“Too late,” said Vincent, “you lot try and find a doctor, looks like I’m about to deliver a baby.
“You?”
“Well that young man doesn’t fill me with confidence. I’ve done it before.”
“You have?”
“Long story. I’ll tell you later,” and with that he strode confidently back to the husband.
“Come on then Dad, let’s get this show on the road.”
……….Over the next thirty minutes the girl screamed, panted, swore, rested, pushed, swore again. The others had had no luck in finding a doctor and were now back at the van, pacing outside, for all the world looking themselves like a group of expectant fathers. Finally, Daisy went silent, they all stopped pacing and turned expectantly to the van. The silence was suddenly broken by the sound of a baby crying. They turned to each other smiling just as Dave appeared in the doorway, grinning from ear to ear.
“It’s a boy! We’ve got a boy!” at which point he turned and went back inside…………
……….“Well, that was impressive,” said Didya, “ well done Vincent my man. What would they have done without you?”
The big man just looked down, embarrassed at the attention.
“So when did you last deliver a baby then?”
“Well, I didn’t actually deliver a baby, but I did help.”
“In what way?”
“I chose the music.”
“You chose the music?” spluttered Percy, a note of disbelief in his voice.
“Yes. It was my early days with Peter Farthing, at St. Luke’s. It was an atrocious winter and we were snowed in. He’d given a pregnant lady a bed for the night and she rather inconveniently went into labour. The Rev called for an ambulance but they had a Hell of a time getting through and the baby wouldn’t wait. So the vicar took control. 
He was great, as cool as a cucumber, as if he did that sort of thing every day. I, on the other hand, was as much use as a bicycle to a fish. I mean, that wasn’t what men did, that was women’s stuff. So he gave me the job of digging out the cassette player that the Youth Club used for their socials, and finding some soothing music to calm the situation. I realised later that this was his way of handling two stressed out people not just the one.”
“Quite an experience.”
“You can say that again. The thing is, he told me after the others had gone, that he’d never done anything like that before, but that someone had to do something, so he’d just stepped up to the plate hoping that his God would guide him. A man of true faith, although his hands wouldn’t stop shaking for a while after. Perhaps it would have been easier just now if I was a man of faith too.”
He held his hands out and they were twitching uncontrollably.