The BBC2 Young Chorister of the year for 2012, resplendent in her deep red robe, was just at the end of the first line of the opening verse of Away in a Manger when the old lady, three rows in from the front, exploded.
It was a fearsome and startling experience.
I had noticed her earlier on in the proceedings. My judgement of her was, I stress, purely based on my view of the back of her head because that was all I could see of her diminuitive form from my own seat, a further four rows back.
She wore a pink, fur trimmed hat, pulled down over her ears as though in a sole silent protest against the organisers of the event for having kept her standing outside the church, standing on sunken gravestones of the great, good and wealthy for the preceeding forty minutes, in sub zero temperatures and for what reason?
Her slender form was heavily cloaked in the matching fur trimmed coat and the overall impression of, well, just pink was very striking. I could imagine other aspects of her character on the basis of my stock judgement.
Perhaps a schoolteacher in her working life, always busy and active and this discipline had helped her to maintain her slim figure into the long, drawn out years of retirement on a good final salary based pension. Married to a kind and attentive man who left for the office to do something everyday and spent the weekend in a shed and pottering about the garden. He unfortunately faded away quietly a week into his own retirement. They had not really had any major plans. One son, an accountant, living in London and with a partner and two children by a previous marriage. Her attendance at the service was down to her next door neighbours who were regular worshippers and had invited her partly out of pity and to engender in her the Christmas Spirit.
I believe that her subsequent sneeze of legendary orgasmic proportions (as I am led to understand is the physiological similarity of such: Source: Cosmopolitan; Christmas Edition 2011) was involuntary but it had a set number of consequences.
1) The Chorister, no more than 14 years of age from Blackburn, burst out laughing giving a glimpse of the real person behind the serious and angelic expression.
2) The entire front three rows with the exception of the lady in pink were seen to panic from a seated position as though a fire cracker had been thrown.
3) The musical director, arms out conducting the string quartet in the popular American traditional carol , spun around in frustration at this unscheduled participation in his arrangement.
4) The rest of the 600 strong congegation looked in all other directions for the source of the sound thanks to the remarkable acoustic characteristics of a cathedral sized parish church of Medieval Gothic origin and the resonance peculiarly uinque to a combination of oolitic and magnesian limestone.
5) The BBC Producer of Sunday Half Hour, of quite a plump, monkish build was seen to run into the Nave from the large broadcast vehicle parked outside the north door and after catching his breath call out "Cut, from the top again please". He pulled at his large headset earphones in an exaggerated gesture to indicate that he, himself, had borne the brunt of the burst of the sound.
Things soon settled down after this unscheduled interruption. The Chorister girl retained her impeccable composure in a manner that belied her young years. She was definitely going places. Those who had previously felt a similar tendency hastily sought out their handkerchiefs and tissues from the folds of their winter coats and jackets or just sniffed in a suppressed manner, regardless of the obvious implications for nightime catarrh problems that they were storing up for later.
I was actually quite surprised that there were no significant outbursts of coughing or wheezing in the quieter moments of the service given the demographic of the congregation.
It would appear that amongst the more affluent eligible population, here assembled, there had been a very good uptake of the offer of the flu jab. The rest just relied on their own mortal fear of God.
(Service to be Broadcast on 23.12.12. BBC Radio 2. 8pm to 9pm)
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