It was a miracle that such a mountain of stones moved at all as the crowds that gathered at Abbey Lane last evening  for the ceremony could barely move themselves. 

A feeling of disbelief and doubt was evident as the first bucket of stones strained sinews and forced sweat drips before it had reached its destination 10 meters away.

This task was then repeated for the next 2 hours as a gentle breeze cooled our brows. Even an unexpected shower was welcomed

as shovels scraped and dragged filling the galvanised buckets to the beat of a chain gang melody. 

The mountain of granite chippings sunk to a hill, then a mound, spirits rose and energies were  renewed as the completion of our task neared. 

Then a call from the 'coalface' 10mtrs away, ''we need more stones! It won't be finished tonight''

A cry rang out of the crowd.

''I have piles at home.....( we looked at each other thinking -Don't we all?).....of stones I mean''

A true miracle, our saviour among us and he is offering us FREE stones to complete the ceremony.

And we did and all lived very sore ever after.