THE DECK OF CARDS: 'I Was that Soldier'

VINYL RECORDS have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember; firstly in my childhood home, and then later with my own proud collection. That situation nearly ended when moving house in the early 90’s. I wheeled my entire record collection on a sack trolley to a charity shop with the wheels buckling. However, they told me they could not give them away. It was the golden age of the CD. I kept them, I still have them, and many more and some are worth a decent few bob today.

Of all the records I enjoyed from the Beatles to the Ballads, there was one unusual 45 single which blew me away at an early age. I was ten years old when I heard it somewhere and it was 1974. It was Wink Martindale’s 1959 recording of ‘The Deck of Cards' - a spoken word story over music. By today’s standards it would be sickly sweet, but we were the generation of the Little House on the Prairie. Anyway, back then it was the cleverest thing I had heard so far in life. I had to have my own copy; there was pocket money to spend.

But finding a 15 year old obscure record in 1974 was not easy. There was no eBay and the web was only for spiders. I tried everywhere. I even wrote to my big sister who worked in London to try there, but it was a needle in a haystack.

I continued the search for what seemed like years, and it may have been. But to be honest, by the time I discovered the Bay City Rollers I had probably forgotten it. That was until this week.

A kind lady gave me two bags of records she was throwing away.

Some 45’s dropped out of some of the LP sleeves. As I gathered them up I could not believe what was in my hands. It was ‘‘The Deck of Cards''

THE STORY of the recording is that of a young American soldier who gets into trouble with his superiors for spreading out a deck of cards during church service. He appears before an officer where he appeals the “purity of his intentions”.

He goes on to explain that when fighting in the war he had neither Bible nor Prayer Book, only this deck of cards. But every card he turned reminded him of something in the Bible. So the Ace was the one true God, duce was the old and new Testaments, three the Holy Trinity.

Then followed the four Gospels before an unusual one: the five Virgins who trimmed their lamps, and the five that didn’t. The six days to create Heaven and Earth, the rest on the seventh day, the Sabbath. The eight people who were saved on Noah’s Ark, the nine lepers who never said thanks, and the Ten Commandments of course.

Finally, the King and Queen of Heaven and the Jack: The Devil himself.

THERE WAS a further useful mathematical exercise that linked to all kinds of useful stuff before the solder was told “you have no charge to answer, son.”

I was telling some friends the story at coffee that Sunday, which happened to be Easter. They seemed to like it and even tried to guess what each card would be. Nobody got the five virgins.

One man was pondering hard; a man in his 60’s who had battled serious health challenges. ‘‘It just reminded me,” he said, “that our generation had something to believe in, and something to fall back on when life got hard.”

He felt concerned and a bit sad that the next generation probably wouldn’t have that and what would they have instead to cope with life?

There followed much discussion of shared concern and stories until somebody asked what the actual answer could be. Unfortunately, that was a card none of us had to play.

The last line on the record was the best part. Wink Martindale asks us how he knows the story is true. He leaves us in no doubt with his final words, “I know, because I was that soldier.”

I had always wondered where that saying came from. ■