Escaping Sunday School

My favourite memory of Sunday School is the collection pouch. As the cloth bag travelled around the room by its wooden handle, hands, large and small, would disappear into a private world. No one knew how much money each member of the congregation had put in. Whether someone was rich or poor, generous or mean, was a mystery. Did the adults even suspect what some of the children were doing? Were some of the adults involved in the same criminal activities?

It started with children putting their hands in, but not releasing a coin. It progressed to children funding glorious trips to the village shop with the money of others. Parents, unknowingly, stopped paying their chosen cheap rates for the childminding service of religious indoctrination, and the children made a profit from mumbling prayers. The day that a child with curly red hair, took a five-pound note from the soft velvet pouch, will forever impress me. He came with 10p and left with £5.10. He had big ginger balls. And, yes, I do remember his name.

It was more profitable than playing the stock market. It was gambling with limited risk. What was the danger? Being caught and expelled? Going to live in a nasty place in the afterlife, in a very distant future, that was impossible to comprehend and might not even exist? We had yet to figure out the full details of where babies came from, and whether Father Christmas would stop coming if we announced our longstanding knowledge that he was a big bearded myth. The afterlife was of little value. For those of us that weren’t even Christened, Sunday school was a chore and a bore. Personally, I hated it.

Then, on one glorious sunny day, my Dad made his announcement. If we could find an alternative activity for Sunday mornings, then our days of Sunday morning churchgoing were over. It was an incredibly clever tactic on my Dad’s part. The only other option in our village was to get out on the water; that is to find a boat and to sail. Within a month, four of his five children were sailing every week and seeing it as a privilege. The youngest child was too young to take himself to Sunday school and got out of it altogether. My Dad loved sailing, and instead of pushing us into sharing his hobby, he gave it to us as a treat.

It may seem odd, but the local kids didn’t play on the lake that was as big as the village itself. To get out of Sunday school, we had to develop social skills. We had to find a boat to sail in and we had to make acquaintances. None of us knew how to helm to racing standards and we didn’t want to sail with each other.

With fortuitous timing, after two weeks of hanging around at the sailing club, whilst pretending to seek activity, my older sister heard a rumour. It seemed that a young spunk called Walter Mondale was looking for a shipmate. I was a nonconformist child, with leanings towards idiotic behaviour, and it frustrated the hell out of my sister that the villagers thought I was thick. She already had a place sailing in our Dad’s beast of a boat and she wanted me to take the opportunity to get out there too. Walter was a year younger than me and my sister had a plan. She was determined that the prize was mine. She knew that I needed new friends and new chances.

It was a close shave. With two younger sisters, far from puberty, but already desperately horny, I had competition on my hands. They were confident and I was nervous. One of them wanted Walter for herself. My older, protective sister sent me forth immediately, holding my younger sister back. "You have to go and ask him" she forcefully instructed. In complete and utter fear I did. My rival was as angry as hell by my success. Despite being two years my junior, she was used to winning in the social arena. Needless to say, it didn’t take long for Walter’s older brother to be talked into taking on that challenge.

Looking back, leaving Sunday school and finding Walter was probably one of the most important moments of my life. I bravely did what I feared, and asked to be accepted. In doing so, I found a friend that I’m still very fond of to this day. Walter was friendly, self-assured and charmingly clumsy. He didn’t ask any questions and he didn’t look at me like I was a freak. He didn’t fancy me and I didn’t fancy him. He seemed to have an attitude that life just happens; if I asked, then of course the answer would be ‘yes’. It felt odd and liberating to find acceptance with no judgement. I’d spent my whole life being judged. I lived in a small village where people have nothing better to do.

And so, the age of unrivalled idiocy began.

Walter didn’t have to be a good helm and I didn’t have to be a good crew. We sang our hearts out. Walter used twee phrases such as ‘Pardon my French’, and I made plans to freak out the other racers by going the wrong way. Getting stuck in the reeds was the biggest hoot of all. In my memory, every moment that we spent sailing together is glossed with hilarity; from the time that we collided with a windsurfer and gained a great hole, to the day that we won first place by sheer fluke.

Occasionally, Walter wanted to win, and occasionally he got bossy, but, ultimately, he seemed to realise the virtue of having a crew that didn’t give a crap. He was growing like a beanstalk and loved to talk. Whatever his intention, his focus would always drift. He couldn’t let me outtalk him and I put up a good challenge. I never wore my glasses and could barely see. Walter grew more clumsy and put his knee through the woodwork. People could hear us laughing and singing raucously from miles away. Okay, and having the odd argument too.

Last night, while I was out and about, the conversation journeyed from a forthcoming Christening, to Sunday school. A concise version of my great escape from colouring in Jesus came to the fore. For a brief moment, Walter was in the pub with me, if only in my mind.

On returning home, to complete the circle, I read his blog. It was then that I discovered, that while I had been declaring to the world at large that I would never steal from Mondale (the Sunday School collection pouch was on people’s minds), and he was still a dear friend to this day, that he was publicly inviting me to a magical event. Considering that Walter and I have met up once in the last 16 years, I find the synchronicity outstanding.

I find it even odder that I have been invited to just two events next year, one on the 20th June and the other on the 21st. They are both only days before Glastonbury and many geographical miles apart. The logistical nightmare of 2009 begins. The former is a wedding in a castle. I love castles.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, the latter event is fictional, but we could make it real I'm sure. I hang out with Lord Nelson and the Duke of Edinburgh on a regular basis. I last saw Mr Cumpstey at Reclaim the Streets in 1997. It was just before I took a very public leak outside the National Gallery (not the first in that location, but the first in daylight and in company). I bumped into one of my brother's old school friends doing the same.

On a side note, they have free public toilets in Trafalgar Square these days and it has been reclaimed. There's no more catching the number 13 night bus home from the National G for me and, more regrettably, a notable absence of partying in the street protests. The violence won and ruined it for everyone. For a while it was fabulous. Truly fabulous; a million smiles from Sunday School, and not unlike sailing with Master Mondale. It too celebrated the glorious and gleeful pleasure of semi-organised chaos.

For more about Walter Mondale, you can read his childhood letters to me here:
The Letters of Walter Mondale

Fabpants Recommends: I woke up this morning and this song was in my head:

Download MP3: The Fiery Furnaces - I'm In No Mood (courtesy of dmoon.ru)



I didn’t even get drunk last night. What’s all that about?