On Canopies

I saw from the photos on Fr Ray's blog that the Blessed Sacrament canopy has, from last year, made a reappearance at Arundel. I seem to remember that it had disappeared 'on the grounds of health and safety'.
Fr Tim, on his blog, laments that Blackfen lacks a canopy and must needs make do with an ombrellino.
Here, we had a canopy, but it had been put away wet after the last procession in about 1967, and the silk had perished. The poles, too, had gone missing. But what we discovered is that…
Canopies, unlike canapés, are pretty easy to make. You need a double bedspread-sized piece of good cloth (if you've a branch of Dunelm Mills near you, as we have, you can get a nice gold-coloured damask very reasonably). Square is a good shape, as it makes it much easier to process around corners if the bearers can simply turn themselves without turning the canopy. You need to line it heavily, make four holes about 8 or 9 inches in from the corners, and reinforce them. You should be able to get fringing at the same place, if you're into that.
Now go to B&Q and get four 3 metre lengths of shiny imitation-brass pipe and four of the sort of knobs one shoves into the end of curtain rails. All you need now is to find a way to prevent the canopy slipping down the poles. I have not yet worked out a permanent solution, but several rubber bands wound round near the tops of the poles seems to work fine.
And all of this should take one or two people very little time to do.
And now all you need is to invite a community of enclosed sisters into your parish, build them a convent, and ask them to get embroidering.