"Like Dairy with a Lithp" - (a) 1Mar2007

Chichester Diocese members of Synod were invited to help with the Morning Prayers on St. David's Day. Kevin, our blind member of Synod, was going to be reading from Jeremiah, and with his mane of hair and resplendent beard, he looked every bit the patriarch/prophet whose Biblical book Kevin was reading from a Braille script from.

I had been invited to help with some of the prayers. Getting St David in there was clearly going to be important. Now pronunciation in other languages, I am not really quite so hot on. A bit of French, or possibly some South Indian Telugu, or even a bit of Aotearoa/New Zealand Maori I might manage. But Welsh, no way.

Fortunately, just before the start of the service, there was an Archbishop to hand, from whom to plead advice on the pronunciation of the Welsh version of St David: Dewi Sant.

The reply was: Deh-wee. I made a mental note, writing it down phonetically, still a bit worried I may get it clumsily wrong. And then the archbishop turned back, and with a twinkle and a smile added - "Like 'dairy', but with a lisp...!". That helped - and I suspect both you and I will remember that one now.

At the end of prayers, the Archbishop of York got a round of applause from the synod for presenting the Archbishop of Canterbury with a bunch of daffodils, placed on the front table. Brilliant. Though if I understand it correctly, actually a bunch of leeks would have been more appropriate to remember the saint by; though the table might have reeked a bit more...

Alastair GS101



++Sentamu's gift of daffodils for ++Rowan!