The cong I grew up in during the 70s had an exceptional elder who was born for showbizz. Our service meeting parts were sooo fantastic they would not be believed by todays automatoms. We had mini dramas to show how to use the truuth book, dressed up as Scrooge from charles dickens novel and with "ghosts" of christmas past and present to represent old religion and new. We had the laughing policeman playing and us as youngsters sitting on the platform in fits not able to stop laughing. We did sketches were hippies came in the hall (our pioneers dressed up) throwing flowers to the audience. We had a brother dress up as a vicar and give a sermon. We had dramas for kids ( my brother was a fat angel) throwing daniel into the lions den. Ohh those days were such fun. I played the part of a colporteur in the 20s tiptoeing to the back of the hall to slip a track under a door, the householder burst out and chased me through the hall with a broom....he was too quick he caught up with me and landed on top of me. The hall was in hysterics.
Well of course all good things come to an end..... our dear brother arranged a singalong,"roll out the barrel",(british drinking song) while he played the piano. We young ones were singing but the new CO was sitting at the front of the hall and his face was like thunder. Oh but it was funny. Needless to say that was the end of that period.
Must just add on a negative note we even had trial runs for the great tribulation that scared the ..... out of us. They blackened the windows and closed off the lights and we sat in the dark and then someone started banging outside saying it was the police and they were hear to arrest us. I had nightmares for years from that one. We had even brothers demonstrating reversable coats to use when under ban.
MY my how things have changed, I could write a book about all the funny stuff we did. Anybody else remember that period prior to 1975?
Love chicken little