Seen in the Wild

I passed them going in one direction on my way to pop a banns certificate through a door, and then met them again coming back: two teenage girls eating crisps. ‘Excuse me,’ said one, ‘Can we take a photograph of you?’ Very, very wary and thinking of what the diocesan safeguarding department might advise me, I asked why. ‘We’ve never seen a vicar just walking around,’ they informed me, 'there aren't any where we come from', and as one pointed her smartphone at the three of us and I saw Snapchat filters decorating their faces with puppy noses and so on I thought that if they didn’t know my name and any image was on a medium from which it would disappear in a few hours it probably, probably wouldn’t do any harm, whatever caption they put on it. They came from London, not Timbuktu or some other place where Anglican priests are in short supply. I tried to persuade them that there are, in fact, vicars everywhere, but I’m not sure they really took it on board.