The lure of the cheese scone
4,000 heads of wooden peg dolls need to be painted. But how…there are only 24 hours in a day… It was clearly time to deploy…
The Cheese Scone Strategy.
The promise of freshly-baked cheese scones, cakes (coffee, Victoria Sponge, brownies), real coffee and tea lured over 30 Priory folk - even those who declared that they could not paint - in for a truly convivial morning applying paint to timber.
But why? you may ask.
Well, Christmas is coming, and this year everyone’s invited to ‘Join the Christmas Story’ at Great Malvern Priory. The idea comes from the French (Provencal) Nativity, where terracotta ‘Santon’, which translates as ‘little saints’, are added to a standard Nativity scene. They’re the ordinary people, coming to worship Jesus, the new-born Son of God, at the stable. So there may be the baker, the traveller, the drummer boy, the soldier, the young couple; there are hundreds of different Santon.
What a great idea! How could this transfer to Malvern? Thinking caps were put on and small wooden peg dolls discovered and purchased… a mere 4,000 of them. A professional artist, from the congregation, designed a setting for them. Another member of the congregation repurposed the plywood from the old Priory staging so that a flat ‘plain’ and upright ‘village’ could be painted onto it as a location for the Nativity scene and the Priory’s peg doll ‘people’.
The Children and Families Co-ordinator and the Curate, encouraged by the Vicar, did their best to transfer the design accurately onto the timber, using the time-honoured grid technique. They spent many demanding hours getting covered in glue whilst making the Nativity characters. Then, the announcement was made in the weekly pewsheet and at the 10.30am services. ‘There’ll be tea and coffee, cake and even cheese scones’. The congregation drew breath en masse, just at the prospect of such baked delicacies.
Fast forward to a murky Tuesday November morning and the painting volunteers arrived. Some settled into painting the heads of the 4,000 peg dolls in different skin tone shades (‘how many days will this take?’). Others tackled the ‘painting by numbers’ of the scenery in finest shades from emulsion tester pots ‘Sun Flare’ yellow (#2) ‘Drum Hide’ beige (#1) ‘Hemp cloth’ olive (#5)… you get the picture.
Over by the pigeon-attacked Prince Albert Window, the Priory urn steamed comfortingly, its rumbles masked by the joyful sound of West Gallery Band hymns and shared conversations. And there on the table, stood the tea pots, the cafetieres, the cakes, the brownies the mince pies (yes, in November) … and the cheese scones.
The Cheese Scone Strategy? By mid afternoon, every wooden head had been painted, the scenery was radiant in full technicolour, unsuspecting passing visitors had shared the refreshments. ‘ Would you like a cup of tea or coffee? Decaff? - no problem. Some cake? A scone?’ One enjoyed a slice of cake on his birthday another settled into painting heads with new-found friends. Every slice, every scone disappeared.
It was, as the Vicar said ‘The best morning in quite a few mornings’. Or to quote a Churchwarden ‘Very therapeutic. Almost meditative’.
So watch out for the launch of ‘Join the Christmas Story’ at the Priory Christmas Super Saturday 10-6.30 on 22nd November, which coincides with the switching on of the Christmas Lights in Great Malvern. Everyone’s invited to decorate a peg doll as themselves and place it on the scenery to ‘Join the Christmas Story’. The dolls will be blessed in a short service at Epiphany (4th January 2026, 3pm) and can then be taken home by their creators.
How many of those 4,000 peg dolls will Join the Christmas Story? Watch this space!
