For a large proportion of retailers, the Christmas period is their most important time of the year, because that is when they make the most profit. For us, Christmas was the second most important time of the year. More significant for us, was Easter, because that was when Spring Harvest occurred.
Spring Harvest is a yearly Christian conference for all denominations, that lasts a whole week, with programmes for all ages. The internet describes it as, ‘An interdenominational evangelical conference and gathering in the United Kingdom that started in 1979.’
There are worship sessions, teachings sessions, times of prayer and reflection, workshops, family services, children & youth programmes and the all-important selling of Christian merchandise.
Our bookshop chain was commissioned by the organisation to set up a large stall each year in the foyer of the conference venue. From early morning to late evening, we would sell to delegates, all kinds of products from our stock list. Items like T-shirts which were slow to sell in the high street, would be swiped from of the display stands by young people who did not ordinarily frequent the shops. Children’s gifts and greeting cards were also on demand at these events. The books that were prominently displayed, would be the ones authored by the guest speakers and singers who were working at the particular venue (Minehead or Skegness) for that year. At the side of the stall, book signings would take place and people would flock to the tables in droves to get an up-close glimpse of the famous singer, band or speaker.
Spring Harvest brought in more revenue than the rest of the year put together, including Christmas sales, so, for our C.E.O., this event was literally a Godsend.
For many years, Head Office would ask each branch to provide volunteers to take a week out of their normal shop duties, to go along to one of the Spring Harvest venues and serve. The main tasks were, doing set-up, operating the tills, counting the money and doing pack-down at the end of the week. As it generated such a massive profit, the demand for more volunteers increased. Eventually, it was no longer an optional decision and staff were told that if they were chosen, they had to go. This meant leaving families behind and travelling to the seaside for one week.
I was asked to volunteer and was excited because the only Christian conference I had ever attended was, Bognor Bible Week; but that was organised by the Elim Pentecostal organisation and was therefore, less multi-denominational. This meant that there wouldn’t be as many people falling on the floor like dominoes during the service, and a larger ratio of white people to black: more like, 80:20. I was not told what to expect, so I was totally unaware of what duties I would be undertaking.
After a 125 mile train journey, I arrived at the Skegness venue and was asked to help with setting up the bookstall. There was just a large empty space with a few tables and shelves scattered around, and myself and the rest of the team were handed boxes of merchandise to sort and price up.
It was a mammoth task and I didn’t feel too well. Unbeknown to me, my body was having an allergic reaction to some powerful antibiotics I had taken the week before. My skin was slowly becoming covered in large, red, itchy blotches.
I soldiered on, and after an exhausting day, our stall was ready for business.
Ophelia, who was the girl designated to manage the makeshift shop, had somehow discovered that I used to work in a bank, so I was asked to do extra tasks. This meant working on the tills from early morning to late evening with break in between for lunch.
However, my first job on day of opening, was to set up the book signing table for the famous Christians that were due to be swamped by adoring fans as soon as it hit 9.00am.
American writer, Jeff Lucas, was to be the star of the show that year. I had never read any of his books, nor heard him preach, but it was well known that this man was funny. His most popular book in our shop was called, Lucas on Life and I got the impression his take on the world was similar to that of Adrian Plass.
As soon as he arrived, he was cracking jokes and seemed remarkably relaxed about the impending crowd that was due to descend upon him. I showed appreciation of his jocularity by joking along with him, and made a mental note to ensure I grabbed a copy of his book, so that I could get the full benefit of his humour. To date, I have yet to do so.
Years later, I did however, attend an evening of comedy when he visited my church with Adrian Plass. It was called, The Seriously Funny Tour. Now, I loved Adrian Plass, not just for his humour, but his serious writing also. His story called, The Visit had made me cry like a baby when I was young, and I have read, Broken Windows, Broken Lives, five times.
Given that I had gleaned a glimpse of Jeff Lucas’s amusing nature at Spring Harvest, I had assumed that this evening was going to be one of laughter and joviality. It wasn’t. Three quarters of the people in the room were old-time fans of both men and had travelled from other churches and towns just to see them both perform together. They did laugh. But like me, many did not. My young daughter was with me and embarrassingly, the only child in the room. This gave Adrian Plass reason to tell rude jokes and I winced on my seat. I came out of the auditorium thinking the show should be re-named, The Seriously Unfunny Tour.
I don’t think it was totally their fault. When one describes themselves as funny, they are setting themselves up for causing disapointment. Their managers were probably the ones who marketed them as such, especially as individually, they had a reputation of making people howl with laughter – maybe they just weren’t as effective as a team. Nevertheless, I think that is why I have never bothered pursuing, Lucas On Life. I may try and borrow a copy from the library one day, just to see what the fuss is about.
Well…despite the disappointing evening with the two boring comedians, nothing could have been as unfunny as what happened to me on the first night after the customers had gone to bed.
At close of business round about 8pm, Ophelia and I emptied the tills, bagged up the money and took it away to be counted, checked, and checked again, before being entered into a paying-in book. Three men helped us with the counting. The notes, coin, cheques, credit and debit card receipts were then stuffed into several night safe boxes. By this time, it would be approaching midnight. One of the men and I, then drove to the town centre to place the money into the local bank’s night safe.
But on this first night, a money mountain was born and the shock of it was probably what caused me to end up dashing to the doctors two days later.
Having worked mostly on the tills during my time at the bank, I was used to counting coin and placing the correct amounts into a coin bag. On my first evening, ten minutes before we closed the shop, I was asked to gather most of the coin from each till and throw it into a large sack. This was not good enough for me and my pedantic side kicked in, ensuring that each different denomination of coin went into a different container.
When the five of us entered the counting room, we began placing the coin bags on the table and three gentlemen and I, started grabbing bags according to the denomination we desired to count first. I chose the pennies because they were the most fiddly, and I wanted to get the hardest job out of the way first. Suddenly, Ophelia started pulling at the bags and emptying them out all at once. The four of us stared in horror while we witnessed a mighty mix-up. I wanted to shout,
“Hey, what are you doing? These have been sorted already and you’re mixing them up again!”
I stared in disbelief as our metal mountain became one giant mess. By the time the last bag was emptied onto the table, I could hardly see the man opposite me. I looked at Ophelia who seemed unperturbed by her crime. The two men to my right had their heads down and all I could see of the third one was his nose dotting about between some 20 pence pieces.
I was so angry that I began wondering if my blotches were going to spread to my face. It took absolutely ages for us to sort it all out.
We did not get to the night safe until after midnight and did not roll into to bed until 12.20am.
Later on in the morning, I awoke to more confusion. I was lodging with 6 other female volunteers in a chalet on the site, but because I had not been given a timetable, I was unaware of what was going on. I really hadn’t a clue. Nothing had been communicated to me at any stage, so I assumed I would be doing exactly what my housemates did.
The television in the living room was wired-up to the live services so that we could watch what was happening in some of the venues. While we were eating breakfast, the girls mentioned that if they had worked the evening before, then they had the morning off and would not be required back on the tills until the afternoon.
“How do you know this?” I asked.
“Because we’ve done it before. We all worked here last year.” said a German girl called Judit.
“Oh,” I said, feeling relieved. “I’ll watch one of the live services then go down about 11am to see if they need any extra help.”
A few minutes later, the phone rang, and it was Ophelia.
“Where are you?” she exclaimed.
“Er…I’m just having breakfast. I’m at the chalet.”
“But it’s ten past nine! You’re supposed to be on the tills!” she screamed.
“Oh sorry,” I muttered, feeling embarrassed and sad that I might be misunderstood as being lazy. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
When I arrived, I was ushered to one of the 8 tills and set to work. I tried to ask what was expected of me and when I was supposed to get a break during the week, but the answer came back.
“You are supposed to be on all the time.”
I was confused but didn’t dare ask why. I’m not always that assertive and sometimes I just put my tail between my legs and keep quiet. So, I bit my lip and resigned myself to the fact that I was destined to do 12 hour shifts for next 7 days.
In the evening, I grabbed one of the counting guys and told him how flabbergasted I was at what Ophelia had done the night before. His face lit up,
“Me too! That was just ridiculous! I didn’t know what to say so I just joined in, but I thought it was crazy! Right, there is no way that is going to happen again tonight. We are going to keep the coin in their bags and count them individually!”
I praised the Lord and thanked him that I had an advocate. Manager or not, Ophelia wasn’t going to get away with making our job ten times harder that it needed to be.
Before we began, I decided to be honest and tell Ophelia what we thought.
“Oh sorry!” she said, “I just didn’t think. It never occurred to me that they had already been sorted. And I guess I tipped them out so quickly, that it would not have made much difference if you had all spoken up. I promise I won’t do that again!”
Despite this hiccup, I loved the job and the whole atmosphere. It was tiring, but fun. I don’t remember collapsing from exhaustion, so common sense tells me that I must have been given some time off eventually and I have just forgotten. However, the only day off I do remember, began with me sat staring at the walls of a doctor’s waiting room.
I ended up having to dash to their onsite doctors surgery to get some cream for my rash, which had become so inflamed by then, that I was beginning to look contagious. I had never seen so many people buy so much stuff and I did not want to be the one to ruin it all. I would never live it down if customers began running out of the shop screaming, “Leper!”
Head Office was bound to get wind of it and make me recompense their lost revenue out of my own wages. Afterall,
“We are a charity.”
I couldn’t believe it – the room was so full of patients that it took 3 hours before a medical practitioner called me into his office.
On first arrival at the surgery, I had looked around wondering why so many sick people had come to Spring Harvest. Were they expecting one of the preachers to conduct a healing service? Didn’t they realise they were at the wrong event for that? There weren’t many charismatic preachers on the line-up. I thought that maybe I should go down to the beach and try dipping in the sea seven times. But then, I thought that maybe others had already done that and that was why they were unwell – it was the UK after all.
To date, Spring Harvest is still running and thousands of Christians from all around the country are being blessed by this conference.
It’s probably thanks to this event why our chain of shops remained in business for as long as they did.
Now I’m off to the library to see if a man called Jeffrey can make me laugh. Despite my previous disappointment, I’m still hopeful. Any book with a cover that contains a jack-in-the-box sporting a blue Mohican, must be at least a little bit amusing.
