Saturday 23 September 10:00pm

I was a little apprehensive after my tea, particularly as I could see and hear the police helicopter hovering above our steeple, and it was only when I explained to one of the uniformed marksmen in full riot gear who ringed the church that I was the Organist and had to do my practice for tomorrow’s service that I was allowed through the cordon, such is the respect accorded to our national faith.

Inside all was quiet, apart from low murmurs from the choir vestry and an occasional hoot of mirth.

Bravely I ventured in to my choir vestry.  And there was mum with a cup of tea and a big smirk on her face, and there was Mrs Ramsbotham, with a cup of tea and another big smirk on her face, and there were the Flower Ladies, similarly armed with cups of tea and smirks.  The floor was littered with used tea-bags and bits of discarded foliage.

“”Ee, ’e’s a grand lad, your Barry”, exclaimed an elderly lady with an eye patch and several blackened teeth, who was introduced to me as Mrs Whimpenny, Head Flower Lady and Mother of Chapel.  “’E fell forrit just like you said ’e would.  Daft as his dad.”

Mum explained.  It was all Antony’s doing.  He had complained to Gwen that he’d had awful attacks of hay fever when he was tidying the music in the vestry and couldn’t sing his solos, and he blamed it on the lilies which the Flower Ladies strew about with gay abandon, and the Flower Ladies, having been tipped off by a disaffected verger, had counter-attacked with the claim that Antony’s singing gave them migraines as well as varicose veins. 

“Eh, cut the cackle”, said Mrs Whimpenny rather sharply to mum. “’E’s your lad.  Tell ’im what he’s got to do.”

But it was Mrs Ramsbotham who took me to one side.  “Barry, dear”,  she said soothingly.  “We want you to use your influential friends in the Press to give publicity to the Flower Ladies’ demands, which are legion. Between you and me, they are afraid the PCC is going to listen to Antony and have plastic flowers adorning the High Altar in future, thus putting them out of a job and therefore their influential position in the ecclesiastical hierarchy.  I and your mum have co-opted all the Flower Ladies onto the PCC as a precaution, but the vote is by no means a foregone conclusion and therefore we need public opinion on our side.  Barry, forget Iraq, forget Afghanistan.  This is serious.”

And then she said:

“And Barry, this stand-off was organised by e-mails which emanated from your laptop. So be a good boy, and do what mum says.  Or else.”

  

I realised that I had been entrapped by low feminine cunning, and my silent plea to James Bond was unforthcoming resultwise.  Then mum handed me a list of things that the flower ladies were demanding and said I was to use my contacts in the National Press to get it on CNN and Sky News. Not the BBC, mum warned me.  Too provincial, also desperately short of funds because they are still paying off Jonathan Woss with the takings from the licence fee.

“You go out there, Barry, and tell the bobs to put down their weapons, then tell the press the truth about the oppression of flower ladies by an unholy alliance of Suffragan Bishops and Choral Scholars.  They have had enough of victimisation and oppression and prejudice, and they have banded together under a banner which will inspire a revolution by flower ladies the world over.  But keep the message simple, Barry, so that they can understand it.”

So I went out and said “the Flower Ladies are revolting, but this is what they want”, and the policemen had a quick chat among themselves and said “sounds reasonable to us, Squire, and you’re dead right, they are.  A more villainous lot I never saw in all my puff.  We’ll have to nip off, though, because Control says someone’s been spotted riding a bike without lights, and the helicopter’s already up. Have a nice day.”