Brother Barney O.P. SYNOPSIS
Here's the story. Well, the preamble. It's not Braveheart
or Silence of the Lambs.
It's theme is actually more important than a Scottish
rebellion or the search for a serial killer (both of which I strongly like,
admire, approve and support!).
Brother Barney is about ordinary 20th century life and death
and - in absentia - sex, money and freedom (alias poverty, chastity and
obedience.)
If its production quality is as good as Braveheart or Silence
I will be well pleased. The West of England, especially the Cotswolds, is
a beautiful place, and the life of Christian monasticism a tough, wonderful,
joyous thing.
In my mind 'Brother Barney the film' already exists - beautiful, exotic, intriguing, a poem in praise of the extraordinary.
The following story outline is a faint reflection.
Brother
Barney O.P. - Synopsis
©
It is 1962.
Joe Coyle, 28, leaves a secure job and a beautiful girlfriend to dedicate
himself to Christian monastic life.
Hopeful that his choice will lead to human perfection he travels by train
from London to the beauty of the Cotswolds, in the West of England, where he
joins the monastic community of the Order of Friars Preachers, intent upon
taking vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.
Sitting on his tin trunk on the platform of the rural station of
Oakchester Joe swelters in the September sun. A battered old station wagon
screeches into the station-yard and a large friar,
Bro. Edward, rushes
apologetically to greet him.
During the journey to the priory Bro. Edward asks Joe if he has left a
girl behind.
Bro. Edward
sighs in sympathy and confides that he had to leave a fella behind. A fella! Joe
is dumbfounded - and even more amazed to discover that the ebullient Bro. Edward
thinks of himself as Brother Edwina - and would infinitely prefer to be a nun.
Captivated by Bro. Edward's uninhibited hilarity the future Brother
Barney accepts that a friar of dubious gender must live somewhere - but
in an all male community? Surely
not?
He is still reeling with disbelief as the old estate car draws up in
front of the friary.
His sense
of comedic unreality increases as an
ancient, crone-like friar, Fr. Valentine, shuffles past with a friendly greeting
- carrying a cat fishing rod - a cat fishing rod? -
crying out "Here pussy-pussy! Here pussy-pussy!" as he
disappears among the raspberry canes of the priory garden to fish for the community
cat. It appears that it is Fr. Valentine's regular teatime occupation.
Then
comes the Prior - a scrofulous, unshaven, middle-aged man in a worn and much
repaired habit, scratching madly at livid eczema as he struggles to balance the
priory budget and give up cigarette smoking.
It is against this background of eccentric friars that Joe becomes
Brother Barnabas, one of a dozen young novices.
There is much hilarity - weird to the outside world - as the
novices settle in; but all must rise daily at 6.15 a.m., work in silence
throughout each day of prayer, study and manual labour, until the Magnum
Silencium - the Great Silence bell at 10 p.m.
As
the year passes zero temperatures and constant snow cover lasting for two and a
half months test to destruction. It
is the coldest winter on record. Constant
coke shovelling to the creaky old boiler simply cannot heat the priory. The
church is an icebox.
The Brothers struggle to survive. Many find it impossible, exhausted by
long hours of prayer, study, coke shovelling, washing dishes, waiting at table -
and walking as much as a dozen miles each Saturday - typically to the River
Severn and back - their solitary rest and recreation.
The
frozen snows disappear in the Spring. Only three of the dozen novices remain.
We have come to know them well: eighteen year old Brother Ignatius,
reverently known as Iggy - an uncontrollable mass of puppy fat flopping
jelly-like through each day; Barney, serious and full of questions; and
Brother Albert (Bert) a studious entomology graduate who knows much about bugs.
In the glorious summer days that follow they rejoice in the beautiful
world of the Cotswolds, hazard a skinny-dip in one of the cooling lakes of the
valley (despite the danger of a nearby convent full of nuns stumbling upon their
nudity) and listen to a lecture by Bert on the orders of diptera hovering over a
cowpat.
But have they?
The real Dominican Priory, at Woodchester, Glos.
One of five lakes in the valley
The real Barney? Could be. What fine dramatic robes! Could have been designed for the cinema!
If only a small proportion of earth's billion Catholics come to see the finished film the financial
return will be enormous - and I suppose a couple of billion Muslims, Sikhs,
Brahmins, Buddhists and Undecideds, consumed with curiosity, could add to the
sum.
Financial return is not my driving motive. Telling the story
is, and it's not often that one is in the position to dissect the inner workings
of a Catholic monastic establishment through personal experience, warts and all.
Brother Barney and his community have quite a few warts, but
also a lot of fun, share a marvellous way of life. Tell me I'm wrong when you
see it!
If you have any comment to make about all of this don't
hesitate. Email me!
A reader writes: "I have read Bro. Barney and it's magic, eminently readable and enjoyable, a piece of literature, not just a typescript. If the film is half as good it will be unforgettable."
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