AN AMATEUR MONK

Ross Clark discovers that the

life of a Franciscan friar is reminiscent of his own

MY third meal as a guest at the Franciscan Friary at Alnmouth, Northumberland, was taken in silence. Along two sides of a long wooden table, interspaced between several guests and wayfaring Scotsmen, sat a dozen friars in brown habits either deep in contemplation or reading newspapers; one of them was even reading a novel called Blood Brothers using a donor card as a bookmark. In front of us were two loaves of heavy, thick-sliced home- made bread and a large cauldron of viscous gruel. Later on we would return to the same table to partake of a carrot soup of similar consistency. What I found remark- able about this fare was not its meagreness but its resemblance to the food I use to sustain myself as a freelance writer, living in a state of penury in the East End of London. It was at this point I realised that, give or take a few daily prayers, I have already been living the life of a monk for several years.

Two of the friars seemed to think so, too, and I was slightly unnerved when they both came up to me separately and asked me to remind them when they had last seen me at Alnmouth. I told them I had never been, and we managed to discount the possibility that we might have met any- where else either. One of them, David, a white-haired friar perhaps in his late six- ties, was still not convinced, and even carved a role for me when I made my first faux pas through ecclesiastical ignorance.

`So what are you doing here,' he had asked.

'Oh, I'm just on a retreat,' I had said, believing this to be merely the monastic word for 'holiday'.

'Oh splendid,' he said, placing his hand on my arm. `So you'll be moving round in silence will you?'

I had to admit that this was not what I had in mind. David had nevertheless be- come convinced I was a Franciscan, and introduced me to the next friar as if I were his favourite son.

'And this is Ross, who's one of our third order.'

I tried to explain my error but confused him so much that he decided I was one of the many guests who come to recover from a breakdown. Next morning he came up to me, placed his hand upon my shoulder, looked at me with intense eyes and said: 'Now Ross, did you have a good sleep; have you recovered now?'

By this time I was so intrigued by what exactly the third order of Franciscans might be that I asked one of the friars and was told it was an order of Franciscans who retained their jobs and homes in the outside world yet carried out work similar to those confined to the friary — so that what David had first believed me to be was

'The phoney war's over.'

a kind of civilian monk: one who follows the religion but does not share the ascetic- ism or the solitude.

I find myself the exact opposite: I share the asceticism and solitude of a monk but do not follow the religion. Luke, a young friar who had ironically run a chip-shop in Looe before he took his vows, laughed at the idea: 'You should take a vow of poverty yourself,' he said. 'It's great.'

'I don't need to,' I assured him. 'It comes to me naturally.'

I might now make an attempt to com- pare my own life with that of an Alnmouth friar. At Alnmouth they observe 12 hours' silence a day, most of these while they are asleep; since I live on my own I tend to keep more of a 24-hour silence — though it is true I often sing loudly to myself I doubt whether this averages out at more than two hours a day, still leaving a full 22 hours' peace. They have a television set but no loud music; I am the same, and moreover find myself in an alien environment when other people subject me to amplified sound. They (12 friars) share an E- registration Vauxhall Astra which they are desperate to replace before it completes 50,000 miles and drops sharply in value; I owned a car for six months but am now trying to sell out of motoring for good because the engine is about to fall out of my car. They do not pursue women; I do, but the end result is the same. They wear new habits over their secondhand clothes; I, too, wear secondhand clothes, but have nothing to cover them up with.

Though I do not consider myself to be leading a miserable existence I could go on to produce a monastic checklist of some considerable length in which I would come off rather badly. In terms of solitude I suspect I would beat them hands down, and in poverty, too, were it not for the fact I am let down by one contradiction in my condition: I live in a warehouse in the Docklands, something which 20 years ago might have had the Franciscans showering me with alms but which has now become a paradoxical symbol of grotesque wealth.

'Oh, so you're the sort of person we really hate,' said Tristram, a friar aged about 40, . . us real East-Enders. I come from Plaistow.'

Though I was relieved to hear he had not been talking in his capacity as a friar, I did nevertheless think it rich that I should be attacked on this score by a man who shares a rambling Victorian capitalist's mansion in rural Northumberland.

So here is my plan: I shall merely formalise my life as a monk. I will find my house, rig up one room as a chapel, sing to myself one or two of the more aesthetic hymns four times a day and set up as a freelance monk. By doing this I will not only improve my living standards and out-monk the very first order of Francis- cans, I shall also qualify for exemption from poll tax. It may well be something that catches on in a big way.