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This celebratory book is marking the centenary of our Cathedral's opening. It is constituted by the memories, impressions, and hopes of that wide cross-section of parishioners who either consented to be interviewed or submitted their responses in writing. The joint authors of the book, that is to say, are those parishioners. Except in the sense that our respondents were asked to record memories of past experiences (as well as present impressions and future hopes), this is not a history of the Cathedral. Still less is it a history of the parish of Armidale, whose parish church, the Cathedral, happens to have been during these last hundred years. Neither, certainly, does the book fit the definition of social history by G M Trevelyan: "history with the politics left out". The following pages will be found to contain plenty of politics, if only often as a sub-text. But they might well also be found to qualify as a collection of raw material towards a future social history of our parish, and of the Cathedral's place in it. In the meantime, this book presents itself as a set, as it were of verbal snapshots, or impressionist quick-sketches, or even a kaleidoscope, of the various respondents' memories and experiences of this or that aspect of the Cathedral's impact on their lives. The result has been farthest from being history in that the editorial process has deliberately avoided selecting, judging, or grading our respondents' offerings as historical evidence. By and large, all memories, impressions, and judgements have been treated as equally valid. |
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