A TIME FOR ALL THINGS IN THE TIME THAT WE HAVE

I’ve been on my travels.

They say it broadens the mind. And, from experience, I’m sure that’s true. I’ve seen eye-widening beauty. Art. History. I’ve walked in the footsteps of Caesar, Charlemagne and the ancient philosophers. I’ve drunk coffee – and swerved the absinthe – in the Deux Magots and thoughts of times lost amid the blue fug of Gauloises and the cordite of the of student riots in 1968 and the barricades of 1871.

I’ve been all over the place - mainly Europe because our story fascinates me. And I’ve seen castles and cathedrals, bell towers and bastions. Many capitalled pillars and intricate mosaic pavements.

I find my journeys through time and place have also filled me with awe at what our forebears achieved. And all without the BIM, heavy-lifting kit and gizmos we have today.

So, it was no surprise at all that Mdina - the silent city and one-time capital of Malta - was a sure-fire winner as a setting for some of the action in Game of Thrones. The same is true of Dubrovnik, the pearl of the Adriatic, where my brother and his family will be in just over a month.

Turns out – who’d have thought! - I have a thing about walled cities.

Rhodes.

Carcassonne.

York and Berwick.

And I never fail to wonder how they managed the engineering. The defences around Valletta are huge and inclined to give pause to just how tiny we all are in the overall scheme of things. I have a picture of Mum - all 5’2” of her [in heels] - standing on the ramparts at Rhodes – she looked like a tiny speck of light in the Cosmos. But, to be more prosaic, I then find myself wondering how many elephants would need to stand on each other’s backs before the herd could reach a trunk’s length of the top. I suspect it would empty whole swathes of the Serengeti.

The Maltese capital was certainly surrounded by a monument to the serious skills in construction project management displayed by the Grand Master and his Knights of St John - although I doubt they had any thoughts about health and safety and they were more concerned about the wellbeing of souls rather than the mental health of those on site.

The care of the spiritual side of life was in evidence around every corner. Churches everywhere: from a Church of Scotland [shared with the Methodists] that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a street corner in Milngavie; to an Anglican cathedral with a portico resembling a close cousin to the Inigo Jones’ masterpiece in Covent Garden. There were Orthodox Greeks, Catholic Greeks and high-Catholic Catholics.

The best of those was a Renaissance confection of insanely inlaid marble floors and vast, recently refurbished tapestries that bear no relation to your maiden auntie’s needlepoint. The co-cathedral of St John [www.stjohnscocathedral.com] is also home to not one but two Caravaggios - the larger the breathtaking and astonishing depiction of the execution of the eponymous saint.

It was magnificent. It was moving. It was – by way of bringing this back down to earth – quite spectacularly badly displayed. But, even if you thought the Vatican authorities were deliberately trying to stop people looking at it, it left me stunned.

It could have been painted by an angel. It is certainly a work of genius.

It made me feel very humble and human. And enhanced, for me, the empathy that makes us all Jock Tamson’s Bairns. I believe it gave me a glimpse of the Divine.

I looked. For a brief moment, the clouds parted. I walked back out into the sun. And the heavenly skies closed over leaving just the blue of early evening and the siren song from a wine bar. Day-to-day life doesn’t leave much time for noticing the hand of God. Or meditating on the eternal. It might be a better world if it did. But I think we may have lost the knack.

Seamlessly, then through passport control and ticket checks and a trip down the new Elizabeth Line, I returned to the everyday and went from Malta to maltings when I handed out the APS award for Digital Innovation in Health, Safety and Wellbeing at the annual Digital Construction Awards at the Brewery in Shoreditch.

In some ways digital constructors – and, indeed, the livery companies that pervade that part of the City of London - are the holy orders of our modern world. They, too, have their prophets and demons. And, as a group, these byte-builders are certainly on their own crusade to make construction better. I am stunned by their skills but totally mystified by what they do - so I was very grateful to some of our own APS legends who kept me company.

I want to love technology. But, try as I might, I don’t feel the beat of angel wings in the articles of faith of the world we are creating around us. I am deeply grateful for the skills forged, as they are, in the experience and effort of mortals but I yearn for the Masters: Mozart and Brunelleschi, Canova and Springsteen.

I know I should keep my feet planted firmly on the ground but my own health and safety needs a helping hand from without, as well as from within. It is good to remember that none of my successes are mine alone. At work, I lean on the talents of others. At play, on the kindness of family and friends.

All I have, I have been given.

All I can do is use my talents to their limits - and for the greater good.

And to the glory of the Architect who made me.