Neil Pickford on a problem with dogs - and some owners - at Beverley's historic minster.
We are normally very welcoming in Beverley Minster – it's what we do. From time immemorial we have been the unlocked door, the warming handshake, to all the cast-offs in society. Churches have also been the saviour for anyone fleeing whatever form of arbitrary justice system was operating at the time in their part of the world.
Beverley Minster itself had an unusually generous freedom which could protect people for life. However the Tudors and Stuarts started whittling this privilege away and the legal right of sanctuary in a church was ended altogether in 1623.
We have become a little less open over the years as both the number of volunteers willing to sit for all hours in a cold and dark building has dropped, and the number of people willing to steal from us has apparently increased (although that figure may, actually, be more constant than we imagine. Churches were always locked at night, even back in the Good Olde Days).
But, when our doors are open to the general public (from 9am onwards, six days a week and from noon on Sundays) and there isn't a service such as a funeral taking place which occupies part of the building, then we welcome everyone who comes to us with an honest heart.
Oh, obviously some bits are reserved for authorised individuals but that's largely because most of them present a slight potential for injury if everyone (including young, unsupervised children) had free range at all times. For some reason insurance companies and courts don't accept that absolutely every mishap in a church may be an 'Act of God' and they expect us to behave accordingly. But on the whole we don't reject anyone because of the way they dress, look or because of the opinions they hold.
Except for people who want to smoke inside – obviously – because that's the law. And also dogs.
It's not as if we don't like pooches – the vicar has got one and so has the head virger (he who must be obeyed). But they don't bring them into church.
The parish office just across the road will look after visitors' dogs for a while if people can't bring themselves to leave them on the steps, and we've even had a service for guide dogs and their human partners. But dogs being brought in by visitors – oh look, you've just passed a sign that says 'NO!'
And yet people stare at you in amazement if you point out that little Dinkypoos shouldn't be trotting around inside our walls.
"But she's ever so well-behaved," they protest, delicately alluding to the fact that their little furry companion wouldn't dream of having a bowel or bladder movement anywhere other than in a high class porcelain bowl.
Ha! I'm always dubious about such claims. On the one occasion when I stood with a dog while its owner popped inside for a quick shufti at our Cenotaph, the blasted thing try to pee down my leg.
Even during our Guide Dogs service where the creatures were all fantastically well- trained one of the guiders was so excited that they were sick. (Mind you, only two days later a young child had exactly the same accident in a different part of the church, so if that was the only reason then, logically, we should ban toddlers too.)
However, it's not the risk of unhygienic accidents which makes us keep them out (although that's not a bad reason – at least in the eyes of the virgers). It's what happens when two or more of them are gathered together – and that could happen at any time. You really don't want a wedding or funeral interrupted by yapping and snarling while owners pathetically trying to tell 'ickle Woofikins to be quiet.
We don't allow cats in either, yet we don't get much backchat from them; just a contemptuous sniff and a dignified tail-in-the-air stalk away to the other side of the road. But a certain kind of dog owner just will not accept that we have perfectly good reasons for not wanting their umbilically-connected, child-substitute inside our building.
The killer argument, as far as they're concerned is: "It's one of God's creatures."
Yeah, well so's a crocodile, but you wouldn't want one of them tramping around inside the Minster, would you?Neil Pickford: by day a mild-mannered virger: by night…he roams the streets and ponders.
You can read more of Neil's various ponderings at his website
