San Pancrazio

I was helping in the annual stocktaking at the local Catholic bookshop at the weekend. There is a roomful of devotional statues such as would give a Muslim or Calvinist an attack of apoplexy or uncontrollable rage. Some of the statues are rather difficult to identify and distinguish. Our Lady comes in many different varieties: Guadeloupe, Help of Christians, Lourdes, Fatima and the Immaculate Conception, to name just a few. There was an assortment of angels, and a few saints, including San Pancrazio. He was a fourteen year old boy who was beheaded by the Emperor Diocletian in the year 303, the same year as Saint Alban. He is depicted as a young soldier holding an open book. However, as this saint's name is better known as a London railway station, one can fancy the text in the open book reading

"Platform 1: Luton, Bedford, Kettering, Leicester, Loughborough, Nottingham, Chesterfield, Sheffield."