View from the Bridge: 21
by John Morrison
Contents
Now that religion has largely been supplanted in the national psyche by visits to
garden centres and car boot sales, a lot of people are finding there's a big hole
in their lives where blind, unquestioning faith used to be. After all, how much spiritual
comfort that can be drawn from haggling over the price of a pot-plant or a second-hand
Hoover?
The new vicar of Milltown knows the problem only too well. His church - an unprepossessing,
smoke-blackened pile - echoes emptily every Sunday morning with the thin, reedy voices
of his elderly parishioners. It was during Queen Victoria's reign (before hellfire and damnation had been reduced to the lifestyle options they are today) that
the decision was taken to demolish the quaint little medieval church and erect a
building more in keeping with Milltown's civic aspirations. No sooner had the new
church been consecrated than the congregations went into a decline that's continued ever since.
As a man who's never yet seen a bandwagon he didn't like, our vicar is ready for the
challenge ahead. Hoping to attract a few of those lost souls who can't tell the difference between
religion and brand loyalty, he has bowed to the fickle outpourings of public sentiment. He's taken down the placards in front
of the church featuring those excruciating puns thought up at central office, and
replaced them with an imposing new sign. He allows himself a few moments of indulgence
to admire his handiwork - 'Welcome to the Church of Diana', it says, in dignified day-glo lettering - before scurrying back
into the the church to replace the hymn-sheets with copies of the Elton John Songbook.
Of course, there are many people in Milltown who would no sooner go to church that
wear jam in their hair. People who dismiss Biblical miracles as being unfeasible,
yet manage to weld together such disparate notions as UFOs, Feng Shui and past-life
regression into a pic 'n mix portfolio of irrationality. Some of them are so relaxed, after
years of therapy, meditation and getting on first-name terms with their inner child,
that they are no longer able to stand up unaided. So relaxed, indeed, that they take
Valium as a stimulant.
Wounded Man, for example, has found his own spiritual niche, consisting mostly of
hugging women and talking bollocks: a role for which he is eminently suited. He's
got the half-witted look of a man who has been closeted in a small room with a large
pile of dry-cleaning. It's an expression that a remarkable number of women mistake for spiritual
profundity. To supplement the day job Cyberpet Premature Demise Trauma Counsellor
he has carved out a small career offering oven-ready platitudes to his undemanding
devotees: the sort of people who aren't sure whether Shiatsu is an alternative therapy
or a type of long-haired cat.
Years of training have given Wounded Man a number of skills vital to his role as a
counsellor: the ability to listen, to empathise uncritically and - most important
of all - to yawn with his mouth closed.
The pages of the Hebden Bridge Web are designed
and created by Pennine Pens Web Design