Wellingtonia 54 was spotted near the entrance to St. Faith's School, Trumpington Road, Cambridge. At around 09:00, when the road was busy and it was not appropriate to stop to take my own snap, so this one from Street View, taken with the sun in the wrong position, will have to do.
When I was a child in Cambridge, sixty years ago, St. Faith's exemplified for my parents all that was bad about the parallel world of private schools in this country. Not least because fancy uniforms and fancy fees were far more important than education. A time when state education was run by local authorities, rather than being left to the vagaries of educational trusts and corporations, the main objective of which seems to be to pay inflated salaries to those who make it to the senior management teams. Local authorities who went so far as to check the health of those in its charge for a good part of the day, with my father being one of those who checked the dental health - and my mother being one of those who taught.
And more recently, rather ironically, I have taken to using St. Faith's chapel at Westminster Abbey, a practise I don't suppose that they would have approved of either, having been formed at a time when people of their kind took their atheism very seriously. And an early visit to which chapel was noticed at reference 2.
Regarding St. Faith herself - for some reason it had not occurred to me that she was a girl - Wikipedia tells me that: 'Saint Faith or Saint Faith of Conques ... is a saint who is said to have been a girl or young woman of Agen in Aquitaine. Her legend recounts how she was arrested during persecution of Christians by the Roman Empire and refused to make pagan sacrifices even under torture. Saint Faith was tortured to death with a red-hot brazier. Her death is sometimes said to have occurred in the year 287 or 290, sometimes in the large-scale persecution under Diocletian beginning in 303. She is listed as Sainte Foy, "Virgin and Martyr", in the martyrologies. The center of her veneration was transferred to the Abbey of Sainte-Foy, Conques, where her relics arrived in the ninth century, stolen from Agen by a monk from the Abbey nearby at Conques'. One more saint toasted to death for his or her faith. I don't suppose that even the Extinction Rebellion people would go that far. And I am not sure that they even have much stomach for prison - unlike some of ban the bomb and ban the missile people from the 60's, 70's and 80's of the last century. And then, what about hefty rises in the price of gas or petrol? How many of them would complain about that?
PS 1: there were a number of other sightings, looking over the walls of the Botanic Gardens and those of other institutions, but none of them were confirmed. To be checked on another occasion.
PS 2: the ban the bomb and ban the missile people did not win their fight, prison terms notwithstanding. With our government having only recently decided to spend some huge sum of money on upgrading our nuclear missile carrying submarines. Fleet being too strong a word for three or four of them. Submarines which might wind up living on a base rented from the French of the fish if the Scots get their way...
PS 3: at 07:00 this Friday morning, we have frost on the extension roof, on the leylandii hedge adjacent and on the back lawn. A bit more serious than that reported at reference 4.
Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/10/wellingtonia-53.html.
Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/03/st-faith.html.
Reference 3: https://extinctionrebellion.uk/.
Group search key: wgc.
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