Rev David Warner column: Labour and flourish

"Now is the time for all of us to labour in whatever way we can, to keep everyone safe and to enable all to flourish," says the Vicar of Mossley, Reverend David Warner, in his latest column for us...

In Mossley I’m what’s called a ‘comer-inner’ meaning I wasn’t fortunate enough to be born here!

The life of a vicar is to be a ‘comer-inner’ because we move around and there’s a little bit of us that never quite belongs - try as I might, I just can’t speak properly, and I get confused with talk of ‘on’t brew,’ ‘tata ash’ and all the rest.

My previous job was in Hertfordshire, but as the son of a vicar who moved around, I don’t really feel I’m from anywhere.

When I lived in the south, I never really noticed how south-centric elements of our country are - when we got a flake or two of snow in Hertfordshire it was headline news, but if Penny’s house (she’s lived around Manchester a lot longer than I have) was covered in a thick wintry blanket: not the slightest mention! 

The gap between north and south is nothing new. 

It can be comic and overplayed, but at the moment it seems to be about people’s lives and livelihoods, and there’s nothing more serious.

Coronavirus tries to make people scared of each other - we have to keep apart to stop it causing harm. Now is absolutely the time when we need to be working together: by staying apart and all the rest of it.

Covid-19 isn’t about north and south - it’s a threat to lives and we need to stick together, while staying apart. 

I’m a comer-inner to Mossley, but I’m absolutely at home in the place and surrounded by the people I serve: in good times and bad, the motto of the town is an encouragement and a goal we aspire to: He (or she) flourishes who labours. 

Now is the time for all of us to labour in whatever way we can, to keep everyone safe and to enable all to flourish.