Most priests have various unholy interests and a few of mine will be known to parishioners or have become apparent. There are still further skeletons in the cupboard, though. One thing I have to admit to (which is no longer current for there is no longer the opportunity) is that I used to be an addict of TV wrestling on Saturday afternoons ["Father, must we have these revelations? This is the parish Newsletter!"]. From the comfort of my armchair I was on a par with those shrieking ringside harridans with lead - weighted handbags who were just waiting to cosh any wrestler who fell or got thrown out of the ring.

So it was a great deal of nostalgia that I read of the death shortly before Christmas of the famous Shirley Crabtree, alias Big Daddy (aged 67). Funny name, Shirley Crabtree. It sounds like a female role in "Coronation Street". Apparently he first learnt his trade defending his name against jeering school-chums in his native Halifax. His speciality was to drop on his opponents with the full weight of his somewhat over-endowed stomach which must have been like a flattening with a piledriver. He spiced up his ‘act’ in the 1970’s with his new stagename and a new leotard (made by his wife from a chintz sofa cover) and was a favourite – apparently – of Margaret Thatcher and Prince Charles When TV wrestling went out before the American revival) he was reduced to appearing in a pier show in Southport and walking sad and alone along Blackpool front.

How easy it is to see God as "Big Daddy". Huge in form, alarming in name, surrounded by a supporting cast of terrifying admirers, and with the ritual of worship as his colourful ‘act’. The only thing lacking in this image is the sad ending, for it is imagined that God will come with great wrath. Yet as we ponder the Christmas Jesus ("smaller than the smallest of his people") we need to remember that he did experience sadness that people were not drawn to his love. "How often have I longed to gather you as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!" (Luke 13:34J