Spavin, Kelly & the Rocking Horse

I called at Lancaster last month to take out for lunch a young man who is part of our chapel and who now studies there at the university. One’s first year away from home can be hard, and the temptations of student life difficult, so the occasional visit from one back home is usually appreciated.

My lunch companion was available from 2.30pm, so I had a few hours to wander about the city of my birth. I anticipated some of the old faces I might see; in fact, the only one I recognised was that of the Headmaster of the school in Skipton at which I taught, whom I saw leaving some meeting at the Girls’ Grammar; we had a nice little tête-à-tête. Otherwise, I had a couple of uninterrupted hours of mooching about, calling at churches (of course) and allowing fond memories to reawaken. Two places in particular caused me to smile and ponder.

The first was the Rocking Horse Shop, above. Although this ancient symbol of Lancastrian retail remains above the doorway, its wares are now Chinese food, portions of fried chicken and ‘bubble tea’, whatever that is. Each Tuesday in the early eighties, however, my mother would bring me here to buy a toy farmyard animal or painted soldier, many of which I still have. It was the highlight of the week.

When I was a little older, towards the mid-eighties, I would be taken to Spavin & Kelly, below, which seemed to sell slightly older toys, such as He-Man and Skeletor figurines, part of the Masters of the Universe franchise. Again, one of the highlights of my little life was entering that door and walking our with a new plastic character. The building is now pleased to call itself Greens, a ‘Local Independent Free House’. Older me ought to be just as excited about Chinese food and liquid refreshment, but somehow, they do not appeal to me in the same, magical way that the two toyshops did when I was 3-6 years old. Walking past these re-branded, re-purposed premises brought back memories of simpler, happier times. I might not spend my days arranging little agricultural buildings and livestock, nor forming battle lines between Buckingham Palace guard regiments clad in bearskin hats with bayonets fixed, facing charging medieval knights and crusaders, but these were certainly good days. Take a middle-aged man back to his old toyshops, and all those pleasant reminiscences rise to the fore. 

Non-Christians often point the finger at believers in the gospel and think us simplistic or gullible. Christianity is indeed intellectually credible and offers far greater mental satisfaction than the brain-numbing vacuum which calls itself atheism. Yet there is also something about Christianity that resonates with an old man going home and walking past his old toyshops. The gospel takes us back to simpler times, to that brief period before Adam fell, when God and man walked together, harmonious and contented. It reawakens our earliest desires to be with God, our original innocence, our intrinsic joy. Heaven, especially heaven on earth during the reign of Christ, will not be fundamentally novel, but a great restoration, a putting back; a grand, cosmic renewal. Our species's earliest, blissful hours are not permanently lost, but shall be restored- for ever.

The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice, and he who begets a wise child will delight in him. Proverbs 23:24