Issue 10 Autumn 2002

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MAIN ARTICLES Unrest at the parish hall What's your favourite hymn?

OTHER CONTENTS Christmas is coming... Driven by prayer The bluebells

Tarzan of the parish hall

From Gill Flitton

Thanks to Gill Flitton for turning up this hilarious extract from a tape recording made at a bell ringers' get together in about 1960. The storyteller is Harold Caskmore - a noted singer, conductor and composer.

'Yes, I remember when that fracas was going on down at Oxhey because the church was divided.
'Half of them were anti-vicar and half pro-vicar - and that was before the days of parochial church councils. They held a parish meeting and it was mentioned that one of the churchwardens - who was against the vicar - was a boxer. His name was 'Tarzan' Bathurst. The vicar had been a heavyweight at Cambridge.
'At any rate, they called a parish meeting up at the old parish hall in Pinner Road, which had got dormer windows. Well, that was in about 1922 or 1923 and the three of us, my two friends Jack Leigh and Alfie Jackson and I, decided to get up on the roof and look in through the dormer window.
'Alfie Jackson's father kept a grocery store and dairy business in Villiers Road and Alfie used to help him run it. That was in the days when you could buy pepper loose. They kept it in a little drawer behind the counter and weighed it out in 1/2 oz or 1oz as you wanted it.
'Anyway, we got about 1/2lb of this pepper and climbed on the roof. It was a crowded meeting because 'Tarzan' Bathurst had boxed for the army and everybody was looking forward to seeing some rare old fisticuffs between the vicar and churchwarden.
'We were looking down through the dormer window and the argument went on and there was an old man called Pearce, trying to keep them apart and every now and again a woman - a Guide mistress called Miss Pitt - got up and had a protest.
'Her grievance was that the Boy Scouts were allowed to use the parish hall but the Girl Guides were not. The rest of the people there weren't interested and every time she started piping up they shouted: "Sit down and shut up!"
'Meanwhile, the vicar and 'Tarzan' Bathurst were trying to get towards each other. But when they did, they simply shook hands!
'Well, cries went up: "You yellow belly, go and hit him!"
'At this juncture Miss Pitt had enough and blew an almighty blast on her whistle. Out of one of the dressing rooms at the side of the stage emerged all these Girl Guides with placards reading: 'Justice for Girl Guides' and that sort of thing.
'So we decided to get rid of the pepper and we shot it through the dormer window and then we scrambled down to see the result.
'Well, they came out like a swarm of angry bees! The pepper had left them sneezing and coughing and spluttering.
I think they guessed who was at the bottom of it, but we got off alright, except Alfie Jackman. 'His old man was a Primitive Methodist and when he heard about these goings on he put two and two together. So Alfie had to pay - but we other two didn't.'