English, Department of
Date of this Version
2008
Document Type
Article
Citation
The George Eliot Review 39 (2008)
Abstract
As I reflected on 'famous sons and daughters of Nuneaton', I came up with a short list. George EliotlMary Anne Evans, Larry Grayson, Ken Loach.
George Eliot must have cut quite an unconventional figure in her day. Larry Grayson, that rather gentle comedian, was also quite an unconventional character. Then Ken Loach, perhaps not so controversial in his personal life, none the less often espousing unconventional causes through his films. Is it something about Nuneaton that those it throws up into the arms of fame should have something of the unconventional about them? - or at least an eye for the unconventional, a sympathy for the unconventional?
I must thank you for the privilege of being invited here today as vicar of St Nicolas, Nuneaton, vicar of the 'Milby Church' in George Eliot's novels. And I must thank John Burton for furnishing me with my copy of Scenes o/Clerical Life - 150th anniversary edition.
It has been interesting and instructive to read about life in Nuneaton 150 years ago: of the events and people associated with our church and town in such a different age. What struck me was the sympathy and insight of Mary Anne Evans. Perhaps her own struggles with society and its expectations explain something of her acute awareness that things aren't always what they seem at first glance.
When you first glimpse the rather sad and burnt-out figure of old Mr. Gilfil- how easy it is to dismiss him and not give a second glance. Yet for George Eliot there is a story here. He was once a vigorous young man in love - and so the story unfolds. She sees behind the public face - the shop front of people's lives - to the complex human stories that make us all at the same time both ordinary and extraordinary: perhaps both conventional and unconventional. That's what I've discovered about Nuneaton over the last eleven years as vicar of Nuneaton.
When I first came here people said it was a very ordinary town. 'It's a good place to get away from.' As if its proximity to the motorway network was its major asset! When, a few years after I arrived, the famous water feature was erected at the roundabout by Halfords, it was even hailed as the major tourist attraction for the town! 'See the dandelion and you've seen the sights of Nuneaton!'
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