic Society poster. Nearly 2,000 years ago the first British Christian martyr was put to death on a hill outside Roman Verulamium. A shrine was built to St Alban and his body was laid to rest there. A settlement grew and became St Albans. The Abbey church grew and became the premier monastery and place of pilgrimage in England before becoming Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire’s cathedral church. Miraculously the cathedral still stands on its hill unobscured as a beacon for all faiths in a city which arguably has the highest church attendance of any place in Britain. And now it is to be hidden by a giant shed, an outcome as catastrophic to the genius loci of Britain as tower blocks cramming in on St Paul’s or the Tower of London..

This is a proposed development of almost unimaginable scale on a site where the Green Belt is already under significant stress. The increase in traffic will cause chaos to the whole south of St Albans district. The claimed employment, environmental and ecological benefits of the proposed scheme are largely a mirage.

As was stated in the previous public inquiry, the Helioslough scheme has a floor area much greater than Terminal 5 at Heathrow and a volume that could comfortably accommodate all of the residential properties within Park Street, Bricket Wood, Chiswell Green, London Colney and Colney Heath. With the damage to the greenfield context of one of the most significant religious sites in Britain, it is wholly inappropriate and should therefore be rejected by the District Council and any subsequent appeal fought with the utmost vigour.

Yours sincerely

Sandy Walkington

We were married to this organ – Vierne’s First Symphony played by the then Master of Music Colin Walsh.

How lucky we are to have the market, and my sense is that it has regained vitality over recent months – in contrast with the shops behind where an empty Woolworths adds to the gloom.

Our key objective was vegetables – so much cheaper and more appetising looking than shrink wrapped in a supermarket. We have our favourite stall – which is clearly everyone else’s too given the length of the queue waiting patiently to be served.

Pleased to see that Peter Trevelyan of the Civic Society shares our opinion!

We staggered away with the frozen coriander – but also apples, bananas, seville oranges for marmalade, onions, flat-leaved parsley, celeriac, sprouting tops, multi-coloured peppers etc etc No problem getting our five-a-day and all at prices far cheaper than in the big stores.

Then fresh sprats and squid from the fish stall and mouth-watering cheese from the Italian cheese stall where before Christmas we had bought simply the best olive oil I have ever tasted.

Bread from Simmonds and the thought that I would be proud to take any foreign visitor on a similar culinary odyssey.