Gervase Phinn: Talking at cross-purposes

When the school leaving age was raised in the 1970s and the youngsters who had looked forward to starting work at 15 now had to stay on for an extra year, there was a deal of anger and resentment. Many had had quite enough of school and wanted to get out into the world and earn a living.

In an effort to make the curriculum of the F group that bit more interesting and relevant, I invited a range of people into school to speak about their lives and work. Over the year there were visits from, among others, a member of parliament, MEP, doctor, woodcarver, woman police officer, soldier, fire-fighter, farmer, environmentalist and a vicar. The vicar was the least popular when I suggested him as a speaker but, following his visit, he emerged as the most entertaining and the most memorable.

He explained that the priest unquestionably has to have the qualities of sensitivity, compassion and generosity, to be a good listener and sometimes a critical friend, but of inestimable importance was for him or her to have a sense of humour. He recounted the story of a farmer who was so large that a special coffin had to be made for him and the gravediggers paid extra because of the size of the hole they had to dig. With some difficulty the coffin was lowered into its final resting place and the words of interment intoned when the undertaker hissed: "It will have to come up vicar. I've dropped my glasses down the hole and they're on top of the coffin."

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The coffin was heaved half way up and then lowered again as the pall bearers failed to lift it. There were several more unsuccessful attempts and only after more help had been enlisted was the coffin finally raised sufficiently for the glasses to be retrieved. At the funeral tea, the widow, with all the bluntness of a person raised in Yorkshire, approached the vicar. "I thought nothing to that," she said tight-lipped. "My husband was up and down like a ruddy yo-yo."

Another story he related was when he was telling the children about the Sermon on the Mount. He asked the children what important lesson Jesus had taught to the multitude. He was amused by the honest reply from a small child: "To remember to take your litter home with you?"

I could have added to the cleric's stories. I was once addressing an assembly at a school and asked the children who was the Good Shepherd. One bright spark waved his hand in the air. "I know! I know!" he cried. "It's Jack Broadbent. Mi dad reckons 'e's not lost a sheep in fotty years."

A vicar of my acquaintance told an assembly at an infant school: "Some of you children came into my church when you were little babies with your mummies and daddies and godparents. I carried you gently to a large stone bowl called a font and I did something to you."

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The children stared at him wide-eyed. "I wonder if anyone can tell me what I did to you when you were a baby?" he continued. There was no response. "The word begins with a curly 'c'." Again there was silence. However, he persevered. "The word begins with the sound 'chr','' he said. He then addressed a small boy in the front row. "Can you think of the word beginning with the sound 'chr'," he asked the child, "something that I did to you when you came to my church as a baby?" The little boy replied: "Crucify?"

YP MAG 23/10/10