And so I asked him.

‘Hmmph mm mmph?’ I went.

And then I removed the stuffing from my mouth. ‘What are you on about?’ I asked him.

‘And he speaks the sacred Lancashireland.’ And the priest fell down on his knees. And the lovelies fell down on their knees too all around me. And that was a really good look, I’m telling you.

‘Up,’ I said. To the priest. Eventually. ‘Speak to me clearly.’

‘Yes sir, yes.’ And he called out now to some underling, ‘Bring the sacred pouch. Display the sacred tools of Godhead.’

Which made me a trifle edgy. Because there was always the chance that a sacred pouch might contain the celestial castrating shears, or some other such sacred tool.

And an underling scuttled in and this underling had my rucksack.

‘Oi!’ I said. ‘That’s mine. Give it back.’

‘Oh yes, your sirness, yes,’ said the priest. ‘But please, might I display the sacred tools? Might I touch the sacred tools?’

‘If you must,’ I said. And I shrugged. Which reminded me of the Shrugger. And I wondered whatever had become of him.

But not for long, as the priest had now taken my rucksack from the underling and had reverently opened it and was now spreading its contents out upon the sacrificial altar.

‘You have them,’ he said, in a hushed and awestruck tone. ‘As it was prophesied. In a different prophecy altogether. The one about the coming of the Special One. You have the sacred tools.’ And he pulled out a stick of dynamite. Which made me flinch somewhat. But there weren’t any naked flames about, so I relaxed slightly.

‘You have them!’ he cried, in an exalted fashion.

‘I do,’ I said. ‘And they’re mine, so be careful.’

‘Oh yes, sir, yes.’ And he stroked the stick of dynamite. ‘The Little Stick of Blackpool Rock,’ he said.

And I remembered that song well enough – I’d rehearsed that particular George Formby number a goodly number of times in the music room of Southcross Road School.

And the priest laid out the six sticks of dynamite. ‘One for each of the ministers of the church,’ he said.

‘Absolutely,’ I said. What is this all about? I thought.

And then his hands were once more inside my rucksack. In a rather intimate manner, I thought. Although I suppose it had never occurred to me that one could get all precious about the contents of a rucksack. But then I’d never owned one before.

‘And yes!’ cried the priest. ‘You do have it. The sacred strummupon. The Instrument of God.’ And he drew out the ukulele that Mr Ashbury Molesworth had sold to me as a useful means of passing the time when trapped hopelessly far beneath ground level.

‘That’s also mine,’ I said. And I took it from his hands.

‘And so,’ he said, in a breathless fashion, ‘can you strum the holy hymns upon the sacred strum-upon?’

‘Can I!’ said I.

‘Well, can you?’ said he.

‘Yes, I can,’ said I. ‘Would you care for me to sing you a song?’

And the priest was speechless. But he nodded. And then he said, ‘Sing one of the holy hymns of the George. Oh yes.’

And I took to checking whether the uke was in tune.

‘It’s G, C, E and A,’ I explained. ‘Or as we musicians say, my dog has fleas.’

And his head bobbed up and down.

And I said, ‘Okay, it’s in tune. So what would you like to hear?’

And the priest just turned up the palms of his hands and said, ‘Anything, Lord sir.’

‘Okey-dokey,’ I said. ‘In that case I will play one of my own compositions. I wrote this number in my head, when I lay in a coma in a hospital bed. But you don’t need to concern yourself with that. I wrote it for one of my favourite authors. He is known as the Father of Far-Fetched Fiction and his name is Robert Rankin.’

The priest viewed me, blankly.

‘Well, he is something of an acquired taste. But I wrote this song for him to sing. And it is sung to the tune of George Formby’s “When I’m Cleaning Windows”.’

‘It’s called-’

WRITING FAR-FETCHED FICTION

‘And it goes something like this.’ And I played and I sang. And it sounded something like this. To the tune of ‘When I’m Cleaning Windows’.

And then, oh how we laughed.

Because, can you believe this, he was winding me up, that priest. Having a laugh. And he clapped his hands together and told me that it was a beautiful song, so beautiful, in fact, that the George himself might have written it. And he commented upon the quality of the lyrics and enquired what the phrase golden showers meant.

And I told him.

And he nodded and said that he was rather keen on that kind of thing himself. But then as everything was golden hereabouts, what was I to expect? And then he begged me to play some more. And so I did.

I did straight, classic George this time. ‘Leaning on a Lamp Post’, ‘Grandad’s Flannelette Nightshirt’, ‘Riding in the T. T. Races’, and of course ‘Little Stick of Blackpool Rock’. To which the priest waved one of my sticks of dynamite about and I had to stop playing and ask him to put it down.

But my performance drew much applause, especially from the golden girlies, who were still kneeling down all around me. And I figured that I was definitely going to get some hot group-groupie action later on.

Or as soon as possible, if the chance arose.

And the priest wanted more, but I told him that enough was enough for now and that I was actually a bit hungry, because it had been a trying day and I wouldn’t say no to a good sit down and some tucker. And the priest said that yes, there should be a celebrational banquet to greet the arrival of the Special One, and he clapped his hands together and got some of his underlings straight onto the job.