Radio Vicaring

It may be - I forget - that the Reverend Alan Franks has been vicar of St Stephen's, Ambridge (and its linked parishes which The Archers refers to but never covers, for even longer than I've been at Swanvale Halt. This would be unusual but it fits with the way the Church of England in the show works. The local diocesan, the Bishop of Felpersham, appears so occasionally that it took a while for the writers to realise it was stretching credulity for the Rt Rev Cyril Hood to occupy the position for nearly 30 years as they dragged the same actor, Peter Howell, back in to the studio every time they needed episcopal input. Bishop Cyril would have been about 90 by the time he retired, and that's even older than Eric Kemp.

A few days ago Revd Franks was confronted with the appalling Rob Titchener asking to be baptised. Even though Mrs Vicarage Usha saw this instantly as one of Rob's mind-games, one can understand Alan (who's only spoken to the wretched man a couple of times) feeling obliged to give him the benefit of the doubt. Even he could see the ructions that baptising Rob might cause among the other members of his flock who he had deceived and harmed, yet it took his wife to remind him that he had a responsibility to protect them. To any of us who might imagine ourselves in a similar position the answer was blindingly obvious: to get a neighbouring colleague to deal with the matter. In reality people move around between parishes for baptisms all the time because they have pre-existing links with this or that church (or occasionally because a church makes demands on the families of baptizands that are simply impractical, and are sometimes designed to be). We all accept this happens and the polite thing is to inform the home parish when it does; it's no big deal. But Revd Franks tied himself up in emotional knots before calling the Bishop who told him to do what anyone else would already have decided days ago.

Alan Franks, it seems to me, invariably gives the impression of being hunted around his parish and always wanting to be somewhere other than where he is, and talking to anyone other than the person in front of him. It was understandable that he didn't want to speak to the dreadful Titchener, his brother, or anyone else who wanted to refer to the matter, but unless he's beaming pacifically at people leaving the church on a Sunday morning Alan never seems to want to talk to anyone. While all this was going on he got into a conversation with another character about ghosts which he clearly couldn't wait to escape from. This is odd because he seems able to come up with quite concise and convincing answers to questions in a far more ready manner than I ever can. A parish priest, it's true, spends a certain amount of time talking to people they'd rather not, but most of us I think learn quite quickly never, ever to let our impatience show on the surface because anyone other than the thickest-skinned souls will be very hurt by it. Perhaps the Vicar of Ambridge just isn't having much fun and needs to move on. I wonder when his next Ministerial Review is? Mine's next month.