Folk I encounter on my peregrinations across High Town, sometimes stop me and ask: ‘Vicar – how did you come to be de-frocked?’ Oftentimes, this question is posed in Polish.
I usually explain to them that I am bound by the terms of a Gagging Order signed by the then-Bishop of Hereford, The Right Rev Greville Chasuble, save to say it was a very minor misdemeanour, of no great import, involving a) an amateur abseiling session down the cathedral tower to raise funds for a hedgehog sanctuary at Tillington; and b) my total absentmindedness in forgetting to put on any underpants that morning.