Owen's brush with the Church of England was a brief one...
When I was aged about 10 (in 1935) the Bunwell Sunday School teacher, Miss Alice Ellingham, became concerned about my lack of spiritual and religious education. She told me that she and my cousin, Nina Ramsbottom - the assistant Sunday School teacher - would collect me in her car the following Sunday to take me to Bunwell church for religious instruction. I immediately began exploring ruses for escape as I would much rather be out shooting hapless local wildlife with my father Elijah James.
As luck would have it just a few days later a local farmer, Mr Hudson Chapman, went for a walk on his land in Rectory Road. In one of his meadows he found Miss Ellingham and the (very married) Reverend Kinloch Jones in an extremely compromising up close and personal situation! The Reverend explained that he and Miss Ellingham had gotten carried away. “I fancy you two have been carried away several times before now Reverend” boomed Mr Chapman, a leading tenor in the church choir.
“I’m sure you will not tell anyone about this” said the by now flustered vicar.
“Reverend, I shall take great delight in telling everyone I meet!” replied Mr Chapman. Which he duly did.
Miss Ellingham resigned from her Sunday School position immediately, just in time for me to narrowly escape the clutches of the church for evermore. About a month later Mr Kinloch Jones announced from the pulpit that he had been “called by God to another Living” – which resulted in much tittering in the pews from the congregation.
As a footnote, the Reverend’s unmarried housekeeper had a son that was the spitting image of him. When the vicar first arrived in Bunwell a married lady parishioner who had been trying unsuccessfully to start a family for several years started seeing him weekly for 'spiritual guidance and prayer sessions'. Three months later she was pregnant!
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A relative has told me [Annette] of this little folklore ditty, which seems appropriate!
To the woods, to the woods,
Mother wouldn’t like it,
Mother's not getting it,
Mother will tell the vicar,
I am the vicar,
To the woods!
[Added: 17/03/2022]
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