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 militærbrakker satt ende mot ende. En vaktmester holdt på å låse opp da Polly kom. "Hva jobber du med?" spurte hun ham. Han åpnet dørene om morgenen, sa han, og malte over det den salte lufta tok.

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.

Inne forsvinner brakkene. Italienske krigsfanger kom hit i nittenførtiårene for å arbeide på sjøsperringene. De ba om et sted å holde gudstjeneste. De fikk bølgeblikk. Det de laget, var et malt tak, en smijernsvegg og en altertavle. En maler som het Domenico Chiocchetti ledet arbeidet.

"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.

"Hva trenger du for å fullføre arbeidet?" Det var spørsmålet. De ba om sement, og de fikk sement. Alt annet kom fra det leiren kastet. Skjermveggen er skrapjern. Lysestakene er gamle hermetikkbokser. Steinen i koret er malte gipsplater.

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 lite håndverktøy lå i vinduskarmen. "Kan du vise meg hvordan jeg bruker dette verktøyet?" spurte Polly. Han viste henne det, og hun fikk det ikke med seg. "Kan du forklare det en gang til?" Det gjorde han. Så så hun opp på et flatt metalltak som later som det er en bue.