The Professor Peregrine Papers

One sunny, summer day many years ago, taking a slow train through suburban London to her house, these are the things that we enjoyed seeing from the train window. Scene 1 : A weightlifter in a garden proving to be a source of fascination for birds Scene 2 : A woman in a quiet street pushing a large wheelbarrow full of flowers, in a floriferous manner Scene 3 : A colourful statue of a cow Scene 4 : A vision from the 1930s with pots and pans suspended above a joyful husband and wife   Scene 5 : In a garden, two men dressed in Victorian clothes staring at something that they consider intractable As dusk began to fall and we neared our destination, she whispered to me, “Love is the man in quiet shoes walking close behind you as you make your way home.”

I had heard many rumours concerning the Professor's great uncle, the widely-respected ecclesiastical scholar, the Reverend Prebendary-without-Portfolio, Glanton Pyke. While briefly trapped in a defective lift between floors at The National Pith Helmet Museum, the Professor eventually confided the vexatious story to me.  “Following his recovery from a sudden crisis of faith, Glanton began to invest an increasing amount of his time in researching the role of the lithophone in the development of modern liturgical music. He was determined to see this project through to its conclusion, in spite of warnings from colleagues and a passing onion seller that he was neglecting his long-held ambition to be appointed to the office of Suffragan. After some years, he triumphantly presented his conclusions in the legendary lecture hall at The Monkton Up Wimborne Seminary and Butterfly Observatory. It's said that on that day many tears of joy were shed, many lives were changed and Nottinghamshi...