17. Smallchurch

What Ho Proles!

Every town has a history, and if you’ll permit me a few moment of your time, I’d like to give you the potted chronicle of Smallchurch, a small town that lies to the North East of the village of C---- N---- and the destination for the Murgatroid political bandwagon that Wednesday morning in April, the Year of Our Lord, 2005.

The county of C---- N---- may have taken its name from the village, but Smallchurch is considered the industrial heartland of the region. I like to think of it as our version of the Ruhr Valley only with fewer shipments of heavy armaments. It would also be the key to any election success.

Yet Smallchurch’s status as the most important local town has only come about since the late eighteenth century. Before then, Smallchurch was nothing more than an outcrop of buildings dominated by an abattoir and the world’s smallest parish church. In fact, St. Leonard’s Church of the Inviolate Sirloin holds no less than four world records, including one for the smallest congregation for any organised religion. Since the church has only three pews, each capable of seating two parishioners, its congregation is limited to six people standing, three people kneeling, or two drunks keeping dry on a rainy Tuesday afternoon. The last is the most typical scenario, which has given rise to the town’s second record: the world’s smallest hobo population.

Their names are Dave and Smelly Pete and given the strange way things operate in these post-enlightenment days, they are feted as celebrities and even have their own late night show on local radio. It’s to the mutual benefit for both the radio station and Dave and Pete, who fill the airwaves with their educated banter and choice of light popular music in exchange for a roof over their heads through the night.

The church’s unusual dimensions also explains the rather strange events of one October evening in the year 1645, when Sinclair Murgatroid, a local doctor and distant relative of mine, was burned at the stake after being accused of witchcraft on account of his being nearly six feet tall, which, in those days, made him a giant among men. It had taken no time at all for six diminutive members of the diminutive church to become radicalised by Matthew Hopkins, the so-called Witchfinder General, who happened to be passing through the hamlet that evening. Clearly ignoring European directives on both air pollution and limits on the amount of work done outside office hours, Hopkins had my great uncle pegged out and lit within ten minutes of the poor doctor arriving for what he thought would be the usual weekly choir rehearsal.

A memorial now stands outside the church commemorating Dr. Sinclair Murgatroid, who still holds world records for the smallest choir rehearsal, the shortest choir rehearsal, and the highest note sang -- though I imagine it was more likely to have been screamed -- during a choir rehearsal.

After such a dark early history, it is strangely appropriate that the town has subsequently become famous for something as innocuous as sugar tongs.

The town’s growth came with the railways, which turned the small hamlet into the most populated part of the county. The town quickly outgrew the church, if not the name, and became best known for the factory that makes the famous Smallchurch sterling silver sugar tongs, as used by European royalty, diplomats, and just about anybody who has considered the hygiene implications of handling sugar cubes before putting them into your tea.

If sugar tongs seem inappropriate to a town with such a sinister history as Smallchurch, they achieved the own level of appropriateness by becoming the instrument of choice for torturers during the Austrian-Prussian war that ended in 1866. There was even a time, during the last century, when the advertising for Smallchurch Stirling Silver Co. included a recommendation from a certain Hans Sprougel, the famous one-eyed Bavarian castrato who claimed to have owed his career in the opera to a pair of Smallchurch sugar tongs. They even had tea towels made to commemorate his high C sharp.

Bavarian torture chambers and a German singing opera in a high falsetto voice filled my mind with grim thoughts as the Murgatroid convoy descended on the town just before lunchtime that Wednesday afternoon.

The Bentley driven by My Man carried Cyril Henderson, and myself as passengers, while Ms. Spoon and Mrs. Priggs, who had ‘come along for the ride’, were in Larry ‘Bomber’ Harris’ Ford Focus at our rear.

‘We’ll make quite an entrance, don’t you think?’ I said as My Man steered the car into one of the pedestrianised streets leading to the town square.

He gazed out at the scared faces of pedestrians running before the grill. ‘I should imagine they’ll remember this for a very long time,’ he said with a shake of his head.

I have to admit that it was a bit of a tight fit negotiating all the bollards, No Entry signs, and pushchairs, and when a chap barged into the car, I had to take a moment from giving My Man directions in order to wind down the window and inform the clumsy fellow of the price of a Bentley wing mirror. I don’t think he was all that impressed, but that’s the problem with these Smallchurch folk. They have such large chips on their shoulders...

We set up our stall between the local branch of Waterstones and a Dorothy Perkins. I figured we’d corner at least two segments of the political market: those people who enjoy books and those people who enjoy larger gussets. It was a good plan and it didn’t take long before the balloons and streamers began to attract attention.

‘For heaven’s sake, man! Don’t give them to children,’ I whispered to My Man after he’d wasted a couple of balloons on a pair of brats who appeared to show no interest in the pamphlets I’d handed them describing the Tory cause. ‘They can’t vote, wouldn’t vote, and are probably not interested in the whole democratic process if you paid them in candy.’

Cyril Henderson must have heard me. He idled up to my side and whispered into my ear.

‘Children are the key, Murgatroid,’ he said as he crunched an extra strong mint.

‘Really?’ I asked.

He put a hand on my shoulder and breathed some his patented political freshness into my ear.

‘Adults love their children,’ he explained. ‘They tend to appreciate it when people admire their children. Why on earth do you think we would want to bother with them?’

‘Seems a bit hard to believe,’ I said looking over at a group of innocents who looked about as innocent as smallpox.

‘Give the children the balloons,’ Henderson said, pushing a string into my hands. ‘The parents will thank you in the long term. And it will make you look almost human.’

And they say we politicos don’t face danger on a daily basis...

I strolled up to the small group of tykes, brats, and delinquent infants, and picked out a little sniffler of the female variety. She had bright yellow hair into which she’d managed to coax a bar of sticky toffee. I smiled at her and she belched quite enthusiastically. I gritted my teeth, telling myself that this is what it’s probably like in the House of Lords on a quiet day.

‘A balloon for you, my dear,’ I said, holding out the string at the full stretch of my arm.

She took it between her fingers and belched again.

‘You really do enjoy doing that, don’t you?’ I said, forcing a smile to my lips.

Her eyes narrowed and I took a step back.

‘Well, there’s no need to adopt that attitude,’ I said, stretching to my full height.

She took a step forward and I can’t deny that I scampered away as quickly as I could.

When I turned around, the child was strolling off. All I saw was the name Murgatroid on the side of a pale blue balloon floating above the heads of the shoppers and disappeared behind C&A.

‘Perhaps you shouldn’t do that again’ said Cyril as I wandered back.

‘I thought it went rather well,’ I said as I set about straightening my tie.

He looked towards Mrs. Priggs, a woman who can always be guaranteed to express exactly what she was thinking. ‘It actually made me fear for the country,’ she said with a rather high-handed sniff.

‘You should definitely keep away from children,’ agreed Cyril.

Well, if that was the only outcome of that little experiment, I didn’t think of it as being all that fruitless.

A few minutes later, Henderson sidled off to find a shop selling more of his favourite mints while I instructed Mrs. Priggs on the finer points of balloon distribution. I’d decided to take charge of the leaflets we’d produced in a bit of a rush the previous day. They summarised the things for which I stood and the things I despised, though after Larry Harris, Cyril Henderson and Melvin Jenkins had each gone over them with their red biros, most of my quibbles had gone the way of shillings, sherbet fountains, and quality television on the BBC.

Still, the locals seemed interested as I thrust the slips of paper into their hands and I’d nearly distributed the lot when Larry Harris appeared at my side. He’d disappeared almost as soon as we’d arrived and he returned looking strangely victorious.

‘I’ve done it,’ he said. ‘I’ve managed to get a few hacks to come down to hear what you’ve got to say. Have you got your speech ready?’

I cursed as only a gentleman can when there are children close by. I blinked. A hard and certain blink.

‘Now?’ I asked.

He laughed. ‘I can’t believe you’ve not got a speech ready,’ he said. ‘A politician always has a speech ready.’

As it happened, I did have a speech ready. I always have a speech ready. In fact, since My Man types up most of my words, I make sure that he carries copies around with him wherever he goes.

‘Well then,’ said Larry. ‘You can give your maiden campaign speech today. Let’s say ten minutes, shall we?’ He looked around and spotted somebody in the crowd. He waved a hand and then gave them the thumbs up. ‘I’ll organise something for you to stand on,’ he said and then he walked away muttering something about it being ‘a lucky think I brought the megaphone.’

I felt my heart start to beat a little faster as I realised that my campaign was about to begin.