Chris and I went to church this morning. We don’t normally go to church but there were good reasons to go, mainly because my sister Mary couldn’t go with her broken leg (and the other one in agony through too much hopping around) and her husband Geoff has a bad knee after knocking it into a table and now his knobbly knee could match Chris’s bad knee, which is still  swollen after his bike accident  (but he’s not in pain anymore); Katie, who has a broken finger, was working so she couldn’t attend  – and somebody had to represent her as she’s going to be married in the church next June – and besides which, the vicar comes to that particular church only one Sunday in four. Hence, we went to pretty Mamhead Church on the Mamhead House estate (where recently the pop star Peter Andre married his doctor’s doctor daughter).

Our farmer friend Rosie (coincidentally, also a doctor’s daughter and our doctor’s wife!), also the church warden, greeted us and I recognised a few faces in the congregation. No sooner had the service begun than a young couple with a little girl came in and sat three pews ahead and to the right of us. All settled, I counted twenty-five (including Chris and me) in the pews, plus the organist, and the choir of four, and Ken the vicar (or is he a canon? – certainly not a loose cannon!); the church was not quite half full.

Although the church is small, the service was conducted in the Anglican High Church tradition to which I am unaccustomed (considering that I was Christened in an inter-denomination church near the South Australian border and spent the Sunday mornings of my childhood at either Gumdale Gospel Hall or the Salvation Army Hall), therefore I had to read the “conversation” from the sheet supplied. I noted that Chris knew the words by heart – well, I suppose he should do for both his paternal grandfather and uncle were vicars (and one a canon – not a loose cannon!), whilst his father, by coincidence, was yet another doctor.

After the “conversations” (not exactly conversions), hymns, prayers and banns, a man arose from his pew and read an extract from the bible. I thought to myself, “He’s rather like Jules Holland” (the English musician and television presenter).

The reading served as a prelude to the vicar’s own bible reading and the sermon.

Ken the vicar (or canon – as Chris suspects) has a marvellous rich voice, perfect diction and great projection – no need for microphones – and could easily have taken to the stage, had he not chosen the grander stage and humbler profession of his calling. The vicar read about King Herod’s banquet and Salome’s request to have John the Baptist’s head brought to her on a charger; then he conjectured on the reasons for Herod’s assent to such an unwarranted act upon a man for whom the king had some sympathy. Of course, Herod was “drunk” and more afraid of the opprobrium of his people than of God; and Salome was a “beautiful moronic step-daughter” under the thrall of her vengeful mother, who had felt slighted by John the Baptist’s views on her marriage to her brother-in-law the king. The vicar emphasised Herod’s lack of imagination in trying to come up with a just solution to his problem, and later he applied the same reasoning to more topical  world events and tragedies. He urged us to “look again” when we see something disturbing and try to see what is hidden beneath the facade. The wonderful sermon brought laughter and tears to our small but rapt congregation.

During another “conversation”, which Chris knew well but I mouthed while searching for the place on the printed sheet, I noticed a little blonde head and bright blue eyes looking at me from the front pew to the right and I waved, then blew her a kiss. The tiny three year old kept turning away with shyness, then turning back out of curiosity. At last she decided that I was a good, if mute, audience to all her antics. She opened the door to her family’s pew and looked for my approval, which I gave with a wink, and she showed me her wellington boots. What a cutie-pie! She wore a white sleeved top under a navy blue dress  with a white sailing boat pattern, hot pink tights and yellow Wellingtons with stripes of red and green at their tops. For a while she amused herself, and me, by slipping off the pew step onto the floor. At length, she tired of the step and turned her attention to the hinged door of the pew…

The tot looked and looked. She opened and shut the swing door. At last, while the congregation gave thanks and “amen”, the sweet child found the hidden purpose of the otherwise fairly superfluous pew door; she clung to the top corner, drew up her pink and yellow legs, and swung back and forth as the door opened and shut! Her mother was not so vastly amused as I but, moments later – before we all rose to sing – the triumphant child held up a bar of something tasty and beamed at me.

“How great thou art, how great thou art!” we all sang (and I joined in too because I knew this one from the Aled Jones CD).

I was going to finish my blog post there but I have a funny post script to add…

Over coffee and biscuits I chatted to the little girl.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Andy Pandy,” I thought she answered.

“Andy Pandy?” I looked at her mum, hoping to find the hidden alternative.

“Henny Penny,” said her mum laughing, “her name is Henrietta.”

“Oh, I see,” I smiled, bending down to the little one, “I have a brother called Henry and we all used to call him Hen or Henbone. My name is Sally and my nickname is Salbone. I have a sister called Mary but we have a different nickname for her – can you guess what it is?”

“Lazybones!” said Henny Penny.

Our Mayflower will be very amused when I tell her!

P.P.S.

A closer look and a chat with the man who looked and sounded like Jules Holland revealed that he was none other than our youngest daughter’s former employer and art lover who had bought two of my paintings about twenty years ago.