Built From What They Had

The chapel on Lamb Holm is two army huts joined end to end. A caretaker was unlocking it when Polly arrived. "What is your job?" she asked him. He opened the doors in the morning, he said, and painted what the salt air took off.

Kapellet på Lamb Holm er to militærbarakker sat sammen. En opsynsmand var ved at låse op, da Polly kom. "Hvad arbejder du med?" spurgte hun ham. Han åbnede dørene om morgenen, sagde han, og malede det op, som den salte luft tog.

Inside, the huts disappear. Italian prisoners of war came here in the nineteen forties to work on the sea barriers. They asked for somewhere to worship. They were given corrugated metal. What they made was a painted ceiling, an iron screen and an altarpiece. A painter named Domenico Chiocchetti led the work.

Indenfor forsvinder barakkerne. Italienske krigsfanger kom hertil i nittenhundredefyrrerne for at arbejde på havbarriererne. De bad om et sted at holde gudstjeneste. De fik bølgeblik. Det, de lavede, var et malet loft, et gitter af jern og en altertavle. En maler ved navn Domenico Chiocchetti stod i spidsen for arbejdet.

"What do you need to complete the work?" That was the question. They asked for cement, and they got cement. Everything else came from what the camp threw away. The screen is scrap iron. The candle holders are old meat tins. The stone of the chancel is painted plasterboard.

"Hvad mangler du for at gøre arbejdet færdigt?" Sådan lød spørgsmålet. De bad om cement, og de fik cement. Alt andet kom fra det, lejren smed ud. Gitteret er skrotjern. Lysestagerne er gamle konservesdåser. Stenen i koret er malet gipsplade.

A small hand tool sat on the sill. "Could you show me how to use this tool?" Polly asked. He showed her, and she missed it. "Could you explain that again?" He did. Then she looked up at a flat metal ceiling that pretends to be a curve.

Et lille håndværktøj lå i vindueskarmen. "Kunne du vise mig, hvordan man bruger dette værktøj?" spurgte Polly. Han viste hende det, og hun fangede det ikke. "Kunne du forklare det igen?" Det gjorde han. Så kiggede hun op på et fladt metalloft, der lader som om det buer.