“Hey Joe, are we nearly there yet?” asked Mary. She was anxious because her contractions were becoming more frequent. It was going dark, and still the little town, his ancestral home, was nowhere to be seen.
“Nearly there,” grumbled Joe. He, too, was tired, and irritated that his fiancée was pregnant, and that the baby wasn’t his. “Holy Spirit, my arse,” he thought to himself. “There’s a cottage hospital on the edge of the town, I’ll take you there,” he said, out loud this time.
But when they finally arrived, they discovered that the maternity unit had been closed as an efficiency measure.
Mary was desperate, so they ducked into an empty stable. The powerful security light came on, but nevertheless Mary gave birth in relative privacy. She wrapped her son in a blanket and laid him in a feeding trough. Then she crashed out on a bale of hay while Joe went outside for a fag.
Immediately the sound of singing filled the air. “Hark! The herald angels sing! Glory to…” carolled an angelic voice. “Oh hi, Joe!” said the voice, as he stuck his head out of the stable door. “Angela! Hi!” he replied. “Err, could you get us some help? Mary’s just had her baby!” Angela flew away to spread the Good News.
Shortly afterwards there came a knock on the door and two Shepherds came in. Mr and Mrs Shepherd were old family friends. “We were just washing our socks by night,” remarked Mr Shepherd, “when Angela Lord came down and told us about the baby.”
“Why didn’t you go to the hospital?” asked Mrs Shepherd. “Closed,” said Joe. “There was no room at the Infirmary.”
Soon after that, a coach load of old people from Norwich stopped, seeing the bright light above the place where the baby lay. They all cooed over the little boy, and agreed that Jesus was a lovely name. Three of them searched among their bags and gave him gifts.
Then the old people returned to Norwich by another route, because they had been warned that the A14 was closed for resurfacing over Christmas.
Angela poked her head around the door again. “Sorry guys, but the chap who owns the stable is on his way,” she said. “If he catches you, he’ll kill you! I’d get out, if I were you.”
So they scarpered, and lived happily ever after.