Читать книгу Round the Bend онлайн

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I asked him once if it was all right, just going into any church like that. He grinned and said, "Blowed if I know. I've never been chucked out."

"I'd be scared of doing the wrong thing," I remarked. "However do you know what to do in a synagogue?"

"Just sit at the back and watch what other people do," he said. "If they start doing anything comic, like going up to the altar or anything like that, I just sit still and watch."

"Don't they mind you doing that?"

"I don't think so. A Roman Catholic priest came up one time as I was going out and asked me who I was. I told him I was just looking, like in a shop. He didn't mind a bit."

He collected churches, like another boy might collect cigarette cards or matchbox covers. The gem of his collection was at Woking, where he found a mosque to go to. He had a bit of a job getting to that one because the big day at a mosque is on a Friday, but he was a very good apprentice and a hard worker, so the foreman let him go.

Once, I remember, I asked Connie what he really was, Church of England, or Presbyterian, or what. "Blowed if I know," he said. "I was born in Penang and my father was a Buddhist. But he died four years ago, and then we came to England. I was Church of England at school."