Our favourite National Trinket in the Cathedral

On Tuesday 15th July CBF had the pleasure of welcoming the Rev. Richard Coles to Chichester Cathedral, to talk about his latest book in the Canon Clement series, ‘Death on Location.’ But the conversation between Richard and our interviewer, Colin Heber-Percy, reached far beyond the realms of fiction. 

The book centres around the arrival of a film crew in Champton, so Colin started by asking Richard about the affinity between the roles of an actor and a priest, and the vulnerability that comes with being visible. Richard laughingly described himself as having, ‘an unquenchable appetite for attention,’ and values the place he has in the mainstream consciousness as a representative of his faith. However, he doesn’t ever want to disgrace himself or his calling or to become a novelty act, and both priests agree it’s a difficult tightrope to walk. Richard says he has often got things wrong, and, when he was the half-time vicar of the parish of Finedon, his Bishop would bring this home to him by calling to convey the feedback saying he had received ‘a small but fragrant nosegay of complaints’.

Colin observed that, in a sense, when Richard was in the jungle filming ‘I’m a Celebrity Get me Out of Here,’ he acted as a vicar to some of the other contestants. Richard says that as there was so much time to talk to each other, and as he was camp leader, his priestly skills came into play quite naturally. Some people were very conscious they were talking to a priest, but he feels there’s an enduring memory of the priest as confessor which can draw people to members of the clergy. And although he doesn’t consider himself to be a parsonical parson, he feels the priestly function within any community can be exercised in all sorts of ways.

The problem comes, Richard commented, when you fail to act with sufficient authenticity and your public-self starts to overtake your private-self. His pop career in the Communards was the steepest of learning curves, and it was his total collapse in his late 20’s that allowed him to surrender and step over the threshold into what he felt was his homeland. Richard feels that surviving that has inoculated him against the worst of the traps of fame, but he was able to draw on his experiences when writing Daniel Clement’s struggles in the book. Daniel has so far glided through his ministry and can navigate it intuitively, but as he moves towards an acknowledgement that his inner and outer worlds no longer align, the cracks begin to show.

As the time of writing this book, the first book in the series, ‘Murder Before Evensong,’ was being filmed with Matthew Lewis (who played Neville Longbottom in the Harry Potter films) and it struck Richard afresh why so many fictional detectives are also priests – around 200 at the latest count. A priest, like a detective, learns how to look patiently and steadily, can sense when something is amiss and has a sharp eye for detail. Plus, if you wear a dog collar, no one ever asks what you’re up to!

Richard also shared some lovely insights into the characters in the books, saying that Audrey is based on his own, wonderful mother, who died at the age of 88 last year with her sense of humour still firmly in tact. And that Miss March started as a walk-on character to tease his good friend of the same name – but that he grew to love her as much on the page as off it and found himself writing her into more and more scenes.

It was altogether a wonderful evening, and we’d like to thank Richard and Colin, the Cathedral and One Tree Books for their support, and every member of the audience for joining us and helping us raise some much-needed funds.