It was something I took for granted growing up but the communion rail of St Augustine’s Church Dumbarton is actually a memorial to the dead of the First World War.

Communion rails, St Augustine’s, Dumbarton. Inscribed “To the glory of God and in loving memory of thos ewho gave their lives in the Great War 1914 1919.”:-

You will note the angels on the gateposts:-

These are thought to be modelled on “the Angels of Mons.” On the West Dunbartonshire open day last September a leaflet on one of the rails provided background information:-

The legend of the angels was certainly a useful morale booster to the Allies at the time when the war had settled down into trench stalemate but there is if course no evidence for any actual supernatural intervention – whether by angels or bowmen from Agincourt. The fact that the war continued for another four years of industrialised slaughter would suggest that any divine interference in its outcome was severely lacking.

Pedant’s corner:- The leaflet refers to a General Dorrien-Smith. His name was actually Horace Smith-Dorrien.

Letters from a senior to a junior Devil, Fount, 1991, 160 p (first published in 1942)

Many years ago, before we moved to Braintree, the good lady and I lived for a few months in Welwyn Garden City. We joined the library there and came across a book – which we both read and enjoyed – about angels and devils (and, I think, a war between Heaven and Hell.) Our recollection was, and is, that it was by someone reasonably well known, with a surname that began with a letter towards the end of the alphabet, but that the book wasn’t typical of his (it was a man) output. Since we moved from WGC we’ve never found the book elsewhere and can no longer remember its title nor who the author was.

When we heard of The Screwtape Letters both our thoughts were that, no, Lewis is too religiously minded to be the unknown author and his name does not begin with a letter in the latter half of the alphabet. I chanced upon this copy at a charity book sale and thought well, why not try it anyway?

The book is arranged as a series of epistles to “My Dear Wormwood” – the junior devil of the sub-title – all bar two of which are signed off with, “Your affectionate Uncle, Screwtape.” They outline Screwtape’s responses to Wormwood’s attempts to ensnare a soul and the various stratagems that may be employed for that purpose. In this Lewis highlights numerous human frailties and misconceptions, as he sees them. The whole thing is rather dry, coming over as an arid intellectual exercise, and strangely rooted in time by its many references to the “current European War.”

That book from Welwyn Garden City was funny and a delight. The Screwtape Letters is not.

Does my description of the WGC book strike a chord with anyone? Can you enlighten me as to its author and title? I’d like to read it again to see if it stands up to memory.

Pedant’s corner. All these despite this being a forty-fourth impression!:- dulness (that’s two books in a row now; did it used to be spelt that way?) strategem, in which a stranger self preyed upon a weaker (stronger self, surely?) “reckoning in light years” used as if a light year were a unit of time rather than distance, to watch a man doing something is not to make him to it (“make him do it” makes more sense,) a shell-like tetter (??? – tetter is a skin disease.)