One of the great advantages of achieving a certain age is that, without really doing anything about it, one finds one has achieved, with it, a certain gravitas.
The mad obsessions which one has harboured for years become endearing eccentricities and are no longer regarded as the manifestations of an unsound mind.
I have been plagued by obsessions for years, my son-in-law kindly calls them “interests”.
These range from acceptable interests like cookery, and cookery writers, novels by Patrick O Brian, interests in France and all things French to the slightly less acceptable, like my interests in Judy Collins, the novels of Dornford Yates and everything and anything to do with Absinthe.
There are of course darker interests, of which I will never tell, but one rather sinister one that keeps coming back to me is my shameful interest in St. Roch.

I first came across him in a church in Languedoc, not surprising really as he comes from Montpellier. The picture of an otherwise saintly looking gentleman lifting his skirt just fascinated me.
Once I started looking I found him everywhere and have reproduced lots of his images, varying from the coy to the downright salacious in blogs I have written here and here.

His fame and efficacy as a cure for the plague has spread throughout Europe, my friend Finola found him in full display in a church in Montenegro, but barring one single image my brother found in the Franciscan shop in Cork, there hasn’t been much evidence that he ever managed to make it across the channel to England or here to Ireland.

Then as luck would have it Bertie Ahern stepped in on my side and by christening his first grandson Rocco (the Italian version of the saint) he brought the man right into twenty first century Ireland.

One of the my great joys in the church in our village in Thezan was finding a statue to my patron in the church there. I now sleep easier when there knowing that he is only a hundred yards from my bed.

My friend Clive Nunn has been one of those people who have been understanding about my obsession and suffered many visits to Languedoc churches when we were together there last year as I searched for St. Roch’s image.

Clive’s family have strong roots in Surrey in England and he inherited a lot of memorabilia of that area from his parents.
Just yesterday he sent me the following note and the attachments which follow.

“Mart,
I was tidying books and came across this .
Given that I have had connections with Puttenham for all of my life, I flicked it open.
It opened on this page.
The house in which this discussion took place was my aunt’s house. She died when I was ten and the house must have been sold to the Miss Grigson of the tale.
David Winter, also referred to, is my first cousin once removed: in other words, my aunt’s grandson. He bought the house back within the last twenty years or so.
I just thought that the circle of connections between yourself and your discovery of St. Roch in Thezan and myself and Puttenham just might appeal to you.
Clive”

Clive was of course right, there follows the story exactly as it appeared in the little book.
More food for my obsession but also fascinating to wonder how one of his rare appearances across the channel was nearly lost.

He now has I think, by his reappearances in my life, declared himself as interested in me as I am in him.
Sile reckons that to assuage his spirit we should get a statue of the Saint and put it with the one of Our Lady of Lourdes in our little Jardin de Cure in Thezan.
I think she is right.

I have only one small quibble with the above, which is a lovely ghost story even if it had no connect to my personal Saint, and that is the artist’s impression of St. Roch.
But then who can blame him?
Given the lack of images of the saint in England who would have thought that he should be pictured coyly raising his skirt rather than reading piously in a missal.