The strangest prayer…

Taken from the remembrances of Russell Thorndike, a chorister at St George’s, 1895-1900.

Canon Gee was the dearest old man, and his very age made him the more loveable. He was getting deaf, and could not read without his spectacles, for which he used to fumble in his trouser pocket beneath his robes. This habit once made him the author of the strangest prayer, I suppose, ever said in a vestry. He had started the prayer before adjusting his spectacles, but the light was bad, and he fumbled for them, repeating the first two words over and over again to mark time. Not finding what he sought, the prayer ran like this:

“O Lord – O Lord – O Lord – O LORD! O LORD I have left my spectacles in my other trousers.”

The King's Free Chapel. The Chapel of the Most Honourable and Noble Order of the Garter. The Chapel of the College of St George.