‘Oh, do we have to listen to this rubbish?’ sighed David, shaking his head wearily.
‘No, listen,’ continued Sidney, sitting up. ‘This illustrates my point exactly. There was the famous Yorkshire farmer who went to place an “In Memoriam” message in the local paper following his wife’s death. He wrote out exactly what he wanted to appear: “In memory of my dearly beloved wife, Ethel Braithwaite, who departed this earthly life blah blah”.’ He was informed that he had an extra four words included with the price, should he care to use them. Wishing to get full value for money, the parsimonious farmer agreed to the insertion of an additional four words. The “In Memoriam” message duly appeared the following week: “In memory of my dearly beloved wife, Ethel Braithwaite, who departed this life on 1st March 1955 at the age of 81 years. Much missed by her loving husband. Also tractor for sale.”’
It was definitely time I left, I decided, and began to pack up my briefcase – Sidney in this sort of mood could keep going all evening.
It had been just after the beginning of term that Sister Brendan had telephoned.
‘It’s that little nun from St Bartholomew’s on the phone again,’ Julie had informed me. ‘After something, I’ll bet. She could get blood out a stone, that woman, and she has you wrapped around her little finger. You seem to go all to pieces when it comes to nuns.’
‘Thank you, Julie,’ I had said, taking the receiver from her hand. ‘Good morning, Sister Brendan, and how are you?’
Sister Brendan, headteacher of St Bartholomew’s Roman Catholic Infant School in the dour industrial town of Crompton, was a slight, finely-boned woman with small, dark eyes and a sharp beak of a nose. When I had first met her she had reminded me of a hungry blackbird out for the early worm. Her small infant school was situated near a wasteland of tall, blackened chimneys, deserted factory premises, boarded-up shops, dilapidated warehouses and row upon row of red-brick, terraced housing. The school, adjacent to the small church of St Bartholomew of Whitby, was a complete contrast. Once across the threshold, one entered another world, one which, like the little nun herself, was bright, cheerful and welcoming.
‘Mr Phinn,’ Sister Brendan’s soft voice had come down the line, ‘I have a little favour to ask.’ It had taken a very short time for her to persuade me to speak at the charity fund-raising event, and that evening had now arrived.
At the entrance to St Bartholomew’s School I was greeted by the local parish priest, Monsignor Leonard, his cassock as shabby and ill-fitting as usual. I had come across him on a number of occasions on my travels around the county’s schools. He was a kindly and quietly-spoken man in his late fifties who relished being with the children, seeming to be endlessly interested in their education.
On previous visits, I had also met Miss Fenoughty, the monsignor’s housekeeper and the church organist. She was a small, round woman of indeterminate age, and was hard of hearing. On one occasion when I had heard her play the piano during school assembly, she had hammered her way up and down the keys as if there’d been no tomorrow.
‘Good evening,’ said Monsignor Leonard now as I approached the school entrance, ‘It is so kind of you to come and speak to our little gathering.’
‘Good evening, Mr Flynn,’ said Miss Fenoughty, who was standing beside him. ‘Not a massive turnout so far but we live in hope. It was a full hall when the last speaker spoke here. Mind you, Constance Rigby is a bit of a celebrity in flower arranging circles. Anyway, it’s kind of you to come and talk to our little gathering, isn’t it, Monsignor?’
The priest sighed and directed his eyes heavenwards. ‘Yes, it is indeed, Miss Fenoughty.’ Then he said in an undertone, ‘You’ve taken the words right out of my mouth.’
‘Good evening,’ I said, shaking the priest’s hand and smiling at the fussy little figure beside him.
‘And it was very good of you, Mr Flynn, not to charge a fee,’ continued Miss Fenoughty. ‘So many of these speakers charge for their services these days, don’t they, Monsignor?’
‘It is extremely kind of you to give up your evening, Mr Phinn,’ repeated the priest.
‘I said to Monsignor Leonard,’ Miss Fenoughty rattled on regardless, ‘I said it’s very kind of Mr Flynn to give up an evening and not to charge a fee. We can now use our funds to get a really good speaker next year, can’t we, Monsignor?’
The priest looked rather embarrassed, shrugged and smiled, then said quickly, obviously deciding it was time Miss Fenoughty’s flow was stemmed, ‘Now, Mr Phinn, no doubt Sister Brendan explained about this very worthwhile cause. The street children of South America are the most disadvantaged in the world. Abandoned by their parents to fend for themselves, they live in gutters, sewers, in cardboard boxes, they are the prey to predatory adults, the victims of corrupt police. They are the world’s forgotten children. “We may be excused for not caring much about other people’s children, for there are many who care very little about their own.” Dr Johnson, I think, said that.’
‘Dr Johnson!’ Miss Fenoughty snapped. ‘Don’t talk to me about Dr Johnson, Monsignor. I’ve been waiting for my elastic stockings for four weeks now.’
‘Shall we go in?’ mouthed the priest. ‘Sister Brendan will be wondering where we are.’ He bent and barked in his housekeeper’s ear. ‘And, by the way, Miss Fenoughty, it’s Mr Phinn, not Flynn.’
‘What is?’ she snapped.
The priest’s voice went up an octave. ‘I said, it’s Mr Phinn!’
‘Monsignor Leonard,’ replied his housekeeper quietly but distinctly, ‘there is really no need to shout. I can hear perfectly well. It is just that you mumble so.’
The evening went well and the receptive audience seemed to enjoy my talk. Afterwards, Monsignor Leonard and I joined the headteacher in her room. Sister Brendan certainly seemed well pleased, most especially with the respectable amount of money that was raised.
‘Thank you so much,’ she said. ‘We do so appreciate it when people —’
‘Monsignor Leonard! Monsignor Leonard!’ Miss Fenoughty barged through the door, beckoning madly to the priest like an angry mother would to a child she wants to come in for tea. ‘I need to speak to you on a matter of some urgency.’
‘We were just thanking Mr Phinn –’ started the priest.
‘Excuse me, Mr Flynn,’ Miss Fenoughty said, ‘but I must drag the Monsignor away. It’s imperative that I speak to him.’
The poor priest was more or less manhandled to the door by the small figure, and he threw us a baleful look as he was bundled from the room.
Sister Brendan raised her eyes to heaven. ‘God grant me the courage to change what I can, the patience to endure what I cannot, and the forbearance to put up with Miss Fenoughty.’
On the way home, I stopped off at the late-night chemist in Fettlesham High Street. I had a slightly tickly feeling in the back of my throat and thought I might be coming down with a cold. I smiled as I entered the shop, remembering the last time I had called there. It had been after I had visited a school and had left with some ‘little lodgers’, as Christine had euphemistically described them. I had been extremely embarrassed having to ask for a shampoo to get rid of head lice.
The same young woman in the bright white nylon overall who had sold me the head lice medication and nit comb was serving now. She obviously recognised me. ‘Not more head lice, is it?’ she asked, sotto voce, as I approached the counter.
‘No, thank goodness,’ I replied. ‘Just something for a cold, please. One of those lemon drinks and a bottle of aspirin should do it.’
As she selected the necessary items from the display in front of her, the pharmacist appeared from behind a glass screen. ‘Dr Mullarkey?’ he enquired, looking past me. I turned and there, sitting in a small alcove, was Gerry. She gave me the shocked, wide-eyed look of a shoplifter caught in the act.
‘Yes, that’s me,’ she said, rising to take the packet from his hand. ‘Hello, Gervase.’
‘Hello, Gerry,’ I replied.
‘Give him two of these, three times a day,’ said the pharmacist. ‘If the condition worsens, I suggest you get in touch with your doctor, but it sounds as if it’s just a bit of flu and he’ll be over it in a few days.’
‘That will be £3.50, please, madam,’ said the shop assistant.
‘Thank you,’ replied Gerry, fumbling around nervously in her purse for the right amount. Before I could enquire after the health of the ‘him’, she pushed the money into the assistant’s hand, gave me a quickly vanishing smile and said, ‘Must be off. Have a lovely weekend.’
Perhaps Sidney was right, I thought to myself. Perhaps she does have a secret lover tucked away somewhere deep in the Dales after all. It was certainly very mysterious, very mysterious indeed.
6
The scenery in the Yorkshire Dales, without doubt, includes some of the most varied and stunning in the British Isles. The county may not embrace within its sprawling borders the vast magnificence of the Scottish Highlands or the towering grandeur of Snowdonia but there is a particular beauty in each of the diverse landscapes. There is a breathtaking beauty in the hay meadows of Wensleydale and Swaledale where buttercup and clover blaze along the valley bottoms. There is a simple pastoral beauty in the close-cropped sheep pastures of Ribblesdale, smooth and soft as a billiard table, where rock rose and mountain pansy flourish. This is a land of contrasts: of dark, scattered woodland creeping up the steep slopes, soaring fellsides leading to vast empty moors, great rocky wind-scoured crags, bubbling becks leading into curling rivers, vast swathes of crimson heather and golden bracken on the turn.
With each season this vast, beautiful landscape changes dramatically but it is in winter that the most spectacular transformation takes place. It is then that the multicoloured canvas of pale green fields and dark fells, twisting roads and miles of silvered walls, cluttered farmsteads and stone cottages, squat churches and ancient inns are enveloped in one endless white covering, and a strange, colourless world stroked by silence emerges.
It was a bright, cold morning, a week before the schools broke up for the Christmas holidays, and I was scheduled to visit two small schools. There were flurries of snow in the air as I drove out along Fettlesham High Street but by the time I had reached the open road great flakes started to fall thick and fast. Soon the snow began to settle in bitter earnest and in no time it was draping the branches of the skeletal trees, lacing the hedgerows, covering walls and roofs. The rays of a watery winter sun pierced the high feathery clouds making the snow glow a golden pink. The scene was magical.
I crawled up the narrow road to St Helen’s, a tiny Church of England school nestling in a fold of the dale, wondering if it would be passable later when I was due to go on to my next appointment. The small, stone school served the village of Kirby Crighton and neighbouring Kirby Ruston, as well as a few children from the US air base at Ribbon Bank. The last time I had visited the school it had been on a mild autumn afternoon. Gone now were the brilliant colours, the golden lustre of the trees, the thick carpet of yellow and orange leaves and the rusty bracken slopes. Now it was a patchwork of white, criss-crossed with the dark walls.
The interior of the school was warm and welcoming. A tall Christmas tree stood in one corner of the classroom, festooned with coloured lights and decorations; a large rustic crib was set in the opposite corner. Every wall was covered with children’s Christmas paintings in reds and greens and golds. There were snowmen and reindeer, plum puddings and fir trees, Father Christmases and carol singers and some delightful silhouettes showing the journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem.
Mrs Smith, the headteacher, was more than surprised to see me. ‘My goodness, Mr Phinn,’ she said as I entered the classroom, brushing flakes of snow off my coat, ‘I really didn’t think you would venture out here in this weather. I hope you get back to Fettlesham. You don’t want to be stranded out here.’
‘It was not too bad when I started,’ I explained, ‘but if it doesn’t ease off, Mrs Smith, I’ll go back and fix another time to visit.’
The snow, however, did soon stop so I decided to stay and carry out the inspection as planned. It was nearly lunchtime by the time I had heard the children read and looked though their books, examined the teachers’ development planning and lesson notes, studied the test scores and the mark books and observed two lessons.
‘Well, things are fine, Mrs Smith,’ I told the headteacher. ‘No major worries that I can see. I’ll get the full written report off to you before the end of the week.’
‘That’s reassuring, Mr Phinn,’ said the headteacher. ‘Now, I wonder, if you have the time, perhaps you would like to see our Nativity. We’re performing it for parents later this afternoon in the village hall and are having one last run through to iron out any creases, so to speak. An objective view would be very much appreciated,’
‘I should love to stay,’ I said.
While the children put on their costumes, I helped push the desks and chairs to the back of the classroom, to leave a large space in the front. Then, having ensconced myself on the teacher’s chair at the far side of the room, I sat back to see yet another performance of surely the most famous and poignant stories of all time. This would be the fourth Nativity play I had seen in a fortnight and each had been quite different from the last. I wondered if this one was going to be as memorable as the others.
The highlight of the evening in the first Nativity play of this Christmas season had been the Annunciation. Mary, a pretty little thing of about six or seven, had been busy bustling about the stage, wiping and dusting, when the Angel of the Lord had appeared stage right. The heavenly spirit had been a tall, self-conscious boy with a plain, pale face and sticking-out ears. He had been dressed in a flowing white robe, large paper wings and sported a crooked tinsel halo. Having wiped his nose on his sleeve, he had glanced around suspiciously and had sidled up to Mary, as a dodgy market trader might to see if you were interested in buying something from ‘under the counter’.
‘Who are you?’ Mary had asked sharply, putting down her duster and placing her hands on her hips. This had not been the quietly-spoken, gentle-natured Mary I had been used to.
‘I’m the Angel Gabriel,’ the boy had replied with a dead-pan expression and in a flat voice.
‘Well, what do you want?’
‘Are you Mary?’
‘Yes.’
‘I come with tidings of great joy.’
‘What?’
‘I’ve got some good news.’
‘What is it?’
‘You’re having a baby.’
‘I’m not.’
‘You are.’
‘Who says?’
‘God, and He sent me to tell you.’
‘Well, I don’t know nothing about this.’
‘And it will be a boy and He will become great and be called – er, um –’ The boy stalled for a moment. ‘Ah called Son of the Most High, the King of Kings. He will rule for ever and His reign will have no end.’
‘What if it’s a girl?’
‘It won’t be.’
‘You don’t know, it might be.’
‘It won’t, ‘cos God knows about these things.’
‘Oh.’
‘And you must call it Jesus.’
‘I don’t like the name Jesus. Can I call him something else?’
‘No.’
‘What about Gavin?’
‘No,’ the angel had snapped. ‘You have to call it Jesus. Otherwise you don’t get it.’
‘All right then,’ Mary had agreed.
‘And look after it.’
‘I don’t know what I’m going to tell Joseph,’ the little girl had said, putting on a worried expression and picking up her duster.
‘Tell him it’s God’s.’
‘OK,’ Mary had said, smiling for the first time.
When the Angel of the Lord had departed Joseph had entered. He had been a cheeky-faced little boy dressed in a brown woollen dressing gown, thick blue socks and
a multi-coloured towel over his head, held in place by the inevitable elastic belt with a snake clasp.
‘Hello, Mary,’ he had said cheerfully.
‘Oh hello, Joseph,’ Mary had replied.
‘Have you had a good day?’
‘Yes, pretty good,’ she had told him, nodding theatrically.
‘Have you anything to tell me?’
There had been a slight pause before she had replied. ‘I am having a baby – oh, and it’s not yours.’
The audience had laughed and clapped at this, leaving the two small children rather bewildered.
The highlight of the second Nativity play had been after the entrance of the Three Kings, Someone had really gone to town on the costumes for the little boys who came in clutching their gifts tightly. They were resplendent in gold and silver outfits, topped by large bejewelled crowns that shone brilliantly under the stage lights.
‘I am the King of the North,’ said one little boy, kneeling before the manger and laying down a brightly wrapped box. ‘I bring you gold.’
‘I am the King of the South,’ said the second, kneeling before the manger and laying down a large coloured jar. ‘I bring you myrrh.’
‘I am the King of the East,’ said the third and smallest child, kneeling before the manger and laying down a silver bowl. ‘And Frank sent this.’
In the third play, Joseph, a rather fat boy dressed in a Mexican poncho and a towel over his head, had not looked entirely happy when he too heard the news of the imminent arrival of the baby.
‘Are you sure about this?’ he had asked, an anxious expression suffusing his little face.
‘Course I’m sure!’ Mary had replied. ‘An Angel of the Lord told me.’
Head Over Heels in the Dales Page 9