Things are rarely as they seem and nowhere is this more apparent than in the Parish Church. What may at first appear unexciting can usually be proven to be full of drama. Take for example the stone carvings variously found in the chapel, the nave and the belfry. In fact, wherever there was a stone capable of being carved, the busy masons carved nuts, fruit, animals, angels and martyred saints and, whenever the sponsors weren’t looking; cunning workers shaped the likeness of people they didn’t like into demons placed in obscure places behind pillars or places difficult to see.
Talking of stony faced demons, reminds me that recently I took our Ifor Williams stock trailer back to the dealer to sort out the scars accumulated whilst transporting sheep around the lanes of the Parish. It is quite amazing how many bits can fall off and how much damage a trailer can take before its wheels start locking, doors swing open and sheep fall though the floor. Only then do you decide that it must go back to the man who sold it to you at the Three Counties Show in …… oh dear, was it really 10 years ago?
I arrived in the dealer’s yard in minus temperatures on a dull winter’s day, and was brusquely met by a harassed young man who appeared to be running two acres of assorted sheds on his own. Phones were ringing in empty offices and customers were wandering around the yard which contained about sixty assorted trailers in various stages of dismantle and decay.
I peered into a gloomy shed and noticed my demon. It was a huge black beard attached to a ruddy wild eyed face which enquired rudely what was I doing there. I knew in a flash that this grease stained man was the operational core of the entire business. It was his heart that pumped blood to the Company’s muscles. It was his hands that unscrewed nuts and hammered metal. It was his brain that figured out the cheapest way to replace broken bits and crucially, it was his decision as to whose trailer got repaired today and whose waited. With this latter point in mind I listened carefully to his tale of overwork in a cold workshop, and of the pain of arthritic limbs. I then mutely noted his description of a harridan wife who packed him lunch of pickled cabbage on spam sandwiches for three successive days.
With woeful thoughts in mind, I strolled into the offices and finding myself alone, answered ringing phones and made notes of customer’s requests. The kitchen was my next stop and, after washing a few cups and tidying the place up, I made my new friend a large mug of coffee. In so doing I was assured that my trailer would be at the top of the processing list for that day. I then found an empty desk, plugged in my laptop and commenced writing this month’s View from the Pew.
I started by noting that things are rarely as they first appear and this was reinforced by a rather nice lady I had met in the yard, who told me that her present horse, which was old, would be her last and that she was, “looking to buy a cheap trailer to see it out.”
She then told me that the previous week she had spotted a horse box just right for her horse at an amazingly low offer price on eBay. She noticed that the accompanying photo seemed small, but she placed her bid and watched with mounting excitement as the auction commenced. As the clock ticked down and tension heightened she knew she was on course for the bargain of a lifetime.
However, her dreams crumbled as the auction reached a dramatic climax and she realised that the horse box of her dreams was, in fact, a die-cast model made in China.
Incidentally, as office staff drifted into work, not one asked what I was doing answering phones and cheerfully typing whilst seated at the chief accountant’s desk.
View from the Pew 