Now, take a good look at the picture above. It’s the Early Learning Centre’s Royal Wedding Set.
I expect that you’ve already purchased your own set already. Taking a look at it though, what do you notice?
What I notice is that there’s something missing – namely, any connection with the church. They’ve managed a corgi, though I’m not sure that corgis will be welcome in Westminster Abbey. If they can do a corgi though, surely they could have done a shaggy archbishop. It would be nice to think that there were an additional set that you could buy featuring +++Rowan, the Dean of Westminster and perhaps the Bishop of London bearing the tiaras. Without them, there’s certainly something missing.
The Royal Wedding Set above is from HappyLand. What’s that I hear you say? “In HappyLand there is no church!“. Really?
I was very struck by a report that Mother Ruth passed on recently of St Mary’s work with children in 1937:
The Children’s Corner has been enriched by the addition of a miniature Sanctuary, with Altar, furnishings and frontals. These will be used for the purposes of instruction. The Sanctuary was made by Mr E Beckett, and the Altar furnishings by Miss A Littler, who also made a set of miniature vestments, placed beneath glass in a frame, each labelled with its proper designation.
Oh, how I’ve looked and looked for those minature vestments. I’m not so sure about placing them under a glass frame, but I do think that we need to give children the opportunity to play with holy things. There is something in that report which seems to be bang on to me.
Archbishops, vestments, marriage. All these are things that need to be played with, and not only by adults.
[Picture courtesy of the Early learning Centre – you can purchase the Royal Wedding Set here – £12 at time of writing, a £3 discount against the list price!]
Well, there’s a task for the modern equivalent of the Dorcas Society in the kirk of my youth: create nylon play-vestments for the Godly Play-time. After all, they have dress-up clothes for everything else …
Time to get your needles out Kelvin, and knit your own Royal Wedding. Complete with Archbishop and corgis! http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=109409
And where is the BBC royal correspondent and the family who have slept out on the streets for two weeks so they would get a good view?
I have a sneakin’ suspicion that Pete Broadbent designed this toy set and sour grapes is so unbecoming in a bishop, don’t you think?
Great stuff.
I realise that the SEC is emphatically *not* the State Church, nor a branch of the C of E, but I can’t be the only guy disappointed that no local pisky churches are having services of thanksgiving for the Royal Wedding! Mission-wise, such services would certainly appeal to Glasgow’s many fans of the Glorious Glasgow Rangers 🙂
(And why so many newspapers articles on Kate’s prospective dress but none on who’ll be designing ++Rowan’s duds for the big occasion!?! ;-))
Are you not on the St Silas Royal Wedding Street Party sub-committee, Ryan?
I’ve always admired the way that St Silas takes the gospel onto the street.
If you do buy the “Knit the royal wedding” book do get it from Amazon – the price drops to £6 with free postage. I bought it as a joke for Ivan’s sister who is an experienced knitter. She is coming over from Dublin the day before the wedding so I guess I know what Ivan and I will be doing on the Friday. Jill had better be knitting tiny woollen figures or there will be trouble……….
Sadly there is either no such committee or, if there is, they’re keeping it from me.
However there were people waving (camp, satin) flags at last Sunday’s service, and union flags are on sale in many a supermarket, so I’m still praying that our Dear Leader will put two and two together! 🙂
Apparently Kate Middleton had a secret Confirmation service, so the SEC could take the Gospel to the streets with a “Become an Anglican and End up a Princess!” type campaign 😉
I have a great fear that “Become a Princess, end up an Anglican” might actually be the appropriate slogan.
You’ve not entirely made clear whether it was the flags that were camp, the way the flags were being waved which was camp or indeed whether the people waving the flags were camp.
The English language is so powerful when it is used to ambiguously.
All of the above! I noticed that it was only women who were waving flags but, to the best of my knowledge, this is not because of an official policy or the like 😉
There probably should be a question about camp flag waving in the Episcopal Church’s next gender audit.
well, we know that all the top jobs in camp flag waving go to men.
Yes – don’t they call that the problem of the glass flag pole?
Easy to make basic play vestments – I’ll do it if and when the house renovation is completed.
Marvellous!
But shhh! Everyone will want a set.
I thought prince william worked for the Royal Airforce …. The toys have him in the wrong uniform. And never mind ++Rowan where are Kates working claSs kin from County Durham in there British Home Stores frocks and hats …
They also do a Nativity set (3 kings separate)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Playmobil-3996-Nativity-Manger/dp/B0002B9OJU/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=I2C786Z8L8AJGG&colid=3FFY5CX9ECGJK
Are you suggesting that the three Kings could be used as substitutes for Archbishop Rowan, the Dean of Westminster and the Bishop of London?
You may have a point.