September 9th marked what would have been the 120th birthday of Beverley Nichols, born in the same year as C S Lewis and a prolific author from the era of the Bright Young Things - now almost completely forgotten in the popular memory. Nichols bought a cottage at Glatton in Huntingdonshire and is hailed as one of their famous sons - and the local community made something of a weekend of celebrating it, with a service in church celebrating creativity, at which I was privileged to give an address. I spoke from notes which don't really give the flavour of the fun we were having, but I thought they might be worth a share as there is so little out there about Nichols today.

• Shame on me! Not heard of BN until you were in
  touch
• So I’ve been reading up on him, esp Down the Garden Path (story of garden at
  Allways here in Glatton) and The Fool
  Hath Said (a defence of Xtnty)
• Both still a good read. First has remained
  popular. Second largely forgotten, but a cross between C S Lewis [born same
  year as BN] & P G Wodehouse, not always orthodox but certainly commended
  Christ to the Bright Young Things of his day
• Thank you!

• BN was massively productive (60+ novels/plays;
  cricket to cats to crime)
• Where does such/all artistic creativity come
  from?
  • “inspiration”: long tradition of seeing it as a
    gift from God, sharing in his work of creating and inspiring (Tolkien’s idea of
    sub-creation)
  • Possible to see “creation” & creativity as just
    chaos and chance, but as Nichols points out, real problems then accounting for
    the goodness, truth and beauty we all recognise.
  • So our first reaction to both natural and human
    creativity should, I suggest, be one of thanksgiving, celebration, and
    occasionally awe
• But a second thing is important about creativity
  too – whether artistic or scientific or whatever.
• though it is full of potential for beauty &
  goodness, God has placed it in our
  hands and it can self-evidently be used for both good or evil, right and wrong
• An artist can no more hide behind the purity of
  artistic expression than a scientist behind the moral neutrality of a discovery
  that can lead to both good and ill. Even though the art and the discovery are
  good in themselves, we wait with some concern to see how they will be used.
• And that is the thought I would like to leave
  you with as we remember BN today and celebrate creativity in general:
  • We are all in our own way given gifts, talents, opportunities
    and choices,
  • And heaven is holding its breath to see how we
    will use them: to be co-gardeners with God, or to be vandals in God’s garden instead.
  • And my own conviction is that the best way of
    staying on the side of the angels here is a very simple one, to stay rooted in
    Christ, and let his good fruit grow in us as naturally as a plant bears fruit
  • In fact BN seems to have looked at it the same
    way, and I finish with his words: “Opening the Bible at random, I read the
    lovely words: I am the vine, ye are the
    branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much
    fruit; for without me ye can do nothing. One would say those words were
    enough.”