September 2008

Those of you without teenage daughters may not have come across Jack Wills.  With superb marketing, it sells casual clothing at non-casual prices to those who want to look cool.  Even the knickers are cool, and cost £16 this season.  I say no more.

After some considerable persuasion, and exemplary exam results, I bought my very own teenager a grey hoodie.  She promptly asked if she could take it on the school outward bound weekend.  A very expensive, very cool, and very casual hoodie in lakeland mud!  But it came home without a mark on it.  Very impressive.  So when she asked if it could come to New Wine, of course I said yes…

All went well until a child staying with us came off his bike, swallowed by the mud monster of Shepton Mallet.  My teenager was first on scene, knelt in the mud and prayed for him.  She then helped him up, and got him to the medical centre, all the time supporting him, while offering prayer and encouragement, wiping away the mud.  Well done BK.  EXCEPT, she was wering the Jack Wills hoodie.

Enter the mother with the dilemma.  ”Good job with hurt child; how could you wear that very, very expensive hoodie; but good job; but how am I every going to clean it; but you did just the right thing; but I’ll never get it dry…”  Five days later it was still dripping, since at New Wine this year nothing dried.  And I had just about come down from the tent roof.

The experience of loosing my cool at New Wine is always salutary, since every tent on site can hear the row.  How some of those other parents of a teenager must have laughed.  Still, bouncing off tent walls is quite a soft experience compared to brick.  And the hoodie looks ok – just appropriately aged.