The Chapel Harvest Festival.

A hot, sultry, sweaty August afternoon

When even the bees are too sleepy to move.

The sun, a pulsating ball of white light bathes the earth in its fiery rays.

Sweat hangs off the brows of men digging in the allotments.

Earth baked into hard clay.

A lethargy of heat seduces the valleys.

It is Harvest Festival and the Methodist Chapel is bursting at the seams

with a bounty of berries and blossom.

Bread, fashioned as sheaves of wheat has been placed at the foot of the pulpit

and the air is filled with the low pre-service whispers of the congregation.

Grannies in flowery summer frocks,

Some with neat waistlines, others not.

Granddads coughing quietly, a legacy of the pit,   

Their Sunday suits relinquishing mild aromas of pipe tobacco.   

Mothers and fathers dressed in their best

Vaguely impatient as they proudly anticipate the recitals of their young.

Children whispering in loud “children’s whispers”

And giggling at old Mister Hywel Jones for wearing odd socks.

Reprimanded with a frown from the chapel minister their laughter subsides.

Collectively the congregation settles down.

All are grateful for the still, coolness of the chapel walls.

Teify Jenkins, Minister of some years, strains against the tightness of his shirt collar

Washed to a saintly white and stiffly starched by Mrs. Teify Jenkins.

Mrs. Myfanwy Pritchard with her ruby red lips and cheeks --

“Fancy wearing all that make-up to chapel !”

Fastidiously ignores the comments of Rhiannon the Righteous

And fills her lungs with God-fearing air as she prepares to sing.

Miss Dilys Williams, spinster of the parish

Slides sideways, furtive, glances at our minister.

Her heart beats with a hot guilty passion for him

Her thoughts at times, less than holy in their content.

She patiently contemplates the day when their bodies meet in unbridled lust.

Dilys lowers her eyes so that none shall read her thoughts

And piously opens her hymn book.

Teify Jenkins, the object of the unrequited passion ,

Makes motion for all to rise.

“Hymn number sixty four “We plough the fields and scatter -- ”.

Miss Gulliver the organist, her ample hips hanging over the edge of her stool,

Gives testimony that chocolate compensates for the boredom of her life .

She raises her hands to the keys and the room resonates with sound.  

Such a love of singing.

My grandfather “Dai top-note” towers over my little uncle “Dai bach”.

My Nana`s rich contralto merges with my Auntie Martha

While Auntie Lyd and Lovis May join with Ceridwen .

Soprano`s “all” they sing the melody.   

Voices swell, young and old, their hearts bursting with joy and gratitude

Uniting together to rejoice in their love of God.      

Angels in all their glory combine to intensify the chorus      

As they raise the congregation from the mundane to the celestial.

“He sends the snow in winter, the warmth to swell the grain,

The breezes and the sunshine and soft refreshing rain.”

And so the Harvest Service ends for another year.

Teify Jenkins fills his pipe with tobacco and goes home with Mrs. Teify Jenkins for a nice cup of tea.

Miss Gulliver anticipates the box of Cadburys Chocolates that she has squirrelled away at home,

Deftly hidden in the piano stool for her sole consumption.

Miss Dilys Williams sighs longingly as her lover walks away

Reflecting that it will be a whole week before they meet again.

Mothers and fathers shepherd their children into line

Praising and scolding their chapel behaviour as appropriate.

My Nana and Grandad, with various aunties and uncles,

Go home for a bit of tea and gossip and to see what`s on the telly.    

Even old Hywel Jones and his odd socks have gone.

Only the angels now remain .

Softly they fold their wings in the calm stillness of the chapel  

As they welcome the tranquillity of peace.  

Jan Wharton

June 2013