By chance it less than an hour after the death of HM Queen Elizabeth II was announced that MBC’s doors were open for SPACE, an evening set aside for anything and everything: singing, dancing, drawing, crafting, flag waving, doodling, playing a musical instrument, reading the bible or simply praying.
In total about a dozen of our regulars joined us, plus a man we didn’t know who was passing by saw the doors open and the lights on and asked if he come come in to pray.
To say the news had shocked us all was an understatment. For the little ones the Queen was perhaps just a portrait that you see on a stamp, a mug or on bunting. To others she was someone they themselves might recall seeing when she visited somewhere local, whilst to some she had been a constant throughout their entire lives.
Whatever the personal memory and despite the underlying hope for the future this was, nevertheless, a sad night, a night filled – indeed for some overflowing with bittersweet memories.
I don’t think anyone bothered to look at a clock but I reckon SPACE finished somewhere just after 9pm, but that didn’t matter. Indeed by the time we were all cleared away and everything was back in its cupboard we didn’t lock up until 10.
But that was the beauty of SPACE. You see there was no running order, there was no panic when the live link went down, there were no pregnant pauses in which we figeted in our seats and looked down at our shoes. That isn’t to say there weren’t gaps – there were – plenty of them but they were filled with a mix of sadness for what we were all feeling there and then and of hope.
Ruth and Andy did a marvelous job organising SPACE – an uneviable task at best and to do it under those circumstances deserves even more credit.
As we started to tidy away we all sang the National Anthem – God save the King. For those under seventy this was a first, for those over we were reprising something we no doubt did in our own childhood.
Thank you for SPACE.
