Having a Go …

One of the people I am most grateful to have known is a gentleman called Dick Scott. Dick was a retired engineer living in my first parish (St George Salford) and an absolute stalwart of the church. He was widely respected and would have been a red-hot favourite to be churchwarden, except for his refusal to do it. His reason was nothing to do with responsibility or additional work, it was to do with his past.

Dick had been churchwarden of two churches in Salford, both of which were demolished (one to make way for a ring-road and one because of terminal dry-rot) and he felt he was jinxed. At St George’s we had a brand-new church and family centre, hard won after four years of fundraising, and in saying ‘no’ to being churchwarden he felt he was doing his bit to ensure that a third church didn’t get demolished.

This fear aside he was a profoundly rational man, and a poster boy for practical experimentation. Probably the best example of this is how he chose to deal with some painful sciatica in one of his legs. He speedily decided that Ibuprofen and gentle walking was not a sufficient response, and he had a theory that traction would be a sounder treatment. To test his theory, he attached a rope from his leg to a large plastic container filled with water and asked his wife to lower it carefully over the stair-rail opposite the open door of his bedroom. His wife, Lillian, a petite woman, lost control of the water container and dropped it down the stairs and then watched helplessly as Dick was dragged from his bed into the hall stair rails. It didn’t cure his sciatica. Although this experiment was widely agreed to have been a failure, Dick was applauded for having a go.

DIY traction is to be avoided but taking a risk and trying something new is still a good idea. One of the most regular and biggest regrets I have heard over my forty years as a priest is people wishing, towards the end of their lives, that they had taken more risks.

May I commend this to you as something to consider? If there is something you’ve always wanted to do, but have always been too nervous, why not take your courage in both hands this year and have a go!

David Knight
Vicar of Fletching, Piltdown and Sheffield Park