Tiny Tuesday: Paper

When I was young I was in the church choir, whilst my sisters were in the various Brownie/Guide/Rangers groups attached to the church.  We weren't a religious family, but my parents took the view that if they introduced us to it until we were old enough to make up our own minds it was then up to us to decide if we wanted to stick with it.  I have to say that once we were all old enough we all moved on to other things, and my parents gave up going to church too; indeed, I know that when certain prayers were being said my father would keep quiet or mumble as he wasn't prepared to say he believed in something that he patently did not believe.  However, it was a good education to us all and opened our eyes to tolerance of other points of view.

I learned a few things from being in the choir.  I learned that I was a good boy soprano, but that once my voice broke I had difficulty hitting a note.  I learned that if you turned up to sing at weddings on a Saturday it could be quite lucrative, getting between 1/6d to two shillings per wedding.  At a time when pocket money was around a shilling a week, that was good money.  I learned that the annual choir trip to Scarborough was a great day out, all paid for by a collection from the congregation.  A coach to Scarborough, left on our own to wander around the amusements all day (no worries in those days about letting 7-11 year olds out on their own), then meet up for football on the beach and fish and chips before the coach back home again.

But what has this to do with the Tiny Tuesday theme of 'paper', I hear you say?  Well, the other thing I learned in the choir was that the paper hymn sheets handed out to the choirboys were just the right size and shape for practising origami during a long and tedious sermon.  I became a dab hand at making paper planes, a shape like a beak that 'clacked' when you pressed the two parts together, and this pterodactyl that had wings that flapped; just hold the bottom at the front and pull the tail.  There were others too, but those are the ones I can still amaze my friends with all these years later.  I suppose there is something to be said for church after all.