To Father Vincent Nazareth was the norm because God had chosen that kind of life for himself, because it met all the Friar Preacher’s own personal tastes and feelings as to what was most fitting to the dignity of man. Shepherds, fishermen, carpenters, in a self sufficient community not dependent upon foreign markets, ‘the primary craft of landwork and the secondary yet necessary crafts of handwork working together in the primary Co-operative Group, ‘here might be found ‘the divine pattern to souls who were to do the Redeemer’s work in the Redeemer’s way.’

He never put the ‘hand ‘before the ‘land,’ and therefore never fell into the error of William Morris and the artist-craftsmen who followed after him. ‘Home-spun will instruct you better,’ he wrote, ‘than the Declaration of Independence will instruct you on the dignity and rights of man,’ but it was the home-spun of the crofter for home use rather than the material traded in the market that he had in mind.

Father Vincent’s appreciation of hand work and land work may, perhaps, best be conveyed by his relationship with Ditchling, and that may ibe seen in his letters after he had ceased to visit us.

‘Your gift of Whitsun cream was more than welcome! It was, oi course, one of the best things that even Ditchling could give. But it had memories in its gift; and they were even better than milk and honey. How irresistibly it brought back the Ditchling I first knew, and loved with the intensity of a first love. I can imagine that many a man marries the girl he loves not merely because he loves her, but because his love of her, or her love of him, has saved him from some fall ...