St Andrews is a beautiful building, especially when we consider the sheltered cloisters around the back, graced with pendulous yellow laburnum today, and the community hall. The benches are a place of leisure for the local winos, where they bother nobody. A rascally individual who cannot be named, approaching the gruesome painted crucifix on the corner, was heard to exclaim, "Our Inri!" Yours truly was poleaxed with laughter at the time, partly through the influence of a sufficiency of lager. With all due respect, Jesus was only on the cross for half a day before he was taken to the tomb. Here he has to spend eternity in this lonely condition.
Opposite St Andrews stands the Islamic College for Advanced Studies. Not far down the road in Brondesbury, we have the first Islamic school in the country to receive state funding, the Islamia school. One of our many notable local people is Yusuf Islam who as Cat Stevens made some pretty fine records.
Just round the corner, the Catholics have gone for a stylistic exclamation mark, with the preposterously huge and empty cross of St Mary Magdalene. The statement is more architectural than theological. Unfortunately those biblical folk, the Philistines have recently replaced the original flat roof with a completely inappropriate pitched one that vitiates the whole design of the building. The holy hooligans park on the corners every Sunday, endangering the lives of passersby, while they prate piously inside the church.
As St Andrews has its cloisters, St Mary Magdalene has its grotto, where one can often see somebody knelt in prayer.
Near the Willesden Baptist Church a lady told me that Jesus loves me, and offered me a leaflet. I said "thank you," but instead of taking the leaflet, I asked if I could take her picture.
I cannot show all of the churches today. Another time, maybe. For example, the old Welsh Chapel near the high road was overgrown with weeds and disused. It is all clean and sparkly now, and renamed True Buddha Temple.
