The Outside Of Everything

Chapter 42
The Protest

The clergy have been in the news a bit of late, one way and another. I heard a piece on the radio about a vicar who had decided he should go barefoot. Now spent his days walking round his parish sans shoes. In Much Wenlock, of all places. What on earth would Miss Marple say? She’d probably make a joke about soles being saved. But why would you want to go round barefoot? In winter too. I assume it was more a case of trying to get closer to the spirit of Jesus. As opposed to a tribute to Robert Parker.

But that’s the sort of thing you want from the clergy isn’t it? You want them to be a tad eccentric. You want them to be a thorn in the side. You want them to rock the boat. You want them to ruffle some feathers. You want them to raise some eyebrows. You want them to be born standing up and talking back. Like Don Camillo. The great Giovanni Guareschi character. Like Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s reverend in what was it? Grey Granite? Getting up in the pulpit and preaching a sermon to unsettle. Getting out among the folk and fighting fearlessly. Chasing the money changers from the temple. That sort of thing.

You could see why the Chris Guthries of this world would be attracted to such figures. You almost want them to be. Take our Red Pepper. The Redhead’s little sister. She got tangled up with a vicar at one point. The sort of vicar you knew wasn’t going to be around too long. The sort of man that saw his lord as a character in an old Kris Kristofferson number. A man who could quite as easily have been a member of the Militant Tendency but out of a sense of perverseness had joined the orthodox church. And was destined to fight all the more battles as a consequence. A good man nevertheless. Our Red Pepper was devoted to him, and couldn’t tell us often enough about the good fights he was fighting.

Knowing our Red Pepper it was only a matter of time too before we were roped in to join one crusade or another. Not that we really needed that much persuading. I mean you wouldn’t want to be running away with the idea we were content to be sitting around listening to our old ‘60s garage compilation tapes, and reading Richard Brautigan and what not. Oh no, no, no. Heaven forbid. Once our Red Pepper had set the scene we were ready to take up arms and march into battle. Upwards and onwards, we cried, echoing one of our favourite songs’ sentiments. And it was a just cause, to be fair, regardless of how terrified we were of our Red Pepper once she’d got her dander up and the bit between her teeth. The righteous reverend was up in arms about plans to build one of those out of town supermarkets that were becoming all the rage. Not just that. The plans meant the building over of some common land. Common land where people played, where travellers would from time to time call home. So you see the sort of forces we were up against.

But a word or two about the righteous reverend first. He seemed pretty young for the preaching game. Suggesting a story line from a PG Woodhouse novel, he came from a pretty good family, had a good education under his belt, hadn’t drifted into the city, the army or the legal game, so he’d taken up the religious path. And the funny thing was he meant it, man. He wasn’t one of those chintzy local parsons, all tea and scones and parish mags. He wasn’t a plaster saint. He’d pass the blow torch test. He had his vision of Jerusalem. He wanted to change the world. And he had the backbone so often sorely lacking. Good looking cove, too. The swine. Rugged rugger type. Able to protect himself. Which was no bad thing. Looked good in his fancy dress too. Could swish his skirts with the best of them. Though you suspected he was doomed. Not made for this world. Not the way the world is.

All these years on I can’t remember the chain of events that led to the righteous reverend being plonked down in the heart of our crazy mixed-up shook-up community. But walk among us he surely did for a time. And quickly gained a reputation for speaking out, sticking up for the downtrodden, and alienating the well-connected and well-spoken. He spent a lot of time outside of his parish, with the unemployed over in Thamesmead, the people in drugs and alcohol dependency units, in refuges, the abused of all creeds and colours. Not the way to make friends round our way. But one person he did make a friend of was our Red Pepper, the Redhead’s fiery little sister. They met while helping out in a day centre for the unemployed. Our Red Pepper ran a tea stall there, and the righteous reverend won her over by rolling up his sleeves and pitching in to help with the washing up rather than peddling platitudes to the punters.

Our Red Pepper wasn’t by any stretch of the imagination conventionally religious and she and the reverend had some right old blistering barneys about the meaning of life, love, the gospels and the church. Mind you, I don’t think there were ever two people ever happier than ripping the soul out of each other’s beliefs. It was a sight to behold. Not for the lily livered. Nevertheless they were close. Very close. And there was nothing like a true cause to bring them closer together. One such cause was the approval of plans to build this out-of-town supermarket on the common ground out toward the marshes, where the kids would play football, and travellers would stay a while. Travellers, gypsies, diddicoys. Different words for the same thing. Words that could provoke all sorts of reactions. Romantic notions. Downright suspicion. Jealousy. Fear. All very predictable. For some they were the root of all evil, guaranteed to boost the crime stats when they arrived in town. For others they were critics of our consumer society, free of the constrictions of such a society.

Regardless of personal prejudices there was certainly a case to make for the travellers to continue using the common ground, for kids to continue playing there. Within reason. Responsibly. But others put the economic case for a new superstore. Jobs. Opportunities. Standing. As in prestige. Progress. Ah, I can still see our Red Pepper spitting out the word progress. With the biggest question mark and exclamation mark you ever did see. So yup she and the righteous reverend started up one hell of a campaign. Exploting every angle you could think of. The threat to local wildlife. The abuse of tradition. The morality of stealing common land. The displacement of the travellers. The loss of sporting facilities. The thin end of the wedge. More playing fields to be sold off. Stores opening on the Sabbath. You get the picture. And we did our bit. We had to. You didn’t say no to our Red Pepper. But we were with her. So we marched with her. And we handed out leaflets. We wrote letters. Made banners. Organised benefit dances. But all to no avail. For look what we were up against. Progress. Pah!

We were up against officialdom. The local council wanted the investment. We were up against big business. The supermarket people wanted that site. Badly. And we were up against the silent majority. The ordinary people. The ones who distrusted travellers, or at best didn’t give a damn. The ones who wanted to drive out to a big superstore. Park their car and load up the boot with provisions. Turn their back on the local shops. The ones who wanted the discounts a global company could afford to offer. These were formidable forces. And despite the valiant leadership of the righteous reverend and our Red Pepper we were like Canute trying to turn back the tide. Our Midas touch had deserted us. And the mental image of our Red Pepper and her reverend trying to chain themselves to the mechanical diggers and levellers as they moved onto the common ground to start work still breaks my heart, or maybe makes me laugh.

Needless to say the ecclesiastical authorities were less than impressed by the righteous reverend’s way of carrying out his ministry, and moves were made to defrock him. Perversely people locally came out strongly in support of the good man once the chips were down, and he was down and out, and then they spoke up in support of his right to make a fool of himself. I never quite got that one straight in my mind. For five minutes before they would have had him strung up and crucified or at the very least certified. But I guess there are precedents for that? Anyway, the reverend bowed to the inevitable and parted company with the church, but to his credit he didn’t lose his faith. He worked for several years in the Newham area of London with refugees, helping them learn English and the way things work here, before going abroad with the Red Cross or some such organisation. He kept in contact with our Red Pepper, and they would continue to argue like hell about matters spiritual and political. I’m sure if one said the sky was blue, the other would argue it was a deliberate act of deception by the authorities. Me? I reckon they were both right. Because they usually were.