JUST before midnight on Christmas Eve, I will hurry up the path to St Michael’s in Shalbourne. I can walk this route with my eyes closed if needs be, but the path to the porch will be illuminated by candles in the stained-glass east window of the little church: flickering spills of red, blue and gold over the frost in front of me. And I will hear the sound of carols.
In this part of Wiltshire, most of our village churches are built from flint ploughed out of the hills and carted down tracks to be mortared into walls, buttresses and stout towers. I love these repositories of prayer, stone boxes in the bends and doubles of the downland, like tufting buttons threading us to this ancient landscape. Perhaps this year we all feel a bit unstitched, as if we’re coming apart
