The crowds parted like the Red Sea!  The man’s booming voice, ranting and raving as he often did, frightened them.  One of Belfast’s crazies!  Some nicknamed him Bible John and others called him The Word because he had almost completely covered his shabby brown tweed overcoat with pages from the Bible, religious badges, badly stitched on crosses, gospel tracts, holy pictures, newspaper headlines which screamed out in a sensationalist manner about sins of the flesh, lust, rape, sodomy, paedophiles, abortion, aids, nuclear war, and all the world’s evils.  On his front and back, he also often wore sandwich boards containing posters announcing that “The End of the World is Nigh” and stating “I Am The Word.”  That was where he got one of his nicknames from.  He was a walking advertising hoarding for God and against the Devil, a latter day John the Baptist who thought of himself as a voice crying in the concrete wilderness.

He was shouting at strangers, pointing an accusing finger at them, yelling “Sinners!  Sinners!  You will all burn in Hell…..Burn for all eternity.  Sinners, lusting after the flesh!  God sees your sins!  For none shall escape the wrath of God.  None shall escape this great destruction!  The evil one is amongst us, a wolf in sheep’s clothing.  Sinners!  Repent!  Turn again from your wickedness ye children of Satan!”

His long matted hair and the beard which must have taken several decades to reach its present growth, made him look like some kind of filthy apocalyptic prophet who had not seen water since he was born, or at least baptised!  He smelled of dirt, grime and stale, musty body odour!  He pointed in accusation at a woman with bleached hair and dark root re-growth, screaming “Adulteress!” at the top of his lungs.  She winced, blushed and scurried into the nearest shop with an entrance out onto another street.  People turned and stared, wondering if it was true, or if she was merely embarrassed by it all.  Did the man know something about her?  Had he some strange and sinister psychic power which worked like a direct phone link to God, or was he just another alarming madman?