‘Commentary’, by Clifford Haigh, December 18, 1970

‘I find it difficult not to be sentimental about candles.’

During one of the first of the power cuts of last week (1) I was glad to retreat for a time from the semi-darkness of Drayton House to a neighbouring church still brightly lighted. Heaven will forgive me, I hope, for using the church as an office for a while and for certain unworthy, irreverent thoughts I had as my gaze was drawn towards the church’s candles. When, next day, after a spell of feeling like the foolish virgins, we got around to buying candles for the Friend office, it was from a vaguely Christian brotherhood that we bought them; and then we felt like the Presbyterian minister who wrote to The Times to say that, though he would never use candles in his church, he had been delighted to buy altar candles to use in the Manse. So oddly ‘ecumenical’ were some of the side effects of that ‘work to rule’.

I was brought up, like a Low Church character in Trollope, to be ‘strong against candles’, but I find it difficult all the same not to be sentimental about candles and candlelight, even in a power cut (and not forgetting those who suffer the harsher effects of such deprivations). They light up, softly, so many memories. There are all those nursery verses to begin with: ‘Can I get there by candlelight?’ and the rest. There are Sunday school hymns, for those brought up to hymn singing. I cannot be absolutely sure of the words, but didn’t one of them go like this?

Jesus bids us shine with a pure, clear light,
Like a little candle, burning in the night.
In this world of darkness we must shine
You in your small corner and I in mine.

Grandfather, who to the end of his days retained a certain suspicion of gas, preferred candlelight and searched the Scriptures by its aid, through long winter evenings, for some evidence that he was not bound as he feared for eternal punishment. Indeed he did a great deal else by candlelight, including much of his work as a carpenter, in the cellar. We do not give our grandfathers all the credit that we might for all that they achieved by small illumination’s aid. I know that I for one, as I tried to read and write by the cheerful but inadequate light of our vaguely Christian candles, thought with a new respect of our forbears and all the work they did by candlelight.

Respect – and just a tinge of no doubt misplaced envy. It is such a soft and pleasant light that the candles give. It is not surprising that for certain festive occasions, in our so highly sophisticated days, candles may sometimes be preferred to more brilliant illuminations. Some of us found in the power cuts – as we do in our religion – that there are occasions when warmth seems even more important than light, much as we stand in need of more of that.

Clifford was editor of the Friend from 1966-1973.

1. A result of the electricians’ union ‘work-to-rule’ strike, December 1970.

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