21/07/2026
Simpson is nearly as far from the sea as it's possible to get in Britain, and we don't generally note Sea Sunday. But we still raise money for the RNLI sometimes. And I still think you'll love this story. May we be as creative, and as loving, as the Godly people of St Havnot's.
THE NAVE OF FOOLS
Horse Palmer’s contribution to Sea Sunday was first discovered on Thursday morning, when the Revd Sandy Lintel, our curate, opened the choir vestry door and found the stern of a galleon blocking access to the robes.
She stood looking at it for several seconds.
The vessel appeared to have been constructed from two tea chests, two old pews, four wheels from a supermarket trolley and part of the scenery from the primary school’s production of *The Pirates of Penzance*. Three masts made of cardboard and gaffer tape rose towards the vestry ceiling. The sails had been made from old altar linen, although Horse had painted a skull and crossbones on one of them before Judith Crowther could intervene.
“It’s not finished,” Horse said, emerging from beneath the hull with a screwdriver between his teeth.
“That,” said Sandy, “is the most alarming thing you could possibly have said.”
Horse removed the screwdriver.
“It’s for Sea Sunday.”
“I had gathered the nautical connection.”
“It’s going to sail down the aisle during the first hymn.”
Sandy closed her eyes.
“No.”
“Dobbs is going to captain it.”
“Please, no.”
“It’s got a bell.”
“No.”
Horse rang the bell.
Sandy held her peace, and went to find Tim.
The Revd Tim Keen was in the Vicarage kitchen attempting to write a sermon about storms, sailors and the presence of God in places where human beings are not in control. He listened to Sandy’s account with increasing resignation.
“Did you say trolley wheels?”
"I did. They now appear to have been attached to a tea chest with brackets from the hymn-book cupboard.”
“And Dobbs has agreed to this?”
“Horse says he has.”
“That is not the same thing.”
They returned to the church, where Dobbs was inspecting the galleon with the expression of a man buying a second-hand car from someone he did not trust.
“I have not agreed,” he said firmly. “I said I would consider it.”
Horse was fitting a ship's wheel to the stern.
“We tried your cooling machine,” Tim said, cautiously.
“That was completely different.”
“It removed Lionel from the organ stool.”
“Only briefly.”
“And at Easter,” Sandy said, “your pop-up Jesus struck Mrs Partington under the chin.”
“That was Abe's fault. Too much tension in the spring.”
Horse stepped back from the vessel.
The words **HMS HAVNOT** had been painted along the side. Beneath them, in smaller letters, he had added:
**SEA SUNDAY (MINUS THE SEA)**
“This is Sea Sunday,” Horse said. “You can’t just talk about ships. People need to experience one.”
“Most people only experience ships on water,” said Sandy.
“That’s because they lack imagination.”
"Has it," said Tim, in the manner of one clearly expecting a negative answer, "undergone a risk assessment?"
"It has undergone three coats of emulsion," said Horse, helpfully.
Tim said no to the whole mad idea. Horse accepted this with every appearance of humility, then asked what time the west doors would be unlocked on Sunday.
By Friday, the prohibition had become a discussion. By Saturday, it had become a rehearsal.
This was how Horse won. Not through argument, exactly, but through patience, charm and an absolute refusal to recognise that a decision had been made unless it was the decision he wanted.
By Sunday morning, the sails had been replaced with blue and white fabric, and a brass plaque reading ST FAITHFUL’S MISSION TO SEAFARERS had been added to the bow.
Frantic preparations were underway outside the west door, where the galleon had been positioned, ready for its big entrance.
“What about steering?” Tim asked.
Horse demonstrated the ship's wheel. The front wheels moved slightly to the left.
“And the brakes?”
Horse pointed to a house brick tied to a rope.
“You throw that overboard.”
“There is no overboard.”
“Then it should work even better.”
Dobbs adjusted his tie, and quoted a psalm.
“Those who go down to the sea in ships....”
“You will be going down the nave in a tea chest,” said Sandy.
“The principle is similar," said Dobbs.
Horse had dressed Dobbs in a navy-blue re**er jacket, a child-sized lifejacket and a peaked cap borrowed from the Sea Cadets. Dobbs still wore his verger's robes beneath them. He looked like a senior officer in a branch of maritime funeral directors.
The plan was simple. During the first hymn, “Eternal Father, Strong to Save”, Horse would release the vessel. Dobbs would steer slowly down the centre aisle. At the chancel step, he would bring the galleon to a dignified halt, ring the bell, and remain aboard for the opening prayer.
There had even been a rehearsal. Admittedly, the rehearsal had taken place without a congregation, flower arrangements, hymn books, or stray items of congregational apparel.
As Lionel struck up the requisite hymn, with a deep and audible sigh, the congregation turned and stared with a mixture of incomprehension and panic.
HMS Havnot entered St Faithful’s with its sails billowing, its bell ringing and Dobbs standing proudly at the helm. Horse walked behind it, giving discreet pushes whenever the nautical momentum weakened.
For one glorious moment, it worked.
Children pointed. Adults laughed. Even Judith smiled. Dobbs raised one hand in solemn acknowledgement, like an admiral entering Portsmouth Harbour after a successful campaign.
“Eternal Father, strong to save,” sang the congregation, somewhat hesitantly, while preparing to leap out of the way if required.
The galleon passed the font.
“Whose arm hath bound the restless wave—”
It passed the third pew.
“Who bidd’st the mighty ocean deep—”
The left front wheel struck Mrs Partington’s handbag, which was protruding into the aisle.
The wheel spun.
Dobbs turned it sharply.
Nothing happened.
He turned it the other way.
The galleon veered towards the lectern.
Horse attempted to pull it back by the stern, but one of the sails caught him across the face.
“Port!” shouted Dobbs.
“Which one’s port?” shouted Horse.
“Left!”
“Whose left?”
The bow struck the lectern.
The Bible rose briefly into the air and landed open in the aisle.
The lectern toppled sideways with a noise like the collapse of a small but devout empire.
In desperation, Dobbs threw out the improvised brake.
The rope snapped.
HMS Havnot continued inexorably towards the pulpit.
Lionel stopped playing.
The congregation stopped singing.
The galleon struck the pulpit broadside.
Dobbs, obeying several laws of physics but no known rubric of the Church of England, flew forwards, disappeared head first through the pulpit entrance, and emerged moments later upright behind the pulpit desk.
His cap was crooked.
His lifejacket had inflated.
There was a long silence.
Dobbs reached underneath the lifejacket and adjusted his tie.
He looked down at Tim.
“Would you like me to preach the sermon while I’m here?”
The congregation erupted.
Even Tim had to lean against the altar rail.
When order had finally been restored, Horse retrieved the Bible, Judith righted the lectern, and Sandy helped Dobbs out of the lifejacket, which had become wedged beneath his chin.
HMS Havnot remained beside the pulpit for the rest of the service, listing heavily to starboard.
Tim climbed into the pulpit and peered at the wreckage.
He had intended to preach about danger at sea. About the smallness of human beings beneath a vast sky. About those who worked on fishing boats, cargo vessels, ferries and rescue craft, and about the families who waited for them to come home.
He still said those things.
But first, he looked at Horse.
Horse was sitting on the floor beside his ruined galleon, looking unusually subdued and holding the house brick by the remains of its severed rope.
“There are churches,” Tim said, “where nothing like this would ever happen.”
Horse nodded sadly.
“And I am sure they are very peaceful places.”
There was laughter.
“But perhaps there is something to be said for a community where people are allowed to imagine things. Even ridiculous things. Where someone can see two tea chests, a shopping trolley and an old school sail, and think: that could become a ship.”
“A galleon,” Horse corrected.
“A galleon,” Tim agreed.
“Admittedly, creativity sometimes leads to chaos. It knocks over the lectern. It damages the pulpit. It fires the verger into the place where the sermon ought to be.”
Dobbs raised a hand from the sanctuary door.
“No permanent harm done.”
“Creativity gives us music, stories, gardens, laughter, friendship, and all the strange ways human beings bring hope into the world. We create because we believe that creation itself springs from the imagination and love of God.”
Tim looked around the church.
“And when our creativity goes wrong—and it will—the question is not whether everything stayed tidy. It is whether we helped one another out of the wreckage. Whether we laughed kindly, forgave quickly, put the lectern upright, and made sure Dobbs was still conscious.”
“I was never unconscious,” said Dobbs.
“Whether,” Tim continued, “we loved one another through the chaos. Because that may be one of the clearest signs that we know where all creativity comes from.”
After the service, the children climbed aboard HMS Havnot.
Judith began filling in an accident form.
Dobbs allowed himself to be photographed at the helm.
And Horse, having examined the damaged front wheel, announced that the problem could easily be solved before next year.
“No,” said everyone.
Horse smiled.
He had heard them say that before.
---
Enjoyed your visit to Havnot?
St Faithful’s is fictional. The affection is real. The meetings, regrettably, are plausible.
If you would like more parish life, more Horse, more Dobbs, more theology smuggled in under nonsense, more books, more chaos, or a mug that quietly suggests you have survived a PCC meeting, everything begins here:
https://tinyurl.com/4k9jtpbe
That link will take you to Canon Tom’s books, e-books, audiobook, merchandise and Substack, all gathered together in one alarming but useful place. Print books are also available — in person only — from St Faith’s Charity Shop, 4 North Street, Havant.
A note on AI: ChatGPT — known in Havnot as Artie Fischal — is often deployed to help shape, sharpen and illustrate these posts. The drafting, judgement, theology, bad parish memories, and publishing responsibility remain entirely human.
