Incident at Worcester

I don’t know if this incident ever made it on to National television, in any case I’m sure the full facts wouldn’t have been revealed even if it had. I was directly involved, so the story I’m about to tell is all true down to the smallest detail.

During April this year I went on a coach trip to the Black Country. Various trips were arranged from the hotel where I stayed, one of which was a morning’s trip to see the cathedral at Worcester.

I decided to go on this excursion as my eldest daughter had been to college in the area. As part of her teacher training course she’d had to make up a worksheet to be handed to children, asking them to identify various features of interest inside the cathedral. She told me to look out for a tomb in the building, that had a pair of elephants carved on it.

So off I went as a dutiful father, to try and find the carvings for myself and take a photograph if possible. Susannah had told me were to look, but her memory of the place is 25 years old and wherever I searched I couldn’t find them. I gave up eventually and asked one of the cathedral guides. She had no knowledge of such carvings either, but very kindly came round to help me try and find them. She soon gave up as well and asked one of the other guides to help her. In the meantime I went outside the cathedral and phoned my daughter to see if she could be more specific in her instructions.

“They’re carved on a tomb about three or four feet high, which is in the right hand aisle as you face the altar.”

So back I went inside to find the place heaving with people trying to find these damned carvings. Apparently one of the guides had asked a member of the clergy to help in the search and he in turn had asked a more senior member of the church to help him.

By now I was in stitches laughing. Several groups of members of the public had also heard of the search for the elephants and whole families had joined the guides and the clergy. Quite large numbers of people were walking systemically up and down the aisles looking for the carvings, including noisy and enthusiastic children rushing around in all directions.
All too soon I’d used the time allocated for my visit to the cathedral and as I was now running a bit late I hired a taxi to take me back to the coach park.

Worcester traffic near the bridge over the Severn is always terrible, but even so it seemed to be far busier than it had been in the morning when I walked into the town. Not only was the traffic heavier, but it was also made up of several unusual vehicles. There seemed to have been some sort of incident, or perhaps civil disaster exercises were in progress. If it was an exercise it was all being taken very seriously.

All the traffic lights in the city had been turned off. At every junction there was a policeman directing the traffic, accompanied by a colleague carrying a rifle. A helicopter could be heard flying in circles over the town centre and there were several fire engines parked in side roads waiting to respond to any emergency.

I arrived at the coach park, just as our tour guide began to look up the road to see if I was in sight.

As I paid off the taxi I asked the driver if he knew the reason for all the commotion in the town.

“Well sir, the situation here is potentially very dangerous, so the authorities are taking precautions in case the town gets damaged. It seems that two elephants have gone missing locally!”

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