Sermons & Shellacs

Come closer, my rib-shivering colleagues, and let your cockles be warmed by this wintry tale.

There I was, this last Thursday, lingering at the intersection of North End and Racton roads, with my pal, the Pelican Whippersnapper (a puckish sort, with a crafty aspect, and a fellow alumnus of the ragged school), and indulging, quite snugly, in a spot of adolescent chin music.

He’d just returned from helping his father de-louse some bedding in Rickman's Rents (Narrow Street, Limehouse, thanks for asking). He still had a few traces of permethrin powder on his clothing. I leant over to brush some off his shoulder.

We were jawing over the state of the local polonies, and how the curve of some of their ankles reproduced the delicate sweep of the pediments that sit atop that handsome façade in Stevenage Road.

We were also reflecting upon how our beloved boys, them what ply their trade in the black and white, might prosper this coming Saturday evening when confronted with those lesser black-and-whiters from Tyneside.

Presently, our most high-minded wittering was disturbed by some muffled thunderings, underway further down the market. Someone had been on the loud-mouth soup.

We dandied on down to the site of the ructions.

A crowd had gathered, no doubt expecting either a glorious epiphany to part the clouds of their existential gloom or, at the very least, a gratis set of kitchen knives. Alas, today they would be going home blade-less, and with their moral compasses still spinning like billy-o.

Some low-rent twicer had constructed a makeshift hustings upon which to deliver a scalding sermon to the unassuming market-dwellers, harmlessly trying to assemble a few victuals.

An obstreperous knocker from the gospel shop, he was giving all of those within earshot a right verbal handbagging. Haranguing quite liberally he was, accusing his audience of being slack and back-handed. He was the distillate of all that is vexatious and pernickety.

Nudging through the throng, we could see that he was in fact balancing upon on an unwieldy pile of scratched and cracked shellacs. As he rattled out his bilious volleys of pelting-speech, punctuating his accusations with prods and pokes, he rocked like a storm-tossed sailor, yielding helplessly to the stack’s unsteadiness.

The tone of his tirade was apparent: we were all crumbs ‘neath the Devil’s fingernails (and quite possibly, the scurf on his tail, and the tarnish on his trident too, for all I could surmise).

He was bellyaching about the state of the neighbourhood: how we were sinners, spinners, infidels and n’er-do-wells, and how we were all overdue a one-to-one with old Mr. Grim.

The stuff about being lowly and forsaken I could weather: after all, we’re all of us only ever one step from the gutter. But his dockside manner chafed my sensibilities no end. It was like someone adjusting me braces without introducing themselves first.

What a sixpenny schlemiel he was!

His oratory technique grated too: there were glottal stops and non-sequiturs tumbling out of his gob like some kind of anti-grammatical ectoplasm.

At any minute I was expecting him to spout some hackneyed trader’s spiel: “Four linen shifts, two pair of muslin ruffles, and a set of copper-bottomed saucepans…sold! to the shrinking lady in the violet affair. I’d get some ointment on that, love!”

Well, he got some hackles up and no shamming.

But oh! how he fled when the turnips and beets began raining down upon his evangelical bonce, courtesy of yours truly and the Pelican. He thought that Old Scratch himself had singled him out for some kind of divine tuber-related retribution. All of his past transgressions went rattling along behind his eyes like some kind of debauched ticker-tape.

As he tried to dodge this plague of produce, he tottered and fell, spawning a swirling confetti of pious pamphlets amid the shrapnel of splintering 78s.

He then skidded off down Tournay Road like copper off a collection plate. That’ll teach him not to be so sudden and upfront on our territory.

If he wants a lesson in expounding in a succinct and direct manner, he wants to come down the Cottage when a game’s pulsating and everyone’s dander’s up, and hear the practised eloquence on offer there.

So thick is the air with cusses and expletives that, at times, you could reach up, and fair pluck them out of the ether with your pinkies.

Then, if you were so inclined, you could thread them onto a piece of waxy twine and fix ‘em up so that they stretched from one side of the Johnny Stevenage Stand to the other like a string of sparkly X-rated Christmas lights.

Even the cherub-faced understrappers join in sometimes. I’ve even seen a few little ‘uns hoisted on to their parents shoulders so as to reach up and seize some filthy idiom in their chubby little mittens.

Anyway, having stood lapel to lapel as unelected guardians of our beloved parish, we opted to let modesty form the better part of valour and slipped away.

Knowing that the tide would be low, we wandered off down to the river for a swift session of ducks and drakes on the foreshore.

So, friends, until the next time, steer clear of trumpery and take care to avoid the morning drop.

Flamin’ scallions and Up The Fulham!