Rolling in the aisles

It’s good when figures in the community do odd things. There’s this vicar from Bowden, near Altrincham, Cheshire, who put on a pair of rollerblades in his church and sallied forth up the aisle to make the congregation stare in goggle-eyed astonishment.

According to a story in the Telegraph, the Rev. Roger Preece did it to cause the sort of astonishment that would have been on the faces of those who witnessed Jesus’s purported resurrection.

But it’s just a stunt. It doesn’t get people thinking about how astonished they’d be if they saw a corpse walking: it just gets them thinking how astonished they are to see a vicar on rollerblades.

He tells the Telegraph of a parishioner who stopped him while he was walking in the park and said, “Why are you walking? You should be on your roller skates!” Preece adds, “It’s got everyone in the area talking.”

Yes, about a vicar on rollerblades.

It won’t have people going about saying, “Ooh, I know how the Marys felt now when they saw His Nibs strolling about. I know how Doubting Thomas felt now when the Big Man convinced him he’d actually risen from the dead.”

No, they’ll be going about saying, “I saw the vicar on rollerblades.”

OK, Roger, it’s was a nice stunt; raised a laugh; got a few people talking (about a vicar on rollerblades); got some publicity for your church. But come on! Don’t try to tell us people will think of some divine zombie, because they won’t.

They’ll think of a vicar on rollerblades.