In the days when one could mention Woody Allen without somehow being complicit in his alleged misdemeanours, it was a standard trope that his earlier films were his funniest. 

As his own life became more, shall we say, complicated, his oeuvre darkened. 

Of for the younger generation: think of the Batman franchise and the growing personal complexities and ambiguities of the eponymous anti-hero hero. 

Another Dark Knight reincarnation

Now ghosts don't age. But columns do. And I'm probably at the Hannah and her Sisters stage or in my Christopher Nolan directorial phase in this sequence of spiritual scribblings. 

'What are you on about, bor?' I hear you not say. As ever, poetry helps explain. 

"Rise like Lions after slumber in unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew… Ye are many — they are few." 

Stirring words, although I'm not sure if outrageously modernist poets like Percy Bysshe Shelley will ever catch on. What do you think? After all, I'm much more of a Chaucer man, myself.  

But you could tell what pretty boy Perce was on about, can't you? Things are wrong and unfair for most folks most of the time and if they realised the strength they have collectively, then the powers that be would have to listen – or be removed. 

Whilst on the outside, Hadleigh looks like any other prosperous, content-within-itself Suffolk market town, the reality is much more complex. It is said that 'the poor are always with us', and Hadders has certainly always had pockets of poverty and enduring human suffering. 

Poverty is among us

In my days as a corporeal human being, the difference between the landed gentry and the wool merchants on the one hand and the peasantry and craftspeople on the other was especially stark. 

And I must confess that my own preaching at the time, whilst focussed on the love of God for His people, often failed to call out this inequality. I apologise on behalf of my earlier self. 

In more recent times, through glossy marketing aimed at raking in the tourist pound and boosting house prices and wishful thinking among the dinner party set, we've airbrushed poverty out of our minds. 

But the numbers of Hadleigh people who are really up against it nowadays, thanks to poor housing, limited job opportunities, rising food and energy prices and life chances more generally is no longer avoidable. 

In John 21, Jesus is clear. On three occasions he extorts the disciples to 'feed my sheep'. Yes, that could refer to spiritual food. But it certainly also is a divine command to practically look after those in need. 

Hadleigh has been blessed in the reaction of community groups to this escalating crisis. The likes of Angela Gregg and her team at the Fresh Start Charity now provide not just food parcels, but a vast range of services and activities that try to address the very entrenched inequalities that blight lives forever. 

I hear that the churches do their bit, as well. 

The less well off Hadleigh Community needs foodbanks (Picture credit: Nub News)

By contrast, Hadleigh's local politicians from across the political spectrum (ie from feckless to witless), with the exception of a few Independents, seem uninterested in the people's plight, preferring to focus on their own narrow 'special interests'. 

It was in such a disconsolate frame of mind, that I stumbled ('honestly, officer, it just popped up on my phone') on Hadleigh's Wikipedia entry. 

Now I know that Wikipedia is about as reliable and useful as old school Papal indulgences. But one entry stirred my weary soul: a claim that Wat Tyler, one of the two principal leaders of the so-called Peasants' Revolt, might well have lived in Coram Street. 

I suppose it's possible. John Ball, the other, was a Colchester resident for a time. And their nemesis was also a local lad – Simon of Sudbury, archbishop of Canterbury (not to be confused with our current Simon of Sudbury, aka Toad Barrett, Babergh's Conservative leader and purveyor of especially expensive petrol). 

The Peasants' Revolt scared the powerful so much that they ran out of their own excrement, so to speak. Is it time for a similar (non-bowel) movement now? Time to turn over the tables of the rich, as opposed to waiting at them on the minimum wage? 

I know talk like this normally clears the top deck of the number 91 Beestons bus in an instant. But if you're still reading and wish to be associated with the Taylor name, I've been recently handed a prayerful communication from a Ms Sheryl Rush. 

This good lady is constructing the Rowland Taylor family tree. Apparently, she is three-quarters of the way there. But if you think that you might be in the missing quarter, do drop Father Derek an email and I'll pass on your details. 

I hope to discover some dark secrets and revolutionary connections.

Don't let me down. 

If you can help with the Taylor's family tree contact the editor at: [email protected]

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