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Saturday 30 August 2008

Diary

Beryl Bainbridge puts on a Liverpudlian accent and goes searching for St George

My dear friend Paul Bailey has just been received into the Catholic church, as a convert not a priest. I sent him a little silver cross to stand on his bedside table. Many years ago I too entered the church, mostly because I hoped a fear of everlasting hell would keep me on the straight and narrow. Unfortunately the church went all mushy a few months later and has remained so ever since. You have to hug people at the end of the service. Paul is fortunate in that the Pope has decided that the old Latin Mass should be reinstated. The cross I sent wasn’t made of real silver, which was lucky because it got lost in the post.

According to the Book of Days St George was born in the year 303, and made a fortune out of selling bacon to the army. He was later ordained Archbishop of Alexandria and increased his wealth by plundering the temples and taxing the Christians. Then some group or other rose up and threw him into prison, after which a mob stormed the building, dragged him out, hacked him into bits and threw his body into the sea. Gibbon labelled him a scoundrel, which I thought was a slang expression; it isn’t, it’s just a foreign word. Why on earth George was made our patron saint is a mystery. There’s a pub near me where they drape a red flag over the windows whenever England is playing another country at football. Some people think this decoration belongs to the British National Party.

What better way to start a wet day in April than a visit to the local hospital to undergo a vigorous examination of one’s mutilated chest. The remaining bosom receives such probing attention that one feels elated. While waiting to be ravaged I was approached by a lady with a medical problem situated higher up. She said, ‘Greetings, Dame Sybil,’ and hugged me. I swear she was accompanied by a dragon.

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