Low life | 6 August 2015

On Saturday my boy had a mini-stroke at home, aged only 26. ‘You’ll have to give up smoking and do a spot of exercising now and again,’ I told him as the ambulance drove away. Smoking is his solace and consolation. ‘Out of the question,’ he said. On Sunday morning I went to church. ‘Your son ought to have taken the option of going to hospital,’ said the vicar before the service. Before becoming a vicar, she was a medical missionary in Papua New Guinea for 40 years and one wonders at the mental adjustment required for dealing with the subtler barbarities of a pretty English village. ‘He’s going to the doctor first thing tomorrow morning. Or so he says,’ I told her.

The service was a special Songs of Praise celebration. Holidaymakers and dilettantes such as myself swelled the congregation to around 50-strong. I went with my mother, who is an active church member and only ever misses a service through illness.