I have beheld His face

"Six pints of Hook Norton & a pickled egg please"
sayeth The Lord

Skeptics say that he is a fake, but I know different. As the great Max Boyce put it; “I know – because I was there!”. I speak, of course, of Larry the Shroud, named for his resemblance to the famous relic of Turin. He was in the next room to me in Kitson Block (when he was actually in the college, of course).

His deity-like appearance, combined with about fifteen pints of strong ale at the O.U., would result in the spectacle of “God moving in a mysterious way” down Walton Street around midnight on a Friday.

Once, stood by a kebab van, he overheard a student mocking his Christlike aspect. And Lo, The Hand of The Lord reached out and grasped the hapless stripling’s collar and did shake him like a rag doll. “Leave it out, son. Leave it out”, intoned the sonorous Halifax-accented voice of The Almighty.

He had a “thing” about traffic cones, and would bring them back to his room like a squirrel hoarding hazelnuts. Flashing orange roadworks lights, too, festooned The House of The Lord. He must have cost the local Highways Department a fortune, but ours not to question the ways of Providence.

He was trying to combine full-time work in a factory “oop North” with completing his diploma and would do his essays in the coach on the way back . I wonder if he completed the course? I hope so. I remember him as being a quiet & gentle man & a deep thinker – and the person who introduced me to the music of The Waterboys. Interesting; you’d expect his tastes to run more to “Deus Irae”, sung by the Vatican Choir. Which just goes to show that we cannot hope to fathom His ineffable ways.

Venceremos!