Diary of a Die-Hard (Apprentice) 5
Stephen Boon gives us the next instalment of life as an apprentice at St Nicholas, Sevenoaks
Last night I had a nightmare that Alan Sugar had become Rector of St Nicholas.
"Listen, you 'orrible apprentices," he snarled, "I am the most obnoxious boss you could ever have. I will make your life misery. Your chair rows must be straighter than pews. Your talks for the youth group must have the doctrinal accuracy of the Apostle Paul, and the rhetorical flair of Chrysostom. You will address me as The Almost Entirely Reverend Sir Alan, and when you make a mistake… You're fired. If you make it through – and only one of you will – you can be my curate. Your first challenge is to set up a financially profitable crèche for the under-threes, in a building you will construct from bricks you have made without the provision of straw."
In real life, of course, the role of 9:38 Apprentice is a dream, not a nightmare. I want to make that clear because I have been instructed to keep this column positive, as we still have two spaces on the apprentice team to fill for next year, and we don't want people being put off. I am the only apprentice leaving, and I rather like the entirely misleading idea that it will take two people to fill my (metaphorical) shoes. The reality is that it will take two people just to undo all the mistakes I have made.
Anyway, how can I convince you that an apprenticeship at St Nicholas is worth applying for? Well, the job has its perks. One is that when the lost property gets periodically cleared out, the apprentices get first refusal before the rest is taken to a charity shop. In this manner I have acquired two very respectable jumpers, and a somewhat less respectable woolly hat, which nonetheless does a fine job of keeping out the bitter Kentish winds. I could really do with some more trousers, but people sadly seem less inclined to leave these behind when they visit us. On the other hand, I have also managed to wreck some clothes in the line of duty. I got tar on one pair of trousers from filling in potholes in the church driveway, and my last pair of shoes developed holes in the top surface, near the toes, which is the part of the shoe used several times a day to lift the bolts on the sliding doors in our Undercroft.
Another perk is that one is frequently invited to Sunday lunch by members of the congregation. As someone whose culinary abilities fall short of un-burnt toast, I do try to make the most of the usually excellent fare available on these occasions, but I may have overdone it a little, as at least one family is now convinced that I have a tapeworm. Needless to say, I much prefer this medical diagnosis to suggestions of greed.
There are of course more serious reasons to do an apprenticeship. I have to say that I have enjoyed my time here enormously and have learned a lot. It's given me a valuable taste of what it would be like to pursue a role in full-time gospel ministry, or whatever the current approved phrase is. I am now moving on to parishes new, but you can find me by following the trail of broken hearts and broken church furnishings. Well. Something like that.