8 hours ago
Wednesday, 2 July 2008
Hello?
So, the Joseph Rowntree-MacIntosh foundation has decreed that a salary of less than £13,000 per annum is what constitutes poverty in an advanced industrial economy. Poppycock! Balderdash! I mean, just look at some of the things 'they' claim one needs to stay alive, for heaven's sake: a moving television screen; digital wireless sets; mobile telephones; dvds (whatever they are). No mention of books, I see. Or pianofortes! Dear Lord above, one wonders sometimes how the other half lives. And what they spend their thirteen grand a year on! The Church, of course, is not known for its largesse; we choral vicars draw a basic salary of slightly less than half the sum that Mr Joseph Rowntree has declared to be the minimum necessary to keep oneself above the poverty-line. I have neither plasma wide screen television set, nor digi-radio appliance; as for the confounded nuisance that is mobile telephones - well, don't get me started! Why, only the other day a telephone rang in the middle of the Subdean's sermon. The entire cathedral chapter started fumbling in their cassock pockets, but to no avail. Eventually, the rather red-faced preacher realised that the noise was emanating from his pulpit. The Subdean took the offending article from his pocket, studied it briefly and proceeded to wind up his sermon in record time. Mrs Subdean, apparently, was sitting in the congregation listening (listening!?) and had texted him to tell him that his dinner would be on the table in precisely fifteen minutes.
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9 comments:
£6500 a year?? I might consider becoming a choral vicar (I already am, actually). My money as organist is pathetic in comparison to that. Though I suppose you do possibly more work than me. Still. Singing is a lucrative business (as I well know).
Yes, mobile phones in churches. I remember one time in a certain Catholic church when a phone went off (as it were) and as the congregation looked about in disgust and disapproval the celebrating priest embarrassedly turned off the phone that was in his pocket. "I have to leave it on for security reasons," he protested. Balderdash, I'd say.
I get twenty quid a service (if I'm lucky!) as a dep at Lincoln. Who said singers were well paid?
Balderdash indeed, Mr Doshea. You should try applying for a vacancy at a cathedral if you're stipend as an organist makes my meagre salary attractive. We have three, and they're all paid a lot more than we singers.
As for you, Mr D, if you're getting paid at all as a deputy then you should consider yourself lucky!
Interestingly enough, I recently considered applying for a job in the Catholic cathedral (not really a cathedral, actually a pro-cathedral, as there is no Catholic cathedral in Dublin, but that's beside the point—though we do have two Anglican cathedrals). Their choir is not really the best anymore, though some of my good singing friends (a couple of whom are Anglicans!) have taken up jobs there because they are paid better than either of the Anglican cathedrals...one even defected!
Though I am holding out some hope of a very good organ job in a Catholic church in Dublin city. We shall wait and see. If not, I'm seriously considering the pro-cathedral choir.
I can think of sermons past where the interruption by a mobile phone would have been a Godsend.
£13,000 a year is riches beyond my wildest imagination compared to how I and my family have to live.
Though I do have a mobile phone, and what's more I am rather attached to it.
x
I love your blog!!! THis line: "No mention of books, I see. Or pianofortes! "....I wholeheartedly concur....
You have a remarkable writing style....
Sad but hilarious.
Well I never. I am recalculating my personal blessings as I type. I had no idea so many of you out there in blog-land were as impecunious as I (or even more so)! At least I have a pokey little basement flat as well as a small amount of money. Kevin - all sermons would be better interrupted by a mobile telephone!
Kitty, you poor dear, you have my heartfelt sympathy and prayers. Lavinia, you are too kind. (But thank-you!) Chin-up, Ruth. It could be worse - we could be at the Lambeth Conference!
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