The recent BBC ' Fat Map ' of Britain threw up some interesting and illuminating results. Not least amongst which was the fact that the ancient Essex Market Town of Saffron Walden topped the list for the thinnest people in Britain! Why so, you might ask? Well leaving aside that the Godly Elect of this Christian Geriatric Commonwealth in which I live do appear to spend an aweful lot of time fasting, and a good deal more of the the rest of day energetically railling against anything remotely resembling satanic modernity, there may be more compelling causes. For a start eveybody seems to walk everywhere. There is no railway station - amazing for a town of this size - and it is not easily accessible from any Motorway network. Thus has grown up a town in a time warp. Anybody living here for any length of time could easily be forgiven for thinking themselves transported back to around the mid seventeeth century. And therein lies the clue. Look around and you will find there is no McDonald's! No Burger King! No KFC! No Pizza Hut! Indeed the noxious and malign plethora of fast food chains are totally absent from the town. How come? How has Saffron Walden managed to defy the unrelenting imposition of these corporate bullies so evident on almost evey other English civic High Street? To answer this a short dip into history. Before that, some music to put you all in the mood. My apologies to any relative of Sir Arthur Sullivan or the Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould who may get to read this. [For purist Communicate members of the Church of England, the Tune is St Gertrude. Metre 65 D ]

ONWARD CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS, MARCHING AS TO WAR;
WITH THE CROSS OF JESUS GOING ON BEFORE!
CHRIST THE ROYAL MASTER LEADS AGAINST THE FOE;
FORWARD INTO BATTLE, SEE HIS BANNERS GO!

ONWARD CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS, MARCHING AS TO WAR;
WITH THE CROSS OF JESUS GOING ON BEFORE!

In 1645 the Parliamentry forces of the Army of the Association of the East, dubbed the New Model Army, under their commander Oliver Cromwell, inflicted a first and mortal defeat upon the Royalist armies at Naseby in Leicestershire. Celebrated by Cromwell as ' God's Crowning Glory ', his victory, soon to be followed by similar triumphs at Worcester and Dunbar, sealed the fate of the King and is credited with establishing the foundations of present day representative democracy in England and possibly further afield.

Not long after Naseby, in 1647, faced with rising internal millenarian squabbling and disaffection in the ranks of the victor's various regiments, Cromwell himself, accompanied by his General in the field and brother in law, Henry Ireton - the real architect of the New Model Army - journeyed to Saffron Walden. He was deputed by the Long Parliament to hear and redress the grievances of the army encamped outside the town. There, meeting in the town's cavernous landmark church on Walden Hill, The Old Perpendicular, and later at Steeple Bumpstead close by, he first encountered and confronted the opinions of those we have since come to know as Levellers. But that is another story.

For while in Saffron Walden he billeted in another of the town's famous landmarks, the hugh, sprawling fourteenth century, Sun Inn. Whilest so ensconced, he was himself visited by a deputation from amongst ' those given to governance by the Will of God '. To whit the town's Aldermen.They petioned him to extend the Market Charter granted to Saffron Walden by Edward the First, so that the town's Council may be permitted to regulate ' lewd uncouthness, ungodliness, nuisance and acts pursuant to Sabbath breaking ' amongst traders. An extension of power the King's former representatives had been unwilling to allow due to the town's notorious reputation as a hotbed of religious dissent. Cromwell willingly concurred and the Order in Council signed by his own hand was ratified by the Rump of the Long Parliament in 1649. Admittedly with Cromwell's musketeers glaring over their shoulders. But ratified nonetheless.

Cut to 1963. Hey! What's three hundred years when you are carring out God's Will!? Now faced with a planning application by the Wimpey Burger Chain, the then Walden District Council turned it down with the speed of a bag of Fast Fritters. Not on grounds of health; nor even sanitation; nor on grounds of the nuisance and defacement it would  inflict upon its beautiful promenade of thatched shops. Rather since it proposed opening on a Sunday afternoon!!!  An appeal followed and what was in effect a Bye Law based upon the Grant of 1649 was upheld and the Council's actions vindicated.

So then, when in 1976, McDonald's Restaurants Franchise Inc. similarly applied to open an ' extended hours food facility ', they too found themselves on the wrong end of some fast service in the shape of a flamed grilled Whopper from the Council, with garnish. McDonald's however were a giant American corporation and were not used to getting their own way thwarted. They immediately challenged the planning refusal in the courts. Somebody should have told them by all means cut down the rain forests! By all means violate the health of a nation's children! Even go ahead and abuse the herds of animals needlessly slaughtered to stuff down the greedy gullets of ignorant punters! But do not! Do not ever! Upset The Saints! 

LIKE A MIGHTY ARMY MOVES THE CHURCH OF GOD;
BROTHERS WE ARE TREADING WHERE THE SAINTS HAVE TROD!
WE ARE NOT DIVIDED. ALL ONE BODY WE;
ONE IN HOPE AND DOCTRINE, ONE IN CHARITY!

ONWARD CRISTIAN SOLDIERS, MARCHING AS TO WAR;
WITH THE CROSS OF JESUS GOING ON BEFORE!

Charity!? I think not. For there is little evidence of any charity shown to the unfortunate, uninformed and ill advised burger buggers of McDonald's by The People of the Risen Lord. Never was the invitation ' Come and join our team! ' so roundly and resolutely given the bum's rush. At suite upon hearing of the litigation against the Council, The Angel of The Lord appears to have given a particularly vigorous blast upon his trumpet as the Saints gathered to assault the Walls of Jericho. A malestorm of pious, righteous anger swept the town. Committees were formed. Divine Services of Deliverance were held. Street collections were at every corner as the Baptists blazed against blastphemy; the Unitarians united [ a real first]; and the Friends [ Quakers ] became decidedly unfriendly, and quaked. Large meetings were held at Puritan Hall, where, in an atmosphere of potent evangelical revival and an equally pungent odour of Old Spice, lavender and urine, the deluded executives of Ronald McDonald's Happy Funland for Kids were left in no doubt where to stick their Qurterpounders. With or without ketchup. A frequent text :

Rise up ye Children of Jerusalem! For see The Beast is set to come amongst ye and devour thyn offspring! [ John; Revelation. 14.22 AV ]

A not inappropriate sentiment if you think about it. 

Though perhaps the most fitting epitaph upon this dreadful embroglio was the one supplied in the words of Sister Salvation Andrews, a spinster and retired piano teacher from nearby Wenden's Ambo. A luminary of the Church Army, her grandfather had known William Booth.

' Companions in Christ, these evil strangers look to desecrate our Sabbath. But see with what else they invade our town. Food not fit for animals and lacking in health and nourishing vitamins as it could possibly be. What kind of children will we raise fed on this amalgam of nothing more than fat and salt!? '

Who said the age of Christian prophesy was dead?

Its a wonder the old and infamous Walden Militia, stood down in 1654 after a massacre of ' Papists ' was not reconstituted. Probably not for want of trying. Whatever. Lead by the then Clerk to the Council and Chairman of it's Planning Committee, Pastor George 'PraiseGod' Milliband of the Congregational Union, the Saints marched in phalanx to the sound of hymns and the screech of wheelchair tyres, on the High Court. There, clutching their bibles and with their trust in ' Him who made all things whole ', including, presumably, ' a whole 100% beefsteak in a sesame bun ', they were successful.  Thereon to the Court of Appeal and a second success, ' God's Merciful Deliverance ' from the Twelve Horned Dragon of Apocalypse. McDonald's made to taste thier very own ' Double Whammy with Exra Cheese and Mayo ' in the form of costs against them of almost £400,000! The result, as I am sure Our Saviour himself who fed the Five Thousand would have remarked, ' Finger Lickin' Good! '[ Luke 9.17 ].

After that, neither Burger King nor KFC nor any other bothered to chance their luck and the town, like the First Born of the Israelites, was spared. There's you answer.

Well now, Gentlemen, Soldiers; Blessed friends all. I do so wonder what My Lord Protector, our Chief of Men, the Victor of Naseby himself, would have made of all this unseemly goings on as he looked out, grim and taciturn as ever, from his eyrie at the Sun Inn? My feeling is he would have shown little regret at having to forgo a Big Mac with Onion Rings; or even a Happy Meal with Twelve Chicken Nuggets, as an outcome of his generosity towards the fine, upstanding Christian Elect of Saffron Walden. I shudder to think of his response should he have been told by some oaf in a baseball cap ' Enjoy your meal and have a nice day! '  Mind you, rather I do think he might have managed a wry smile to consider that one of the minor but not insignificant casulaties amongst the many coloured uniforms strewn about the field of Naseby was that of that grotesque, garish and goon-like goblin pishrogue of a poison pixie, Ronald McDonald!

But let us not end on a sour note. Rather as John Bunyan bade us ' Leave ye all conference uplifted '. Indeed, ironically it is Cromwell himself ,  albeit inadvertantly, who may have the most lasting apt comment upon this diverting affair, writing to his beloved wife, Elizabeth Bouchier, from Saffron Walden in 1647.

'Sweet'st divine Libby, is it not so that an act of goodness done all in candour at one time may to all goodness reverberate to another....? '

Amen to that Brothers and Sisters. And Allieluia!

SATAN'S BURGERMEISTERS MARCHED UP WALDEN HILL;
BUT THE SAINTS HAD GATHERED TO CONFOUND THER WILL!
TIS CHRIST'S MIGHTY TROOPERS ,SEE THEIR BANNERS RHYME
' STUFF YOUR QUARTEPOUNDERS WHERE THE SUN DON'T SHINE! '

ONWARD CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS SING YOUR BATTLE CRIES :
' JESUS LOVES THE SINNER BUT HE HATES FRENCH FRIES! '