Princess Mary and King Haakon. Part 1, Birth

In the land of Norway there lived a king. He was a great king, loved by his kin and feared by his enemies. He was Haakon. Amongst Norsemen he had no equal. No man could beat him at wrestling, no man could drink like him and no man was a better hunter. He was admired and loved but he was unhappy. He was unhappy for he had no son. King Haakon and his wife had been married for nearly twenty years but had never borne a child.

So the news that King Haakon’s wife had fallen pregnant was greeted with great joy. The next nine months were a time of dreaming and imagining for the proud parents in waiting and finally the time came when the child could wait no longer…

The agony of childbirth was drowned by the thunder that crashed across the dark waters outside King Haakon’s long house. Haakon sat by his wife as she laboured, gently blowing on her sweating brow. She yelled again just as the door burst open. In from the storm blew a young hunter. “Eric is missing on the mountain!” he spat through his sopping wet beard. “We need your help, we need all the men we can get.” Haakon looked at the young man and then looked at his wife.

“Go to him.” She whispered. Haakon grabbed his cloak and ran out into the night.

On the mountain it was dark and the rain made climbing dangerous. The men moved on, their faces illuminated by the lightning, frozen like the carved wooden animals on the walls of the long house. Eventually they found the young boy, cold, wet and very pleased to see his friends. He had twisted his leg between two rocks and could not walk. He would need to be carried off the mountain. But with every moment that passed the storm became more terrible, until the men were sure that Thor himself was walking on the peaks above them! “It is too dangerous to carry on.” shouted Haakon over the thunder. “We must take shelter and wait ‘till morning.”

“But Haakon, your wife? The child?” protested one of the men.

“No, we cannot go on. We must find shelter.” Replied the king. Slowly the men staggered into the shelter of a shallow cave and huddled down under their sodden cloaks.

Now in that long, cold, wet night Haakon had a dream. He was standing on the shore outside his long house, a baby in his arms. As he looked up from the child’s face he saw a ship drawing up to the beach. Out of the ship stepped a man. The man walked up the beach and stood in front of the king. Leaning over he looked at the baby and drawing himself close to Haakon he whispered, “Beauty is yours. But for a price.” With those soft words Haakon was suddenly awake. The storm was still raging around them but now he knew he had to be with his wife, he knew this was no ordinary night.

He ran and ran, down the mountain, slipping and stumbling until he burst out of the forest and onto the beach. He was sure he could hear his wife calling him over the thunder. Crashing into the house Haakon knew all was not well. The other women turned away and busied themselves, only one met his eyes and stepping forward she said. “My king. You have a child. A girl!” Taking the baby in his arms he moved towards his wife but the woman touched him on the arm as he passed, causing him to stop. “The child was strong my king, too strong. Your wife is dead.”

With tears in his eyes the old king turned away and stepped out through the door into the dark, stormy night. Drawing the child under his cloak to keep her dry, he walked out onto the beach. Looking out over the dark waters he remembered his dream and the man who whispered those words to him. “You have a great future my child, but a future that I fear is not on these shores.” The great king said to his daughter. “But we will wait my Princess. Yes, we will wait. We will wait and see what the future holds for you Princess. Princess Mary!”

Teaching tales, tall and true.

28/09/06 The day ended before it began. Second lesson the deputy came into my room and told me that A was walking around hitting things with a table leg he had pulled off. I walk through to find him banging chairs and walls with this 3 foot long metal table leg. Metal leg+angry young man=brain damaged tutor. We managed to clear the other students out of the unit so as to deprive the oxygen of an audience then proceeded to try and talk him down. He wasn't so much being dangerous but had the potential to do great damage if we tried to physically stop him. After much talk a first aid kit appeared and was handed to him. This seemed to break the moment as he placed it and the leg on the table and started to rummage through the box (passing over the scissors I was releaved to see!) At this moment I approached him and got involved in his doctors and nurses game. When we were both fully into our 'roles', I gently moved the table leg away then whisked it upstairs to the office and hid it under my desk. Panic over.

It was then felt that the atmosphere was too volatile to continue so we faked a call from council central office saying we needed to send to members of staff up there as there had been some emergency! We told them we needed to close the unit and they could all go home. They bought it (mostly) and went off to explore the limits of their ASBOs.

Nobody was hurt, we all left on good terms. Result.

 02/10/06  Unit closed today. Bomb scare! Taken very seriously by the police who arrived with several cars and sealed off the road. Then to everyone's horror/amusement the sniffer dogs arrived and, well... sniffed for a bomb. No such device was found but all the Keyskills folders were destroyed in a controlled explosion. If only.
It seems an arrest has been made. The sinister bomber was not 'fit for purpose' and did not block their telephone number when issuing the threat. Back to the Afghanistan training camp for you my boy. 

17/10/06 Crazy day today. General atmosphere of excitability and chaos. Not ideal. Two main events. Firstly one student, ‘the most dangerous and unpredictable kid in the service’ finally showed his cards by completely losing his rag and smashing my classroom door off its hinges! He was convinced some other lads were laughing at him and went from joking around with myself and another member of staff to throwing chairs and smashing the door. I persuaded him to go outside for a fag (usual fall-back position in times of crisis). He went down and eventually calmed down, finally taking on board the explanation that the lads were not laughing at him but a teacher.

At the end of the day we had a full blown temper tantrum that would not have been out of place in the sweetie isle at TESCOs. Young lad wanted a taxi home but it was denied. He tried again and again but we kept on saying that he had a bus pass and that he had managed to get into and home from school no problem before today. No. He kicks off, karate kicking the wheelie bin, running in and out of the building, swearing at anyone that he meets and generally acting lick a little twit. At one point he even ran down the road and kicked over some traffic cones and a ‘Road Closed’ sign. The work men looked at him as if he was a total nutter. ‘It’s okay mate, he’s with me!’

 18/10/06 Very quiet today, not too surprising given yesterday’s antics.  A couple of the boys are in court today for various crimes and misdemeanors so it was always going to be a few light. In the end we only got two in. Both worked pretty well and as a result not much of note happened. We were meant to be  going to the fire station to do a road traffic safety session but due to the small numbers it was cancelled. Shame.

19/10/06 The taxi boys were back today but had all calmed down as if nothing had ever happened. The lad who was excluded for 10 days following the incident with the table leg was also back! He was a handful again, snapping coat hangers (don’t ask), talking fire extinguishers out and finally pulling the door off the I.T. room. This led to fun and games later when I managed to get myself locked in the I.T. room with a new student who had come to us straight from H.M.P. (aggravated burglary). The connecting bolt between the inside handle (intact) and the outside handle (removed) had gone astray and as a result the handle was no longer fit for purpose. Fortunately I managed to discreetly attract the attention of a colleague who released me with a soup spoon.

20/10/06 Only one lad in today so I got him to glue the legs onto the tables. The ones we were all worried might be used as weapons again. We used some kind of epoxy space shuttle glue that came in a double syringe and needed to be mixed. Hard core. He moaned and cussed but actually quite enjoyed the one to one time. It is good to do non-classroom stuff. In carrying out this activity and subsequently talking it through with another member of staff, this lad got two level 1 qualifications in one go.

It is the last day before we break up for half term. A feeling of quiet unease fills the unit. It is calm, but there is a storm coming…

28/11/06 Today I was chatting with a boy who blurted out this story about how he found 6 grand in a phone box. He explained that his mum was loosing the plot because they had no money and had made a loaf of bread last a week. He went out to see what he could do (presumably a touch) and there it was, sitting in a phone box, £6000! Gypsy money he said. "Did you ever think of taking it to the police?" I ventured, more in hope than in expectation, "F**k that!" he replied, "We went straight into town and bought one of those f**k-off big plasma screen TVs!" And presumably a fresh loaf of bread.

  

Princess Mary and Grampus the Black

Many travelers pass through the waters of the Kyle, that slab of dark water that presses itself between the Isle of Skye and the mainland. Many travelers pass and most are welcome but there is one sea-going wanderer that is not. He does not pass often on this route but when he does he is not welcome. He is Grampus the black.

          Princess Mary first met Grampus as a child in her homeland of Norway. It was then, as a child of six that she saw his cunning and his malice towards man. Fishing with a friend, a boy of some twelve years, they had drifted a little farther from shore than might have been wise. Perhaps it was foolish for the boy to have been standing as he put the bait on his hook, but it was a calm day and the little boat sat like a reflection on the smooth fjord.

Mary had seen a black wave rise from the icy water, the boat had rocked and the boy had fallen in. He was only a few feet from the boat but Grampus the Black rose up out of the water between them, glistening like wet leather, blocking the boy’s escape. Slowly and ever so gently, the great black beast nudged the boy farther and farther from the boat. When they were some way away he disappeared and the boy began his journey back. It was cold and the boy was tiring. Then, with just a few feet for the gasping boy left to swim, Grampus appeared between them again. Once more he pushed and nudged the boy away from the boat, once more he disappeared. The game repeated itself two or three more times, each time creature thwarting the boy as he reached for out for the boat, each time pushing the boy away and then disappearing. Finally the boy became too weak to make the journey back. Drained by the cold he too disappeared.

Mary, though little, managed to row back to shore and tell of what she had seen. Out in the bay Grampus roamed back and forth for the rest of the day, triumphantly spraying from his blowhole and leaping from the water. In the morning the body of the boy was found, unmarked, and Grampus the Black had gone.

Many years had past since that day and many things had changed but the memory of the Grampus stayed with Mary. Sometimes as she rowed out to collect the toll from the passing ships she would start as a black shape moved in the water. Memories would stir and the image of the black beast would rise to the surface. But the shape was never more than a shoal of fish or a  smooth dark swell. 

'Lazarus, come out'

I was watching a video on YouTube the other day by a preacher called RW Glenn. He was talking about a thing called ‘irresistible grace’. I had never heard it before but when he started explaining what it meant it made me start to giggle. I was laughing like a little kid because it was the first time someone had described what had happened to me when I became a Christian.

When people talk about their conversion they often point to a specific sermon, or bible passage, song or even words on a plastic carrier bag (that’s another story). For me I can remember very little of what was said, sung and sold.

What I do know was that I was an atheist at a Billy Graham rally! I am aware that I listened to an old american guy who talked about sin and God and hell. I had heard all that before. This time it was different. It was like being in a movie where suddenly it goes silent. It is silent but you can still see everyone else moving their mouths but no sound is coming out. It felt to me as if I was inside a bubble. Into that bubble came a voice saying one word.

JASON.

My name. The voice just said my name in a calm, gentle way, like someone trying to wake me from sleep. Calm but with purpose. It is totally weird but it was like I knew the voice, had heard it all my life in the background ‘noise’ of the world, had sensed it whispering to me in answer to my questions.

This was my moment of irresistible grace. I knew this voice was the voice of the one true God. What else could I do? I woke up, got out of my chair and was born again.