Graham Oakley Quotes

“ ‘It was all working out so nicely,’ the parson went on sadly, ‘but as it is, you’ll have to go in the morning. A church is no good without a congregation, is it?’ “

“he rushed out of the church and into the town to put his idea into practice. And what an awful place the town was, much worse than he had imagined. He almost gave up his idea, but then he thought, ‘If it’s always as nasty as this, everybody is bound to agree to my plan’. So he hurried on...”

“My idea is this. You all come and live at the church. It’s warm, quiet, and I’ve got Sampson, the church car, right under my thumb...er...almost. The parson says if we do a few odd jobs we’ll be paid in cheese, best quality. He’s expecting us tomorrow morning if you want to come.”

“Arthur tied the burglar’s bootlaces together. He had to do it himself because Sampson could only tie granny knots. Then Sampson obliged with his party piece. It was supposed to be the Song of the Nightingale but everyone else thought it sounded like a policeman’s whistle. They counted on the burglar thinking so too.”

“In a busy little town, not very far away, there is a church, and in the church there lived a mouse whose name was Arthur. “

“But one Sunday, during the Harvest Festival service, a terrible thing happened. Sampson, who had suffered a very bad night with the young mice, dropped off during the sermon and dreamt he was back in the days before he was reformed. When he woke up he found he was not dreaming. He was chasing mice all over the church. It took a bit of time to remember about brotherly love, and by that time it was too late.”

“Sampson, the church cat, had listened to so many sermons about the meek being blessed and everybody really being brothers that he had grown quite frighteningly meek and treated Arthur like a brother.”

“One afternoon, when he was reading, an idea popped into his head and...as the parson was at that very moment passing by, Arthur told him all about it. The parson rather liked the idea, at least he said he was willing to give it a try.”

“As for Sampson, you might think he was very sorry about his lapse, but you would be wrong because he wasn’t. The mice had been taking him a bit for granted of late, he thought, and the fact that they were frivolous giddy creatures was no excuse. They’d learnt he was not to be trifled with, and after that, whenever they needed reminding, he would just yawn and say he hoped he wouldn’t drop off during the sermon, and then there would be no more giggling and tittering over silly jokes about ‘dogs’ for at least two days.”

“The mice kept their half of the bargain and worked quite hard every day. They made sure that the flowers were always fresh and artistically arranged. They polished the congregation’s shoes while they listened to the sermon. If there was a wedding they all went outside to pick up the confetti, and if anyone had thrown rice they picked that up too and made a big rice pudding for supper.”

“Sampson himself did baby-sitting, and they didn’t mind a bit about hurting his feelings, or any other part of him for that matter.”