Sometimes there is smoke without fire

“I understand that you are selling the church.”
It was one of those out of the blue statements that rock you back on your heals.
For a while now we have been trying to redevelop the hall at Cragg, with a failed lottery bid and no prospect of raising the £500000 that is needed to make it DDA compliant. Three years ago one of our older members called us all together to say what many of others of us were already thinking, “It’s time to sell the hall.” So here we are a few years later poised to sell the hall to provide the money to turn the church into a multipurpose community building, fit for the twenty first century.
“I understand that you are selling the church.” This sensible person had heard a rumour, and assumed that there is no smoke without fire. Despite our reassurances, despite one hundred and seventy years of faithful service to our communities… why let the truth get in the way of a good story.
Rumour is a funny thing, it gives a smoke screen and it’s difficult for anyone to see the truth when the rumour smoke is swirling.
The problem is that sometimes there is smoke without fire.