Stairlift to Heaven (17 page)

“Do you like it?” said the other old dear seated next to her.

“Yes, it suits you. With your thin hair. Never been much body in your hair, has there.”

“My mother was the same, my mother always had thin hair.”

“I know. Where did you have it done?”

“That place on Union Road. Our Muriel put me on to it, they’re ever so good and they give you a chocolate digestive with you tea.”

“I like a nice chocolate digestive, I must give them a try. What are they called?

“Oh....What is it now?....my memory!....Hot Pot.”

“Hot Pot? I’ve never seen a hairdresser’s on called Hot Pot and I go down Union Road regular.”

“No, not Hot Pot….. something like Hot Pot……..Tater pie.

“Tater pie?”

“No, hash. Tater hash.”

“Tater hash?”

“No, but something very similar to …… Pan hash! That’s it. Pan hash. Definitely.”

“Pan hash?” The old dear thought for a moment, then said:” You mean
Panache
you silly old fool, it’s pronounced
Panache
.”

****

September 12 2008.
FAITH HEALER.

I’ve suffered with anal pain for the last few years. It’s bearable, but when it’s bad it’s as though someone is sticking the end of a cricket stump up my bottom. Thankfully it’s only the blunt end as yet but that’s bad enough. I’ve tried all sorts of things in the hope of getting rid of it; conventional medicine; acupuncture; homeopathy; hypnotherapy; aromatherapy: even therapy without a prefix; all to no avail. Last week I read in the local freebie newspaper that a faith healer, a travelling evangelist, was to visit the area. He would be attending the local Revivalist Church next week and would be laying hands on and curing the illnesses and maladies of anyone who cared to come along. The bottom of the barrel having been reached, I went along, albeit more than a little-self consciously.

It was without any doubt the most weird, most embarrassing experience of my life, and we are talking here of a man who was once caught masturbating in the lavatory when he was fourteen years old by his nineteen-year-old sister.

The room in the Revivalist Church was almost full, at least a couple of hundred people seated on the twenty or so rows of forms that in the absence of pews provided the seating. Most of the people in attendance seemed to be fit and well, indeed hale and hearty, and almost all of them had a look about them, a joyful light in their eyes that seemed to say ‘I’ve got religion’. I noted that the vast majority of them were women. I’m saying nothing.

In an effort to be as inconspicuous as possible I sat myself down on the back row. A man with even more joyful light in his eyes than the others immediately pounced on me and asked me if I’d come along to be cured. When I admitted I had he took me by the arm, dragged me to my feet and ushered me to the very front row. On the way there he told me he had seen the faith healer, Roy something or other he was called, Todd I think, perform his miracles on many occasions and he was sure he’d be able to help me no matter what was wrong with me. I might have shared his confidence if he hadn’t walked with a pronounced limp. He sat me down next to another five people who had come along in the hope that the faith healer would be able to cure them of their afflictions.

The meeting started. The vicar, or whatever the Revivalists call their main man, the Head Reviver possibly, got things under way. No sooner had he welcomed everyone and gone into his sermon than a woman sprung to her feet and shouted “Hallelujah!” Then a man jumped up and shouted “Praise the Lord!” The Head Reviver smiled, looked fondly at we in the front row and explained. “That’s how we do things here at the Revivalist Church. No one is afraid to express their feelings; if we feel the urge to praise the Lord we just do it, we don’t hold back.” This seemed to free-up a few more of the congregation, who were perhaps a bit more reticent than the ones who’d already let it all hang out, because almost immediately another four sprang to their feet and “Hallelujha’d” and “Praised the Lord.”

This went on for the entire time the Head Reviver was speaking. At one point there were more people standing up and praising the Lord than there were sitting down and listening to the Head Reviver, who was by now wasting his time because even I couldn’t hear him properly and I was only sat about a yard away. Then, to wild applause, the faith healer was introduced. When everyone had settled down he spoke of the last time he’d visited, some months previously, and of the people he’d cured on that occasion. Cue joyful shouts of “Hallelujah!” all round. He went on to regale the enthralled congregation with his recent exploits in America and beyond, as well as in this country, and told of the thousands of people he’d been able to help with the gift given to him by the good Lord, which all went down very well and brought forth even more ‘Hallelujahs’.

He went on to ask if there was anyone here tonight who needed his help and if so would they stand up. Looking at each other a bit self-consciously, especially me and the severely bow-legged woman sat next to me - that’ll test him I remember thinking - we got to our feet. The faith healer went to the first of us, the woman on my other side, asked her name and asked what was wrong with her. She said she had a chronic bad back. The faith healer laid a hand on her back and addressed the congregation. “Our comrade Jennifer has a chronic back condition. I want each and every one of you here tonight to concentrate as hard as you can on my hand so that the goodness given to you by the power of the Lord may course through it and into poor Jennifer’s back.” Total silence for about twenty seconds. I chanced a glance round. Every eye in the place was on the faith healer. Every face was wreathed in concentration, every brain summoning up the power of the Lord. The faith healer’s eyes were cast heavenwards, his face a picture of both agony and ecstasy. He suddenly took a pace back, almost a stagger, as if knocked back, and shook his head as though trying to clear it. Then he looked at poor Jennifer, tenderly. “Tell me Jennifer, how is your back now?”

She put an explorative hand to it, moved it up and down a little. “It....it’s a bit better,” she said, a little unbelievingly, then, with more conviction. “It’s a
lot
better. Yes, a lot better, I can hardly feel the pain at all now.”

Gasps of incredulity from the congregation.

“That’s the power of
the Lord’
the faith healer proclaimed. “The power of the Lord has cured Jennifer’s chronic bad back.”

Wild applause, more “Hallelujahs and “Praise the Lords.”

I was next in line. I must admit, having witnessed the miracle that had just taken place, that I had begun to have little more hope than previously. The faith healer turned to me and asked my name. I told him. “And what is wrong with you, Terry?” he asked. “I suffer from anal pain,” I said. This seemed to throw him. Probably because it was the first time he’d ever been confronted with such an ailment.

“What?” he said.

“Anal pain,” I repeated. I wasn’t speaking very loudly as I was naturally feeling more than a little embarrassed about the whole thing, but quietly as I spoke the faith healer spoke even more quietly. “Is there anything else wrong with you?” he asked, in an almost furtive manner, tinged with hope.

“No” I said, “just the anal pain.”

Even more embarrassed about it than I was, which is saying a lot, he turned to the congregation and said: “Terry has....a pain. I want each and every one of you to concentrate as hard as you can on my hand so that the goodness given to you by the power of the Lord will course through it and into Terry.” Then he put his hand on my bottom. Gingerly is too positive an adjective for the manner in which he did this, and his hand wasn’t there for anything near as long as it had been on poor Jennifer’s back, about one nanosecond at the most I would guess. I was definitely short-changed on his trance-like state too - it was more a rolling of the eyes, in fact he may well have been rolling his eyes, I was certainly rolling mine - as he’d no sooner gone into it than he came out of it. Then he said, “I’m sure you’ll be a lot better now” and moved on to the woman with the bow legs. When he saw her he almost came back to me but he was in luck because it turned out she’d come about her migraine.

I don’t know if he managed to cure it because I’d had enough and got up and made my way to the exit. As I was going through the door a woman on the back row turned to another woman and said, “He’s walking a lot better now isn’t he.”

****

November 30 2008.
SPORTSWRITER OF THE YEAR.

Today, whilst in the dentist’s waiting room waiting to have a tooth extracted, I came across an article in the Daily Telegraph in praise Michael Parkinson. Apparently he used to write a sports column for that newspaper and the article included extracts of his work. I read it through and a few minutes later had the tooth extracted and there is no doubt that the former experience was more enjoyable than the latter. This didn’t surprise me at all, no more than the news that Parky was once ‘Sportswriter of the Year’. Indeed if I were to be told he was the ‘Sportswriter of the Century’ I wouldn’t question it,
since if he is only half as good at sports writing as he was at fawning over film stars and
pop personalities on his tiresome chat show then his sports-writing skills will be of the highest order: -

TV CLIP – PARKY IS WITH PAUL McCARTNEY.

PARKY: Sir Paul, it goes without saying that I have always been one of the greatest admirers of The Beatles since they emerged with such impact on the world of music in the early sixties, and although I’m not one to pick favourites if I were forced to pick my favourite Beatle I would in all honesty have to say it was you. So it gives me added pleasure that the song you have chosen to sing, nay honour us with tonight, is my very, very favourite Beatle number, your very own, quite wonderful, ‘Yesterday’. But before you perform it, in your own inimitable style, could I trouble you Sir Paul, to drop your trousers, so that I can crawl up your arse physically as well as literally?”

But returning to Parky’s ‘Sportswriter of the Year’ award. I mean what’s that all about? An award just for doing your job? Why for God’s sake? And it isn’t just sportswriters who find it necessary to heap glory on themselves just for doing their jobs; the rest of the newspaper writing profession also find it irresistible; so we have a ‘News Reporter of the Year’ award, a ‘Show Business Writer of the Year’ award, a ‘Fashion Writer of the Year’ award, a ‘Theatre Critic of the Year’ award, etc, ad nauseum.

I can understand Film and TV stars showering themselves with awards such as Oscars and Baftas and Tonys and Emmys and whatever acronym they next come up with in order to honour themselves - probably the SAGAS, ‘Shit Actor Great Acceptance Speech’ - because by definition being an actor demands that you are a bit of a show-off. But journalists are supposed to be intelligent people and above such self-aggrandisement.

And if newspapers feel it necessary to garland their most accomplished practitioners with awards, why not other professions? Refuse collectors have collectively blotted their copybook since the advent of wheelie bins and the only award some of them deserve is the ‘Order of the Boot’, but if Sportswriter of the Year why not ‘Ratcatcher of the Year’, a far more deserving cause I would have thought. We can manage without newspaper columnists but a country without ratcatchers would soon find itself in more trouble than the Americans found themselves in in Vietnam. Hospital doctors are equally deserving of recognition. Fancy words in a newspaper are all well and good but of little use to you when you find yourself with a malignant tumour. Give me a man who knows how to deal with cancer of the colon than someone who knows how to use a semi-colon any day of the week. Firemen are surely more worthy than journalists when it comes to the question of receiving recognition for their labours. There are many more examples; people serving in the armed forces, merchant seamen, bomb disposal experts, volunteer lifeboatmen, mountain rescue teams, the list is endless.

But hold on a minute; if these professions honoured their best who would report the matter? The newspapers? “What’s that? A piece about the ‘Ratcatcher of the Year’? Sorry, haven’t the space, we’re doing a two-page colour spread on the ‘Award for the Newspaper Writer who Hasn’t Won Any Other Newspaper Writing Awards’.”