While on holiday recently we had a day out in Northumberland. I adore this part of the country and love to travel down the coastline from Bamburgh in the north to Tynemouth. Time and tide permitting we will also take in a visit to Holy Island, another of my favourite haunts. We were staying in York, so set off early and headed to a supermarket in Newcastle where we stopped off for breakfast, and rather than crossing the Tyne via the Tunnel, we followed the A1 around the west of Gateshead and Newcastle. I have travelled this road hundreds of times in the past and I await the view of Anthony Gormley’s art installation “The Angel of the north” with eager anticipation every time I make this journey. Standing 65 feet tall with a wingspan of 177 feet, making it bigger than a Boeing 747 aircraft and with an elevation of almost 250 feet, it is an imposing sight, but for me it is far more than simply a piece of art.
Initially there was a lot of criticism about the rusty appearance of the statue, but for me, that is one of the most significant features of Mr Gormley’s work. I spent many happy holidays in this part of the country during the 1970’s and in those days, Tyneside was an industrial place. I can’t think that it is a coincident that the angel stands less than two miles away from the Team Valley Trading estate established in the 1930’s at a cost of a staggering two million pounds and even in 2017 there were around seven hundred companies employing around twenty thousand people. The Angel looks out to the South across what was once the south Tyneside and Durham coal fields. Tyneside itself was a place of heavy engineering with a massive ship building industry, so in my opinion, the hardness of the steel and the rusty nature speak of an industrial past that we still need to treasure.
It is the wingspan that always moves me though. Apart from the beauty of the Northumbrian coastline, the other aspect which endears me to this part of the country is the beauty of the people. I find it remarkable that I can stand in a queue in a supermarket and end up making friends the person queueing in front of me, I have never come across anywhere quite like this place, and as I see the Angel of the North standing there in her rustic beauty, there is something about the span of the wings as though they stand ready to envelope me in their love. I have so many happy memories of people I have known in this part of the country through those holidays long ago and my past working life which brought me into contact continually with the people of the northeast. I don’t think that it is an accident that so many of our call centres are located here.
This Sunday in our Churches we are thinking about the two lost parables recorded in St Luke’s gospel, the lost sheep and the lost coin and my mind is filled with thoughts of loss. I am in the process of conducting several funerals and the issue of dealing with loss in that way is foremost in my mind currently. But there is also the emotion of us feeling lost. We are possibly all concerned about the escalating cost of living and regardless of the size of our house or our income, we are all facing a challenging autumn and winter. The important message in the “lost” parables is about the love of God who seeks and saves the lost, and for me, the Angel of the North symbolises that love, with wings outstretched ready to embrace and comfort those who are experiencing loss and feeling lost.
You might like to use the words written by the nineteenth century Congregationalist Jeweller Robert Walmsley from Sale in Cheshire, who was active in the Sunday School movement. The words are almost two hundred years old, but maybe helpful in these modern times.
Come let us sing of a wonderful love,
Tender and true;
Out of the heart of the Father above,
Streaming to me and to you:
Wonderful love
Dwells in the heart of the Father above.
Jesus, the Saviour, this gospel to tell,
Joyfully came;
Came with the helpless and hopeless to dwell,
Sharing their sorrow and shame;
Seeking the lost,
Saving, redeeming at measureless cost.
Jesus is seeking the wanderers yet;
Why do they roam?
Love only waits to forgive and forget;
Home! Weary wanderer, home!
Wonderful love
Dwells in the heart of the Father above.
Come to my heart, O thou wonderful love,
Come and abide,
Lifting my life till rises above
Envy and falsehood and pride;
Seeking to be
Lowly and humble, a learner of thee.