By Robin Lewis-Light
“I suppose it is not the same as it was after the accident,” said my wife. “And we will never be able to see that again.”
“No, but it has been repaired. That was not the first time it has happened.” Julia looked at me.
“Really?” she said. I nodded.
“Oh, yes. It has happened before… most from a long time ago.” I smiled.
“They tried to save things, you know,” I said. “All sorts of things, including candles, strangely.”
She laughed.
“I suppose you save everything when it is your spiritual home, and you don’t think too much about what you are taking.”
We both looked up at the building and took it all in.
“Can you remember what it was like before?”
She shook her head.
“No, I’m too young to remember what it was like before,” she said. “We both are.”
“It was originally a Norman structure,” I said, sipping my coffee. “But it’s been built and re-built a lot of times since then.”
Julia smiled.
“I’ll bet your Dad says he remembers it before the fire,” she said. I nodded.
“He says he was there at the original construction,” I said. “In the 7th Century! He does say he remembers it before the most recent fire, that is true.”
“The original construction was before the Norman age,” she said. “King Edwin of Northumbria was baptised here, apparently.” I raised my eyebrows.
“That is good history,” I said. “But it must have been just a little wooden church at the time.”
Julia nodded.
“That would have made a lightning strike more difficult to contend with,” she said. I chuckled.
“Yes, it would,” I said. “The strike caused the Rose Window to crack, you know, this time around, did you know that?” Julia shook her head. “That had been built after the Wars of the Roses. Caused it to crack into more than 4,000 pieces.” I smiled. It was a fascinating building that we were having coffee in front of, with a tremendous history.
“It would have been amazing to have seen it grow and change over the years,” Julia said. “It is incredible to think about that.”
We both looked up and wondered what the building had seen over more than a thousand years and we were both glad that we were still here to see it and that it was still here to see us.
“Beautiful,” I said, and my wife knew that I meant both her and the Minster.
York Minster was struck by lightning in 1984. It hit the roof of the South Transept, igniting a fire. The fire spread rapidly due to the timber and lead covering on the roof.
Robin Lewis-Light remembers the fire, but loves seeing how beautiful the building is now after it has been repaired and imagines what it would have been like over the years in its different formations.
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