Memberships

Sir Richard Arcos reports... After my glorious role in the General Election, where I tried to stand as Unionist candidate for Cork County, only to discover Cork has not been part of the United Kingdon since the 1920s, and thus does not elect a Member of Parliament, I resumed my role as roving reporter for this blog. So, having convinced my granddaughter to come with me, we decided to visit the Ebenezer church, Pontwen, in Mid-Wales. This church, operating in the fashion of an American independent Fundamentalist Baptist church, boats a membership of almost ten thousand, a remarkable figure in this day of small things.

On the Sunday, we set off from my holiday cottage in Mid-Wales, an old chapel called Ichabod (the manor house was rather inconsiderately being used by my son-in law, some excuse about having seven children and the cottage only sleeping three and a half), for the chapel. Naturally, we wore our best Sunday clothes. I took the Range Rover rather than the Rolls, not wishing to be too ostentatious.

On arriving at the church we found a vacant car park, big enough to fit the car in, but not much else, and a sunken lane leading to the chapel. There was a noticeboard, but it did not seem to have been repainted for a good many years. Proceeding along the lane, we found what is best described as a small jungle, so we returned to the car for a machete. With the aid of this tool, we slashed our way through the undergrowth to the chapel, which is depicted. It appeared to have fallen down a long time prior to our visit.

Further research disclosed that the almost ten thousand members included people born in 1750, and the membership figure was arrived at by the simple expedient of never removing people from the membership lists.