Dorian Gray, St Peter's, Fr Gray and MRI

Just in case anybody is anxious to know, I can now confirm that the story about St Peter's Church and the priest, as per my last post is quite true. The only small mistake was in the priest's name, he is John Gray and not Edward. Thank you to John L. who gave me a copy of the authorised history of St Peter's by a chap called Michael TRB Turnbull, published in 2007, the centenary of the church, and thank you to George, who knows Michael Turnbull, for the same information online. Small world.

John Gray was working as a civil servant in the Foreign Office in London in 1888, and writing poetry in his spare time. According to Turnbull he "began to associate with so-called decadent writers and painters, many of them with links to Paris and the French symbolist poets." Among these were Oscar Wilde and a millionaire Jewish convert to Roman Catholicism called Andre Sebastian Raffalovich, himself a published French poet and novelist. His own story is equally fascinating but for another time.

It was this fellow Raffalovich who would become Gray's benefactor. Gray went to Scots College in Rome and was ordained as a priest in 1901, when he came to Edinburgh and started work as a priest in the Cowgate area, one of the most impoverished and notorious districts in the city. Mostly made up of migrant Irish, about 10,000 folk. Now next door to our lovely parliament where King Salmond reigns over us. Unfortunately Gray could not cope with the sheer poverty and misery of the place and suffered a breakdown and developed pneumonia.  He was told by his doctor that he should go to London, where he moved in with his friend Raffalovich, and from thence the pair moved together to Rome, Gray to go back to the Scots College and Raffalovich to stay in the Hotel d'Italie, across the street.

From here things moved on quickly and Raffalovich proposed his plan to finance the building of a church especially for Gray, to be located in the Morningside area of Edinburgh. According to Turnbull he himself wanted away from the "increasingly xenophobic and incestuous life of literary London". He wrote to Archbishop Smith of Edinburgh making his proposal and offering colossal sums of money to pay for the building of the church and a house for Gray and to pay for the upkeep of the church and of Gray, so to speak. Turnbull reproduces the letter in his book and it's shall we say quite interesting if not astonishing.

Raffalovich explains his motivation for his generosity in the conclusion of his letter: " It has been evolved because of my deep and lasting interest in Fr Gray and from a wish to do something for Edinburgh and at the same time my high regard for Your Grace's person." So that was nice of him.

Morningside got it's church, and John Gray his parish, which he served from 1905 until his death on 16th June 1934, just a few months after his friend Raffalovich who had died in his home at 9 Whitehouse Terrace, Edinburgh on 13th February 1934. Just a stone's throw from St Peter's.

On a more controversial note Turnbull tells how the first broadcast by the BBC from St Peter's in January 1934, was sabotaged, when the cables for the broadcast were cut, almost certainly by Protestant Action, who were very active in these parts in the 30s, and later of course.

On a more personal note, today I had my MRI scan, so that's me fully scanned now and will know the result when I see the consultant on Wednesday.......