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An Excerpt from ‘EVENT HORIZONS.

A more feasible proposition by far would be, as his grandfather indicated, to take Blake’s ‘Jerusalem’(And did those feet, In ancient times, Walk upon England’s mountains green) as gospel (lower case g, he noted, thinking ‘rabbit-ears’), and presume that Jesus had travelled to the West Country, from the time he was twelve years of age, with His mother Mary’s uncle, Joseph of Arimathea who was a shipping merchant involved in the tin smelting trade, it being a rare commodity, his research told him, that was much sought throughout the known world.

Jesus’ great-uncle should not be an especially difficult character to locate, in that he had proper ‘form figures’ to work off, although the logistics of reaching back to that time were still daunting. Who, he wondered, would be bothered to record the comings and goings of the rustic folk of 33AD Devon and Cornwall?

One thing was sure, as far as Scott could ascertain, Jesus would have to disappear from Times’ annals before the return to Galilee and the gathering together of the Disciples. If not being able to dispose of Him with extreme prejudice, Tab would need to scramble his neuron pathways so that His Ministry to come would not even get to the post never mind ‘come under starters’ orders’.

Jesus would then end up being a merchant seaman or a tin-miner, never to be marked down as passing this way.

Still, Scott decided, the length of real time it could take to arrive at the appropriate landmarks due to the paucity of any significant areas of conflict throughout all of the West Country would be depressing. There was more strife through Industrial Disputes than mortal conflicts, and you would have to go back to the Civil War and the battle fought near Devizes to reach anything of significance. Glastonbury was mentioned as a town that had ancient origins and was touted as a place that Joseph had on his itinerary, and Scott briefly amused himself imagining a trace of Jesus getting tangled up with left-over energy of a Jimmy Hendricks riff.