Trinity draws a line under the cream tea question

Trinity Methodist Church in Crenton held its annual cream tea on Saturday afternoon in the churchyard, and while the sun cooperated and the bunting held, the age-old question of whether cream or jam goes first on a scone was, once again, not resolved.

Organiser Mrs Beatrice Willoughby had baked eleven dozen scones and hoped, not unreasonably, that nobody would raise the subject. She was disappointed within the first ten minutes by Colonel (retired) Hubert Vane, a visitor from Bristol, who arrived uninvited as self-appointed adjudicator and declared for the Cornish method with the confidence of a man settling a border dispute. Several long-standing Devon loyalists, chiefly Mrs Sheila Pargeter, whose own scones were doing a brisk trade, disagreed at some length and with feeling.

Rev'd Dr Philip Simpson, newly arrived at Trinity and evidently briefed on the perils of the subject, declined to rule from either the pulpit or the tea tent, observing only that both methods appeared to involve the same amount of cream. This was widely regarded as a diplomatic triumph.

The scones themselves survived the debate rather better than the argument did, and the afternoon raised £164 for the church garden fund, along with one firm promise from the Colonel to return next year with supporting evidence.