AS REGULAR AS CLOCKWORK

For me, Sunday school (TE Spring 2022) was not so much about deepening my relationship with my creator as winning the annual attendance prize.

In the 1940s our village acquired a new parson, the Rev G.A. Pare. It was only later I learnt he had been a padre with the troops that fought at Arnhem and what a brave and resourceful man he was: there are glowing references to him in Antony Beevor’s book Arnhem.

He set about waking up our sleepy community: he reorganised the Scouts and Guides, building a new

Scout hut; he paid us children to sing in the church choir – thrupence a week, the money saved and spent on our annual outing to Wicksteed Park; and he offered an annual prize for the best boy/girl attender at Sunday school.

I loved books: my father brought home boxes of books he bought from the big house sales that happened after World War II. Poems, novels, a 12-volume history of the Great War filled with photos and artists’ impressions of the battles; and large watercolour-tinted books of horse racing, hunting and caricatures of the rich and famous.

Now, the pages would be removed, framed and sold for large sums in antique shops. They all fascinated me but I didn’t have any books of my own and the Sunday school prize seemed a good opportunity to collect some.

Over four years I didn’t miss many Sundays; regardless of whether it was wet, or better still, snowy, I was in church collecting my tick in the register. Other children stayed at home; I didn’t. Poor Parson Pare: each year he read out, “The winner for best attender is Roy Jones – again!” I didn’t care; I had another book to devour. I still have them on my shelves.

Roy Jones, Quorn, Leicestershire