Copyright © 2014 Alby Stone
With a fair degree of trepidation, the head teacher rose from her seat and surveyed the crowded assembly hall. There were some difficult parents out there. This was not going to be easy. But, what the governors wanted, the governors got. After all, they were the most difficult of all the bullies she had to deal with, and it was always a simple choice – easy acquiescence or eventual submission to dictat. By comparison, handling the kids was a piece of cake. But, such was their dedication, there were rarely more than a dozen governors at any meeting. Tonight around a hundred and twenty parents were present, many more than she’d expected for such a meeting. Most of them were strangers. The ones that weren’t…
‘Right,’ she said, much more brightly than she felt, ignoring the brief squeal of feedback from the PA. ‘Shall we make a start? Have you all got refreshments? Excellent. Oh, Mrs Moore – there’s no smoking in the school, I’m afraid. I really must ask you to put that out. Thank you.’
The talking, scraping of chairs and slurping of tea, coffee and sparkling mineral water subsided, except for a few stray coughs.
‘Now then, as you all know, you’ve been invited here to discuss the school Christmas play. It’s to be a traditional nativity play so we had a script to work from, as it were. However, the governors felt it was important to have parents’ input. I trust everyone has read the draft script that was circulated last week? Good. Yes, Mr Rahman?’
‘I have indeed read the script and I must say I have concerns. It’s a bit, well – Christian.’
The head teacher gazed levelly at the bearded Asian man, a well-respected local lawyer. ‘Yes, I suppose it is,’ she replied. ‘But it is a Christmas play. It’s about the birth of Jesus Christ. And although we accept students of all faiths, I really must point out that this is St Jude’s Church of England Primary School. Christianity is part and parcel of our raison d’être, you might say.’
Mr Rahman raised his hands in what might have been a placatory gesture but could just as easily have been interpreted as the first stage of attempted strangulation. ‘I take your point,’ he said. ‘But in this multicultural era we must have diversity. This play needs at least one Muslim character.’
‘Um, Jesus was born more than five hundred years before the Prophet, peace be upon him,’ said someone two rows behind Mr Rahman. The head’s heart sank when she saw the spiral tattoos on the woman’s bare arms and rune-patterned headband. It was Ms Rowan Odinsbride, a confused follower of an even more confused pagan path. ‘The Heathen faith, by contrast, was in existence for thousands of years before Christianity. I propose that for balance one of the three Magi should be a Celtic druid. The costume should be easy – white robes, a sickle made of cardboard covered in baking foil, and a sprig of mistletoe. For the sake of historical accuracy at least one of the other Wise Men should be a Zoroastrian priest.’
‘And one must be a Hindu,’ said a sari-clad woman at the back.
‘And one must be an imam,’ Mr Rahman insisted.
‘But there were only three Wise Men,’ someone else objected. That was the Reverend Patricia Waring, the vicar who oversaw the adjacent church of St Jude.
‘Yeah, but the Bible isn’t actually history, is it?’ The speaker was a stern-looking Afro-Caribbean man dressed in a black suit. The head teacher almost flinched when she recognised him. Angus Sheridan, a popular science journalist and notorious atheist. She knew for a fact that he only sent his son to the school because of its reputation for preparing youngsters for the rigours of secondary education. Sheridan was marginally less religious than Richard Dawkins. ‘I mean, it’s only mythology. I don’t see why you can’t have as many Wise Men as you want. If you’re going to fill kids’ heads with crap you might as well go the whole hog.’
There was a minor commotion when Rahman called Sheridan an infidel and Sheridan called Rahman something worse, calmed only by the intervention of a deceptively mild-mannered man with a reputation none of the staff dared repeat in front of the children in case it got back to him. Wayne McArthur, a local entrepreneur whose eight year-old daughter Alice ran a lucrative black market in shoplifted sweets and toys, didn’t look much but in his case appearances were not so much deceptive as barefaced liars.
With Rahman and Sheridan chastened, the floor was taken by a lesbian couple who in their child’s presence referred to each other as ‘Mum’ or ‘Dad’ as the mood took them. Their son Hilary wasn’t allowed to play competitive games or sports because they both embodied and promoted aggressive male chauvinist culture – but woe betide him if he was ever out of the top three in academic subjects. He was going to grow up to be a very confused young man. But at least the head teacher had managed to stop them sending him to school in skirts and pigtails.
‘We think there should be more women in this play,’ said one. None of the staff could tell them apart, and their opinions were only ever given as the royal ‘we’, as if they had no individual existence. ‘We believe women are under-represented in all areas of culture and society, added the other woman. ‘We demand positive female role models for our child!’
‘Well,’ the head teacher replied. ‘There aren’t really many female characters in the Nativity story – only Mary and that one whose name I can never remember. What do you suggest?’
‘We think the shepherds should be an all-female group, A sisterhood. Did you know that communities of women menstruate in synchrony?’
‘Er, that’s interesting,’ said the head teacher doubtfully. ‘Though I don’t think we need to worry about the girls doing that just yet. Alright, we’ll make the shepherds into shepherdesses.’
‘Sheep-herders, please. It’s wrong to make gender distinctions.’
‘Yes, sheep-herders. That’s what I meant to say.’ The head teacher was beginning to wish the floor would open up and swallow her. Actually, she’d been hoping that would happen even before the meeting began, though not so fervently. This wasn’t going to be her night. Just to make the point, a small, skinny white woman dressed in eye-wateringly colourful Nigerian robes stood.
‘I think the BABY JESUS should be a CHILD OF MIXED HERITAGE,’ she declaimed.
‘Thank you, Mrs – Ms – er…’ she could never remember Fern’s mother’s title or surname, only that the woman spoke in such a portentous way that every capital letter could be clearly heard. Like her perennially-disobedient and fantasy-prone daughter, Fern’s mother was insufferably smug and self-righteous. ‘However, it is usual for the Baby Jesus to be played by a doll, not a real baby. No one will actually see the doll anyway, as it will be in, um, swaddling clothes? Is that the right term?’
‘No one will SEE, but WE will KNOW,’ Fern’s mother pointed out, carefully selecting her upper case for maximum impact.
‘You could always try forgetting,’ came a voice from the back. ‘Just like you forgot Fern’s father’s name when the CSA came round.’
Amid the laughter an elderly man sporting a yarmulka and sidelocks stood and appealed for quiet. ‘We might take this opportunity to consider Christ’s Jewish heritage,’ he suggested. ‘It is true that Christ’s birth marked the beginning of a new faith but it was built upon an older one. Jesus was raised as a Jew. Therefore, Joseph should be dressed like an Orthodox Jew.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said the head teacher. ‘I don’t think I know you. Are you a parent?’
‘I’m David Rosenberg’s grandfather. David’s parents are at a fundraiser for the Fair Admissions Campaign. While I’m here I may as well add that I have strong objections to the manger scene. One of the animals is a pig. That is offensive to Jews.’
‘As it is to Muslims,’ Rahman added. ‘No pigs. And I see there is also a dog on the list, an animal we Muslims believe is unclean. That too must go.’
‘So must the cow,’ the sari-clad woman piped up. ‘I would find that insulting to my religion.’
The head teacher sighed deeply. At this rate the manger scene would be a humans-only affair. ‘What about the sheep and the goat?’
Rosenberg, Rahman and the sari-clad woman exchanged looks and shrugged in unison. ‘They’re OK,’ said Rahman.
Sheridan spoke again. ‘You could have ducks,’ he said.
‘Ducks?’
‘I like ducks. And I read somewhere that Darwin was fond of them. Or was that finches? No, it was ducks. Definitely ducks.’
‘Alright. We’ll have the sheep and the goat, and some ducks. Everyone OK with that? Then let’s move on. Yes, Ms Smalling?’
‘I agree with those ladies over there that we should be promoting positive images. So far we’ve heard all about religions, sex and race – but we should also be supporting the LGBT community in their fight for equal rights. Why can’t Joseph and Mary be a gay or lesbian couple?’
‘Well, that’s one thing the Bible is pretty clear about. Joseph was a man, Mary was a woman. They were married. You can’t really change that bit.’
‘Why not? And why do they have to be married? Doesn’t that stigmatise the children of unmarried parents?’
‘It doesn’t matter if they were married or not. Jesus was the son of Joseph and Mary.’
‘Hang on – I thought Jesus was the son of God?’
‘Well, yes – but – oh dear. Vicar? Perhaps you could clarify this?’
Reverend Waring stood. ‘Jesus is both,’ she said. ‘He is God, too. Of course, if you take the Bible literally, Mary was impregnated by the Holy Spirit – or the angel, it isn’t quite clear. However, not all of us Christians accept the Bible as literal truth. My personal view is that Mary’s impregnation by God is a metaphor to indicate Christ’s inherent holiness and goodness. Joseph was Mary’s husband; therefore he was Christ’s biological father. However, the divine flame within Jesus was given by God alone.’
‘That is more in line with what Muslims believe,’ said Rahman approvingly. ‘Jesus was a prophet and thus touched by God while still in the womb. To say he is the Son of God is blasphemy. I agree that Joseph must be played by a boy and Mary by a girl. With her head covered, of course, to show she is a good woman within the Muslim tradition and in keeping with her Jewish background. And Joseph must have a beard. A real beard. The sheep and goat and ducks must also be real. And the infant Jesus. No false images. We must not descend into pagan idolatry.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Rowan Odinsbride was indignant. ‘I’ll have you know that most of the story of Jesus’ birth was taken from older pagan beliefs. The birth in the grotto surrounded by animals – That’s from Mithraism, an old Indo-European faith related to druidism. And Hinduism,’ she nodded at the sari-clad woman, who nodded back.
‘It’s all the same to me,’ Sheridan called out, patently bored with the proceedings. ‘For all I care you could have Bugs Bunny and Fred Flintstone on the stage. ‘I don’t really care, as long as there are ducks.’
‘Jesus was a Jew!’ Rosenberg thundered, his face dark with anger.
‘Jesus was a Muslim prophet!’ Rahman countered.
‘Jesus was originally a pagan god!’ squawked Rowan Odinsbride.
‘Jesus was a myth!’ shouted Sheridan.
‘Jesus was just a little baby!’ yelled the Reverend Waring.
‘A MIXED HERITAGE BABY!’ screeched Fern’s mother in capital letters.
‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ said the head teacher under her breath, as she put her head in her hands.
*
It took a while, but eventually order was restored and decisions were made.
The nativity would open with the Angel of the Lord, dressed in satin, sequins and lurex, descending in a fiery chariot to the strains of Queen’s ‘We Will Rock You’ and announcing to a burqa-covered Mary that she was with child because her husband loved her in that special way that mummies and daddies love each other irrespective of gender and the conventional reproductive processes, and that the baby would be special and called Jesus. Joseph would be played not by a child but by Mr Stanislaw the Polish caretaker, who was short enough to pass for a ten year-old and would grow a beard if the price was right. Mary’s face would not be seen but she would make frequent references to cravings for curried goat, yams, rice and peas, and quote from reggae songs – enough to imply that the Baby Jesus would be of Mixed Heritage.
The next scene would show Herod – renamed Harald because Mr Rosenberg objected to the portrayal of a Jewish villain, and no one would care if they insulted the Germans – being told of a prophecy that the birth of the Baby Jesus would mean big trouble for him and his Roman masters. Instead of the Slaughter of the Innocents, which several anxious parents were afraid would traumatise their offspring, the children of the Holy Land would be grounded for a month and lose their sweet ration.
Joseph and Mary’s arrival in Bethlehem would coincide with the local Gay Pride march, while the townspeople celebrated Diwali, Yule, Hannukah and Polly Toynbee’s birthday simultaneously. The stable would be set within two Stonehenge-like trilithons painted red, yellow and green. The birth would occur with the stage darkened and Bob Marley’s ‘One Love’ playing. There would be five Wise men – an imam, a pujari, a rabbi, a Zoroastrian and a druid; two Wise Women – a Wiccan priestess and a Voodoo mambo; and a Wise Transgender, spiritual orientation to be decided but possibly Native American or Siberian shamanist. Because there was no agreement at all on how he should be portrayed, Jesus would not be shown but the actors would pretend the infant was there. (No one understood Mr Sheridan’s suggestion that the Saviour should perhaps be renamed Harvey.) There would be two sheep, a goat, and several ducks, all live and to be provided by Wayne McArthur at a knock-down price. McArthur had also promised to get the school a good deal on all the other props they’d need and lay on a couple of bouncers if required.
It could have been worse, the head teacher reflected as at last the parents filed out. So far no one had suggested that Scientology, Satanism or the Cthulhu Cult should be represented. On impulse she collared the sari-clad woman as she passed. ‘Excuse me, I don’t believe we’ve met. Which class is your child in?’
‘Oh, I’m not a parent. I just came in to get out of the rain. I do hope it’s stopped by now.’
As she too left the hall, the head teacher was approached by an anxious couple in their early thirties. He wore cords and a hipster beard. She was wrapped in assorted Fruit of the Loom horrors. The head teacher had seen them earlier but they’d kept quiet until now. ‘Sorry to delay you,’ said the man. ‘I’m sure you’re tired and just want to go home. But I understand this school also puts on an Easter play?’ The head teacher confirmed that yes, they did. ‘Well,’ he continued, ‘we’re concerned that it might contain elements not suitable for children. Our son and daughter are particularly sensitive, like all gifted children. They’re very easily upset.’
‘Oh, you needn’t worry,’ the head teacher assured him, recognising them now as the parents of the two thickest and most vicious kids in the school. ‘We don’t show any of the violence. There’s no sword fight at Gethsemane, Peter’s ear doesn’t get cut off, Judas doesn’t hang himself, and we certainly don’t show the actual crucifixion.’
‘Well,’ he replied, ‘that’s a comfort. But there’s just one thing – does Jesus really have to die at the end?’