01/03/2026
We're following St Faithful's, Havnot, who clearly have a very ambitious ringing band!
OH WHAT A LOVELY WAR...
The Little John was not, by any stretch of the imagination, peaceful. The snug door didn’t quite shut properly, which meant every successful dart in the public bar landed in their conversation like incoming artillery.
“TREBLE TWENTY!”
A cheer. A crash. Someone shouting, “Get in!”
Horse flinched and glowered at the door to the bar. “They’re celebrating like they’ve liberated Belgium.”
Outside, the bells of St Faithful’s began practice with the subtlety of falling scaffolding.
Dobbs froze mid-sip.
“That,” he said tightly, “was not Stedman.”
Clarence appeared, sliding a suspiciously pale pint in front of Perry.
“Try the new Aussie l***r, Churchwarden," he said encouraginly. "Cold. Refreshing. Modern.”
Perry stared at it as though it had insulted the monarchy.
“Beer,” Perry said slowly, “should not be refrigerated to the point of tastebud collapse.”
“It’s what people want,” Clarence shot back.
“People,” Perry replied, “also want reality television.”
Sally choked on her drink.
There was another eruption from the bar.
Horse stood halfway up. “Right. That’s it. I’m going in.”
“You are not,” Sandy said calmly, placing a firm hand on his sleeve.
“I’m going to tell them that if they don’t lower the volume I shall personally demonstrate what a proper bullseye looks like.”
“You don’t play darts.”
“I shall improvise.”
Outside, the bells attempted something ambitious with a result not unlike a tray of cutlery being hurled at a wall.
It was Dobbs' turn to rise to his feet. “I’m having a word.”
“With whom?” Tim asked mildly.
“With physics.”
He marched out of the pub. The others watched through the window as he shook an angry fist in the general direction of the tower.
From inside, through the half-open window, they heard him shout, “ROUND! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO RING IT AROUND. ONE AFTER ANOTHER!”
Perry, meanwhile, had not taken his eyes off the l***r. He took a tentative sip.
“This,” he said to Clarence, who was still hovering defensively, “is an offence against civilisation. Proper English ale is room temperature. It breathes. It has depth.”
“It’s flat,” Clarence retorted.
“It is not flat. It is contemplative.”
Tim leaned back, watching the escalating theatre with a faint smile.
Sally folded her arms. “Look at us.”
“What?” Horse demanded.
“We’re furious about bells. Furious about darts. Furious about b**r temperature.”
Another roar from the bar. Clarence headed off to try and negotiate an armistice.
Dobbs re-entered, his remaining tufts of hair slightly windblown.
“They’re attempting Grandsire Doubles,” he announced, as if reporting troop movements. “With extreme optimism.”
Horse pointed toward the bar. “And THEY are attempting volume-based dominance.”
Perry gestured at the l***r. “And this establishment is attempting cultural vandalism.”
Tim raised an eyebrow. “Shall we declare war?”
There was a pause.
Horse looked thoughtful. “Could we justify it, theologically speaking?”
Sandy smiled faintly. “Ah. There it is.”
Outside, the bells clashed again, like a collapsing pile of hub-caps. Inside, a dart thudded emphatically into a board. Horse huffed. Dobbs muttered. Perry glowered into his chilled pint as though it embodied the decline of civilisation.
“When,” Sally said slowly, “is force justified? Because we all feel it right now. That urge to storm the bar. Silence the bells. Deport the l***r.”
“I never said deport,” Perry objected. “Quarantine would be quite sufficient.”
Tim folded his hands.
“Christian thinkers have wrestled with this for centuries. Not about bells or b**r — though possibly about b**r — but about actual war.”
Sandy nodded. “The tradition says violence might be morally permissible… but only under strict conditions.”
“Such as?” Dobbs asked, sitting again but still bristling faintly.
“Just cause,” Tim said. “Legitimate authority. Last resort. Proportionality. A reasonable chance of success.”
Horse considered this. “So I cannot invade the darts team simply because they’re loud.”
“No.”
“Have we exhausted peaceful options?”
“You haven’t tried asking politely,” Sandy pointed out.
Horse deflated slightly.
Perry sniffed. “And storming the bar over chilled l***r would fail on proportionality.”
“Dramatically,” Sally said.
Outside, the bells steadied — just for a moment — into something almost coherent.
Dobbs softened visibly.
“The point,” Sandy said, raising her voice slightly over another cheer, “is that Just War theory tries to restrain violence. It assumes conflict is tragic. It sets moral boundaries.”
Tim nodded. “It says you cannot simply act because you are annoyed, or offended, or even harmed. There must be serious cause. And even then, the response must be limited.”
Horse slumped back into his chair.
“So most of my impulses are unjust.”
“Yes,” said Sally.
“Comforting.”
Clarence reappeared, arms folded.
“You lot discussing theology again?”
“Conflict,” Tim replied.
"Same thing, really"
Clarence gestured toward the bells. “Well, if you don't want conflict, tell that lot to pack it in. It’s costing me customers.”
Dobbs bristled.
“They were here before your jukebox.”
“And before your evil b**r-refrigeration machine,” Perry added.
Clarence looked as though he might say something regrettable, then thought better of it and retreated.
The snug quietened slightly. The darts match appeared to have reached its climax.
Tim looked round the table.
“Maybe Just War theory begins with recognising the heat in ourselves. The instinct to dominate. To silence. To win.”
“And then,” Sandy said, “asking whether we are defending something genuinely vulnerable… or merely our preferences.”
Dobbs sighed. “The bells matter.”
“They do,” Sally agreed. “But so does sleep.”
“And so does community,” Tim added. “Which is harder to rebuild than a dartboard.”
Outside, the bells finally found a rhythm.
Inside, the bar noise dipped into ordinary pub hum.
Horse glanced at the door to the public bar.
“I suppose,” he said reluctantly, “it would be unjust to demonstrate my bullseye technique now?”
“Very,” Sandy replied.
Perry took a cautious sip of the l***r, grimaced, and set it down.
“Some battles,” he said gravely, “must be endured rather than fought.”
Dobbs looked toward the tower.
“Last resort,” he murmured.
Tim smiled.
In the snug of The Little John — beside the bells, beneath the noise, amid l***r and indignation — no war was declared.
Which, given human history, was not nothing.
----
Disclaimer
St Faithful’s is fictional. The affection is real.
Books by Canon Tom Kennar (including 3 volumes of 'The Parish Life' about St Faithful’s) are available in print and e-book. Merchandise is available online - with free shipping until midnight on Sunday March 1st. See https://tinyurl.com/4k9jtpbe for more about both books and merch.
AI may assist with these posts. The drafting and publishing responsibility is entirely human.
--------------------------------------
