Gunpowder

Did you watch BBC 1's "Gunpowder"? Critics have welcomed it, wondering why the gunpowder plot of 1605 had not been televised earlier. But watching it, its gory and brutal scenes of pressing to death of someone who wouldn't plead guilty or not guilty, or of hanging, drawing and quartering, you remember why you wouldn't want to remind people of the background, the context at the time, the persecution and killing of English Roman Catholics, their exclusion from Parliament and from the professions for centuries afterwards, despite their professed loyalty to king and country. It was dangerous to tell people you were a Catholic. Indeed, even in the twentieth century, I rarely told people I'd been brought up Catholic.
Once, on an airfield, somehow I mentioned my faith. My fellow glider pilot, a young Scottish woman, was astonished, "I've never met a Catholic", she declared. You'd have thought I had horns growing from my head. Unlike Muslims or Sikhs, Catholics are not visible. They don't wear distinguishing garments, and the most you might see if you're observant is a small cross or crucifix on a lapel.
As I was growing up, in one of the most Catholic parts of England, I learned that I was English, that we were loyal to our royal family, so loyal that I childishly announced after reading another fairy tale, that I was going to marry the prince of England. My mother informed me that I couldn't because I was a Catholic and English princes couldn't be heirs to the throne if they married a Catholic. Nothing daunted, I accepted that law and I loyally carried on being English and Catholic.
You might wonder why I didn't seek a foreign prince, like my daughter's found (he's her prince - not a royal prince) but after a stint working abroad, I decided I liked English men anyhow and came home where I soon met her father. And we lived happily for a couple of decades after.
There are two more episodes to "Gunpowder". It won't end happily ever after.

Young nuns

The BBC recently had a production on young women contemplating becoming nuns. I knew it was on having seen a review of it in The Tablet, but I hadn't realised until son pointed it out that one of the young women was someone I have known. Though I haven't seen her for more than ten years, I've talked on the phone with her mother nownthen, and son has been in touch with her more recently and has time and respect for her.

It's good to know how the youngsters have grown up.

Catholics

I see here that politicians want to reform the laws that prevent Catholics coming to the throne.

Don't do it!

The Church of England has preserved Christianity in this county in a way that the Catholic countries of Europe haven't been able to. If they change the law about royalty marrying Catholics and still being able to ascend to the throne, then they could have a Catholic as head of the Church of England, which is silly. In fact, I can't see that at the moment, they can't have a Muslim as the head of the Church of England as there's no law against that.

When I was a little girl, and looking for a prince like in the fairy stories, I thought it a bit unfair on me that if I married an English prince he'd lose his throne. It wasn't meant to work like that. But now I want the law to stay as it is. There's no other discrimination against Catholics, and this one causes little bother to Catholics, and has had a lot of advantages to the rest of us. Let it stay.