Hillytown Biscuit Church 2

It's been such a long time since I put anything new on this blog - well, you've probably gone away, haven't you? I've been busy, partly working out a new Hillytown story which you will be able to buy in the autumn. I'd better not tell you too much about it now -perhaps just that the Hillytown gang will be going away on a church weekend in a big old rambling hotel in the countryside...to get you in the mood, here's the house where my church family spend their weekends away. It's great for losing children, inside and out.

God

Thanks Sam for lending me Nation by Terry Pratchett. It has the most wonderful concise account of the religion we call Christianity.

"Mostly they want you to wear trousers and worship their god. He's called God...He's got a son who is a carpenter, an' if you worship him you climb the shining path when you die. The songs is nice and sometimes you get a biscuit."

Hillytown Biscuit Church at Front Room

Hillytown Biscuit Church will be on sale at the Totterdown Biscuit Church venue on the Front Room Art Trail in Totterdown this weekend (the 15th and 16th November). There will also be some of my pictures of life in Bristol like this one of the Victoria Park Bonfire. Plus lots of other artists and cakes.
TBC is the grey building with red doors between Cemetry Road and Sydenham Road on the Wells Road in Bristol. The exhibition will be open between 12 and 6 on Saturday and 12 and 5 on Sunday, and then there will be a special arty service at 6.30 on Sunday evening. This is your chance to buy Hillytown Biscuit Church copies for all the 6 to 9 year olds you know!
"Definitely a must-have book!" Terry James in Christian Writer
"Get a copy of this book by hook or by crook and read it...It will make a brilliant Christmas present for children" Moira Klessner in The Baptist Times

Find out more about the Front Room Art Trail

Daniel Kowalski

Daniel is in year 6 when the Hillytown Biscuit Church story begins. He's just moved from Poland to England, which means a new school, a new church, a new language, and new friends, and yet Daniel is the most self assured person you could imagine. He's clever, and talented and tall and strong. Perhaps the only thing he is afraid of is his mother.

He's also not too worried what anyone thinks of him. He wears a suit to go to church - this is odd for a ten year old in England but I'm not sure it's so common in Poland either. Daniel doesn't care. For that matter, going to church might be a bit odd for a ten year old in England. Daniel's quite happy to be odd.

He's fiercely loyal. His little sister can be very annoying but woe betide anyone who shows their annoyance while Daniel's around. He is also a gifted keyboard player, one of those people who can just effortlessly play lots of notes very quickly without nerves or practice.

What would Daniel's favourite bit of the Bible be? There's one bit at the end of 2 Samuel which you may not have read, and it reads like a superhero comic. There are three superheroes and then thirty slightly less super heroes, although some of them are nearly as famous as "The Three". You can read about them spearing three hundred warriors, chasing lions in the snow, and wrenching spears from their opponents' hands in 2 Samuel 23.

Something about Rob

I keep recommending other peoples’ books and forgetting to write anything about Hillytown Biscuit Church. Well, it will help me if I start writing down everything I know about the characters in the church. I’ll start with the Sunday School children and begin with the oldest.

Rob’s full name is Robert James Martin. When the first Hillytown story begins, he is 14 years old. He’s slim, with longish fair hair and silver rimmed glasses. He spends his time playing the guitar, writing songs and playing computer games. His house is called the manse, because it’s a special house for a minister to live in, although it actually looks very ordinary. Rob lives there with his dad, whose full name is the Reverend Paul Martin. Paul has been the minister of Hillytown Biscuit Church for the whole of Rob’s life, and he has always lived in the manse.

When Rob was just three, his mum died of cancer. This was a terribly sad time for Rob, and Paul, and the whole church. The adults at Hillytown Biscuit Church probably feel this was something that happened just a short time ago, and are probably still feeling sad about it, but none of the children in Sunday School were even born when it happened, just over ten years ago. Rob can remember her just a little bit. I wonder whether he likes thinking about his mum, or whether he tries not to because it hurts too much.

Like Nancy, Rob doesn’t really like talking out loud. I read a bit of Hillytown Biscuit Church to my children and their friends at a sleepover, and they all had a go at being Rob mumbling ‘On the 25th of February I’m going to be baptised’, until they were so low and mumbly you couldn’t hear any of the words. However, he’s very good at saying what he thinks when he writes songs. Here’s the song he wrote about Jesus to sing at his baptism:

Sometimes I feel like I’m not good enough You are a diamond And I’m a bit rough Sometimes I feel shy So I act like a fool And I don’t talk about you To my friends at school But then I remember Just what you did You died on a cross And your friends, they all hid And though I don’t understand Why this should be I’ve known now for ages You did it for me
I don’t know how many 14 year olds are as sure about believing in Jesus as Rob is. My theory is, that the church family at Hillytown Biscuit Church is very, very special to Rob, and he is very, very, special to them, and this makes it more real for him. After his mum died, the people at church did everything they could to help look after Rob. Beryl, the Sunday School teacher, became his childminder, and he still sometimes goes round to her house after school, although he may not want you to know that. Some children and teenagers might just think of church as a boring place they have to go to, for Rob, it really is his family, the place he feels safest in the world. I like to think that when we really love people, and really care for them, it helps them to be able to believe in God, because it really shows them his love.

Are you a grown up looking for books for boys that have some real adventure and danger and a hero who beats the baddies without pressing a button and turning into a bigger monster than them?

Try A Dog Called Grk by Joshua Doder. It's about a twelve year old boy who runs away to Stanislavia to return a lost dog to its owner, a mission which becomes increasingly exciting and dangerous as the story unfolds. It will suit all sorts of ages; Joshua Doder explains what's going on like a very talented tour guide who can make sure the youngest visitor is constantly involved without boring anyone else. It will leave six year olds interested in international diplomacy and mums interested in Westland Wessex helicopters.

I've been reading 'The Railway Children' with Esme and Noah. It's such a compelling story because these old fashioned and sickeningly good children have such an enormous but mysterious problem and you have to find out what it is and how it comes right at the end.

I love the way E. Nesbit mentions God just once. (Once can be enough to change someone's life)

Peter visits his mum in the room where she writes stories to earn enough money to feed her children. "I say" he comments, "wouldn't it be jolly if we all were in a book and you were writing it? Then you could make all sorts of jolly things happen, and make Jim's legs get well all at once and be all right tomorrow, and Father come home soon and-"
When he's finished, his mum puts her arm round him and hugs him for a minute, then says:
"Don't you think it's rather nice to think that we're in a book that God's writing? If I were writing a book, I might make mistakes. But God knows how to make the story end just right - in the way that's best for us."