The Collar and the Cab

In an act of pure opportunist self-promotion and in the hope of selling some I am publishing some extracts from my new book The Collar and the Cab on this blog. There are 35 chapters so it will take a couple of months to offer a little from each. 

  30
City Centre West – The Shipping
Forecast and Sailing By

 It was, perhaps, at the mid-point of the second year of my
sentence in what had become, by now, a very agreeable pattern of
life with which I was very much at ease, that I began seriously to
look again at the idea of returning to the world I had left behind.
This was no easy decision; whilst the long hours spent sitting in
a private hire car left me with a sensation of almost permanent
tiredness, and with some extra girth round my middle due to
the virtual impossibility of building a regular exercise routine
into my weekly timetable, it was also comfortably familiar by
now. Compared to my former existence this work environment
was virtually stress-free. I was earning a good wage, and always
had the opportunity of earning a little more should it be needed.
One week I put in an extra shift in order to send some money to
my eldest son who was struggling to have enough to live on at
university. I really enjoyed an environment where I was able to
see my weekly wage accumulating in the very tangible form of
cash being placed into my hand. Ministry I knew to be poorly
paid, and involved hard and often unappreciated work. In the
stress stakes it resembled a button on one of my shirts now that
I had put on a stone or two – one more cream cake and the
uneven struggle to hold back the tide of human flesh would
be history.

 So why go back to it all? Well there was the official reason
which contained a grain of truth, and the real reason which
held enough for several loaves of bread. To the ecclesiastical
establishment and the few remaining pious friends I had failed
to offend with the coarse language and humour that had made
its way into my social intercourse I gave the impression that
ministry was a divine calling, and ultimately if that is what
you are created by the Almighty to do there is no real peace or
satisfaction in anything else.
This was by no means untrue. Clergy of all shades and
persuasions tend to be a slightly odd bunch in much the same
manner as Morris Dancers, Bog Snorkellers and Train Spotters,
and whether this is the way we are put together in the womb
or the result of the sausage-machine training process of a
theological college is really irrelevant – that’s the way it is. But if
I am honest most of this is bovine excrement. Concurrent with
the repair to my self-esteem was the rediscovery of something
I had feared was lost forever, my competitive instinct and
refusal to concede defeat. Put simply I hated losing at anything,
a questionable quality that had landed me in trouble in sports
fixtures but helped to ensure far more wins than losses. My last
job as a minister had been a failure, but the two preceding it had
generally been regarded as successes, and such ignominy was
no note on which to end a career. I had to give it one more go in
order to prove – to myself in particular – that I was still hot stuff
in the pulpit and vestry. So I entered the ecclesiastical marriage
bureau for what I hoped would be the final time.

 

 What was it about Sailing By at 12.45 a.m. that made it so
unmissable? Perhaps it was the juxtaposition of two contrasting
maritime images. A melody redolent with suggestions of a
tranquil sea with gentle ripples generated by the zephyr blowing
offshore with just sufficient strength to fill the sails of the small
dinghies ploughing their way across the bay catching the passing
interest of families on a sun-drenched beach licking ice-creams.
Then the Shipping Forecast with reports from coastal stations
delivered with no background music and a voice straight from
the waxworks museum warning of gales in Humber, Fastnet and
the Irish Sea, not to mention the even graver horrors awaiting
those who ventured into Hebrides, Bailey, South-east Iceland and
North Utsire. There was something evocative about the images of
a catamaran rocked by gentle waves off the coast of the English
Riviera set alongside that of the grizzled skipper of a small fishing
boat with more hair on his face than on top of it steering a steady
course in a wheelhouse lashed by storms with the harbour lights
of Stornoway just visible through the murky night; and in my
image there was always a tin mug with piping hot tea that seemed
to defy gravity while the storm tossed the vessel around like a toy,
making the average white knuckle ride at the leading theme park
seem like a children’s roundabout at the local recreation ground.
All this seemed as a parable of life; which of the two images
was the reality – the storm-tossed fishing boat off the north-west
coast of Scotland or the sedate progress of the pleasure boat?
There is a whole world to ponder in that question and to the
extent that my philosophical faculties were capable of such feats
on the wrong side of midnight I did my best. I think I concluded
that they were both genuine in their own way, but if you really
wanted to appreciate what life in a boat was like you have to
endure the rough stuff to appreciate the delights of the pleasure
craft. In any case whatever I was doing, and whoever was in the
cab at that time this was compulsory listening.
The other thing about the Shipping Forecast was that once it
was complete, the National Anthem had been played and Radio
4 had begun transmitting the World Service, I knew I was into
the home straight of my shift, and this was always a welcome
moment, because by this stage I had been working for up to ten
hours and I could just about begin hearing the call of my bed.