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    Tuesday's a Good Day to Die
    Tuesday's a Good Day to Die
    Tuesday's a Good Day to Die
    Ebook97 pages1 hour

    Tuesday's a Good Day to Die

    By Bernie Cairns

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    About this ebook

    When I discovered, The Pope, The Grand Ayatollah, The Chief Rabbi, The Archbishop of Canterbury and Stephen Hawking all disagreed with me, I knew I must be right.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBernie Cairns
    Release dateSep 8, 2013
    ISBN9781301929887
    Tuesday's a Good Day to Die

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      Book preview

      Tuesday's a Good Day to Die - Bernie Cairns

      Tuesday’s a Good Day to Die

      By Bernie J Cairns

      *************************************

      Bernie J Cairns was educated at St. Bedes Grammar School, Bradford, where he spent his time doing the minimum amount of work whilst playing the maximum amount of football!!

      *************************************

      Acknowledgements

      Seo-Young Park

      Ha-Hyun Lee

      Na-Hyun Lee

      Jim Ferris

      Ben Simpson

      Lance Gardner

      **************************************

      Preface

      When I discovered, The Pope, The Grand Ayatollah, The Chief Rabbi, The Archbishop of Canterbury and Stephen Hawking all disagreed with me, I knew I must be right!!

      *************************************

      *************************************

      Tuesday’s a Good Day to Die

      By Bernie J Cairns

      Published by Bernie J Cairns

      Copyright 2013 Bernie J Cairns

      *************************************

      Published by Bernie J Cairns, Smashwords Edition, First Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      *************************************

      For Kathy

      *************************************

      Chapter 1

      When I was a kid we lived in Yorkshire, it rains a lot. During one autumnal storm I asked mum, what causes thunder. She said it was God moving the furniture about in heaven. You know what, I actually believed her. We were fed all kinds of nonsense back them. Dad wasn’t a religious man but mum came from Irish Catholic stock. She dragged me to church every Sunday I hated it. The priests were all miserable old codgers and scary with it too. Then one Sunday there was a new young priest, He was funny and he liked football too. What a breath of fresh air, but just as suddenly as he had arrived, he was gone. I was disappointed; they said he’d been transferred to another parish. A couple of weeks later I saw him in town, gone were the dog collar and black cassock and what’s more he was holding hands with a pretty young woman. I said hello fa-fa-fa I didn’t know what to call him. He replied Hello young man and they were gone. I ran home to tell mum, but she must have known, she said, Shh! We don’t talk about Father Desmond anymore. I thought ‘Hang on a minute I’m getting conned here.’ I’d been led to believe that priests were chosen by God, that it was their vocation, and here’s Father Desmond. He’s jacked it all in and he’s strolling around town in a sharp suit with a piece of squeeze on his arm. What the hell’s going on? Up until then I’d fallen for this religious thing, hook line and sinker, but now I was beginning to have some serious doubts.

      They were strange times, we were told to say our prayers every night and pray for a happy death, so there I was, a ten year old kid kneeling beside the bed every night, praying for a happy death. What is a happy death anyway? A non- swimming Scotsman falling into a vat of Glenfiddich. A successful Jewish businessman on his deathbed surrounded by all his family, his final words being. Who’s minding the store?

      Later on there was confession, remember this was the 1950s in industrial Northern England. We were all scared of the priests, the teachers and the police. What was there to confess?

      I couldn’t think of any sins apart from nicking the occasional gobstopper from the local tuck shop and that was more mischief than actual villainy, hardly falls into the category of mooning the magistrate? I certainly wasn’t going to mention anything about the old meat and two veg to those old fogies, it’s my donkey’s hammer and I’ll wash it as fast as I like.

      In the end I made up sins in order to have something to confess to. I’d say things like I’d kicked our dog for barking all night. I wonder if it’s a sin to make up a sin. Anyway we didn’t ever have a dog we had tiger the kitten factory. Where did they all come from? I never worked it out, but I do remember having to say three ‘Hail Mary’s’ for booting the invisible dog.

      I’d sometimes find Tiger on the company of couple of stray cats, who seemed to be biting the back of her neck. I thought they were attacking her, so I’d chase them away with tiny pebbles, and to my surprise she’d going running off after them, Come back you stupid cat, I’m trying to save you. As a 10-year-old kid what I didn’t know was she must have been in-season, and giving the tomcats the feline equivalent of ‘Hello sailor.’

      The only thing we ever got into trouble for was playing football in the street. The spritely old spinster of the parish used to chase us away with a long handled sweeping bush. Maybe she did have a point; we did use the gable-end of her house as the goals. We contemplated dropping a firework through her letterbox but like the mice debating who was going to put the bell around the cat’s neck, we were all chicken-shit.

      There were a few bright moments, like as all kids I loved Christmas even midnight mass was okay. The smell of incense and beer, the ambiance the Carols, better still if it was snowing, felt like a character in a Dickens novel.

      When I reached 12 it was time to be confirmed, the Catholic Bar Mitzvah without the scalpel.

      Choose a confirmation name

      What about Gene Vincent

      Absolutely not, it has to be a saint’s name

      How about Saint Vitus

      Don’t be ridiculous

      Mum never laughed at my jokes, I thought I was witty, she thought sarcastic.

      You know, it’s easy to get those two bad boys mixed up. We were to be confirmed by the Bishop of Leeds.

      Don’t forget to kiss his ring.

      Yeh, I’ll wait till he’s tying his shoelaces.

      We were all forced to serve mass. I was probably the worst altar boy in history, standing there in a little frilly white baby doll, looking a right pillock.

      Back then the mass was all in Latin I hadn’t got a clue. I kept ringing the little bell at all the wrong times. The congregations were all over the place, kneeling, standing, sitting, up and down like a 'Jack in the Box'! If the priests black looks could have killed, I’d have been dead meat. We all tried to get a shot at the communion wine, but as far as I know that bet was never won.

      On another occasion I had to read a passage from one of the gospels to the congregation in the school chapel. The book was almost as heavy as me, on the way up to the altar, I stumbled and the book slammed shut. It took what seemed like five minutes to find the page. I eventually stammered through it, face on red as a beetroot, another bollocking.

      After I left school I never went to church again, except for the obligatory, four funerals and a wedding.

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