06 Dec 2024
We ask a different figure from the local community to choose 10 questions to answer from a list of 50. This week: The Rt Rev Alan Smith, Bishop of St Albans since 2009. He has spoken on a wide range of subjects in Parliament with a particular focus on rural matters, agriculture, housing, welfare, and problem gambling.
Where do you walk when you want to think?
I go to Heartwood Forest, the huge new woodland that is still being planted just to the north of St Albans at Sandridge. It’s already a wonderful oasis of calm, with many different paths and walks. It has a wonderful variety of trees and wildlife.
How often do you check your phone?
Far too often! Although mobile phones are very useful, it’s tempting to keep looking at them. I’ve now turned off the alerts, so I’m not hearing beeps all the time. I try to exercise discipline and only look at it every hour or so.
What is your favourite single item of clothing?
My gardening clothes! I love to garden and have learnt that the secret is to keep designated clothes and gloves so that you don’t get dirty. I’ve been working on the two-acre garden which goes with my house here in the centre of St Albans for the past 15 years and it’s been fun to share it with others by opening it to the public each February for snowdrops and in the summer.
What’s your favourite meal? Duck, roast potatoes and beans, followed by chocolate truffle torte.
Do you play any musical instruments?
I was brought up in a very musical family, most of whom are or were professional musicians. I studied organ in my spare time until I was 23 but nowadays I only play the piano. One of our family traditions is to gather every Christmas with our musical instruments and have an impromptu performance of a musical. It’s all rather raucous but great fun.
What was your first job?
I worked in a newsagent during my teenage years and was then a picker in a supermarket warehouse during my holidays when I was at university.
Who was your favourite cartoon character when you were a kid?
Noggin the Nog was the best. He was King of the Northmen and the programme featured talking birds, dragons and flying machines.
Where do you go to listen to music?
As I’ve grown older I don’t like background music as much as when I was younger. When I have time, I sit down at home and like to listen to a piece of classical music on a CD and give it my full attention. I also love to go to the Bach Choir concerts in the Cathedral, which are always a highlight.
What’s your favourite hidden gem in the district?
The Ramryge chantry chapel in the Cathedral. Many regular visitors don’t know it as it is hidden away. It was one of the last additions to the abbey, built my Abbot Ramryge (1492-1520) before the dissolution of the monasteries. It is place of quiet and meditation, aided by six extraordinary perspex sculptures of angels.
Wednesday or Saturday market?
I regularly shop at both. We are so fortunate to have such thriving markets and we need to ‘use them or lose them’. St Albans Market is so upmarket that I’ve even had pictures framed and my laptop fixed.
