Diary of a Shopkeeper, 4th January
The rehearsals for the carol concert had been going well until we started on ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas.’ Our dulcet tones rang out, filling the bike shed, there being no room at the pub where we usually practice.
‘On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me:
a partridge in a pear tree.
On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me:
two calling birds, and a partridge in a pear tree.’
It was then that everything went agley.
‘On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me:
three French hens, two calling birds, and a partridge in a pear tree.’
‘Stop!’ came an angry cry from someone in the back row. It was King Clapshot.
‘What’s wrong?’ said the minister, out front. ‘I thought it sounded marvellous.’
‘I’ll tell you what’s wrong,’ said King Clapshot. ‘Who wrote this carol? Zeta Thunberg and Jeremy Corbett?’
‘What are you on about, KC?’ said Kiwi Kate from the far end of the back row.
‘I’m on about French hens,’ he said. ‘French hens? Why do we need French hens? Coming over here, taking our chicken feed. Haven’t we got hens of our own? Great British hens?’
‘It’s a damp disgrace,’ piped up a voice from the treble section, Wee Andy Creak. ‘I hear they get put up in luxury hen coops somewhere in Birsay. Meanwhile our own poultry have to peck and scratch to get by.’
The minister held up a hand, palm towards the grumblers. ‘Now now,’ she said, ‘We’re here to celebrate the season with songs of love and peace: let’s not descend into politics.’
‘I wish we didn’t have to,’ said Clapshot. ‘But the way they come sailing across the channel in their hen-arks, great flocks of them…’
‘Please,’ cried the minister. ‘It’s a time for tolerance! Indeed, in the Book of Luke Jesus has stern words for those who would stone strangers. He says we must shelter such poor souls: ‘them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings.’
‘I’m not saying stone the hens,’ said Clapshot.
‘Stone the crows!’ shouted Wee Andy.
‘Shut up, Creak,’ said Clapshot. ‘I’m not saying we should stone any feathered creature. I'm just saying we should look after our own Gallus gallus domesticus first. I mean, avian flu, where did that come from? Nowhere domestic.’
‘Probably China,’ said Wee Andy.
‘Quite likely,’ said Clapshot. ‘If we’d kept the Chinese birds out, we wouldn’t have all this bird flu.’
Miss Turbine put her hand up. (She’s a primary teacher, so tends to do that whenever she wants to say anything.) ‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘Just how do you propose to keep birds from flying in? Are you going to build a wall?’
‘Build the wall!’ cried Wee Andy.
‘You’d have to put a lid on it,’ said Kiwi Kate, ‘otherwise they’d just fly over the top.’
‘I wish you’d put a lid on it,’ said King Clapshot, scowling along the back row at her.
‘Friends, please!’ cried the minister. ‘Our concert for the old folk is tomorrow, and we really don’t have time for this squabbling.’
‘Those old folk fought and died for this kind of thing,’ thundered King Clapshot.
‘Oh aye,’ said Kate, ‘The great Barnyard-Fowls War of nineteen-oatcake-four, we all mind on that.’
‘I know there are legitimate concerns,’ said the minister, ‘but has it ever occurred to you, KC, that ‘French hens’ may not actually mean hens born in France? They may be hens of a French breed – Bresse chickens, say, or La Flèche –raised in this country for our enjoyment, perhaps on a Christmas dinner table, where friends and family gather in joy and celebration.’
‘There’ll be no French meat on my table at Christmas,’ growled King Clapshot. ‘It’ll be good old British turkey, and nothing less.’
There was silence for a moment. Then Wee Andy Creak spoke up, hesitantly. ‘Eh, KC, surely turkey comes from, well, Turkey?’
‘Don’t speak…shaving cream,’ thundered Clapshot. ‘Turkey’s as British as I am.’
‘Actually,’ said Miss Turbine, her hand above her head, ‘turkeys originated in Mexico. It was only a hundred years ago they started coming over here in numbers.’
King Clapshot put his hands to his lugs, clamping them against the sides of his head. ‘I don’t want to hear it,’ he said. ‘Turkeys are fully assimilated and…they’re part of our culture and…anyway, we all come from somewhere else if you go back far enough.’
The minister looked around, giving us all a serious nod. ‘In the words of our Lord,’ she said, ‘“Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.”’
‘Sounds a bit woke to me,’ said Wee Andy Creak.
The minister sighed. ‘Let’s forget about the ‘Twelve Days,’’ she said. ‘It’s too divisive. Find your sheets, please, for ‘I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing In.’’
This diary appeared in The Orcadian on 8th January 2025. A new diary appears weekly. I post them in this blog a few days after each newspaper appearance, with added illustrations, and occasional small corrections or additions.