Scenes from Parish Life

Some twenty years ago, inspired by the hymns and sacred music she’d sung at school and in a Cambridge chapel choir, Ysenda Maxtone Graham set out to explore the life of the Church of England. Sustained by British Rail sandwiches and mugs of vicarage tea, she spent a year travelling the country, listening to the views of High Church bishops and newly ordained curates. She talked to believers and unbelievers in their congregations, absorbed the beauty and ancient liturgy of cathedral Eucharist and evensong, and the fervency of born-again evangelical gatherings.

The result was The Church Hesitant (1993), a book full of insight, humour and light-touch wisdom, which put her admiring publisher in mind of a collaboration between John Betjeman and Joyce Grenfell. As the granddaughter of the author and hymn-writer Jan Struther (see SF nos. 42 and 73), confirmed at the age of 23 ‘in a row of 14-year olds in white dresses’, Ysenda knew whereof she wrote. But in the two decades and more since the publication of her first book, the Church of England, as we know too well, has undergone monumental upheaval. Dwindling attendance is one problem, the rise of evangelicalism another. But who, twenty years ago, could have envisaged the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury? As each new scandal of abuse is uncovered, the Church is in a state of anguished self-examination. Yet the life of the parish goes on. Up and down the country, church services – High with choirs and incense, Low with new hymns and guitars – offer comfort and sometimes exaltation. The volunteer flower arrangers do their work, the night shelter offers respite from the cold, Holy Communion is given to the sick and housebound. There are many acts of kindness. And also, as in any gathering of human beings, there are acts of spite. There is malicious gossip, manipulation and self-advancement. Ysenda Maxtone Graham knows all this, and in Love Divine, her first venture into fiction, she has written a gentle and highly entertaining satire of everyday parish life. As the New Year opens we are in Lamley Green, a pretty village on the outskirts of London, bordered by meadows and woodland. At the parish church of St Luke’s there is an interregnum: the previous incumbent has left to become a Mission Enabler in Birmingham. Who is going to take his place? Among those in the congregation much exercised by this question are Elizabeth Bignell, a churchwarden with social aspirations; Hugh Gough, a kindly prep-school master facing retirement who runs the church choir; Carol Buswell, receptionist at the local GP surgery, given to gloomy Intercessions in the Sunday service; and – intermittently – Lucy Fanthorpe, who works in the local bookshop. Lucy’s lawyer husband Nick had been a mainstay of the choir, and his sudden death on New Year’s Day has left her devastated. As she enters the bleak country of widowhood, the discovery of a mysterious receipt in his jacket pocket compounds grief with suspicion: had he not been the faithful, loving man he seemed? Presiding over this congregation is go-ahead Archdeacon Martin Harrison, a somewhat blunt instrument and a bit of an eco-warrior. An application has been made to install solar panels on the church roof, there are plans for a Tap-to-Donate card reader, and for a new Facilities Suite, with Fairtrade coffee and ethically sourced biscuits. Coming up too is the Easter Egg Hunt in the churchyard, the annual fête and a Literary Festival – arranged by Lucy in happier days – with author events in the church. In the interregnum a team of retired clergy and parishioners is helping to keep things going. One is the Reverend Rachel Goodall, who shocks everyone rigid with a sermon which asks if God is listening at all. Spring arrives, and with it new neighbours for Lucy, who has put up with building works next door for months. Enter Chantelle and Leon Ridge, who have stripped and gutted their house to accommodate a gym, a number of ultra-large television screens, and a walk-in wardrobe for Chantelle’s astonishing collection of designer hand bags. Chantelle’s one ambition is to get her little daughter Jazzy into St Luke’s ‘Outstanding’ church primary school, and the only way to do this is to get thoroughly involved in church life. Having rarely entered a church before, she relentlessly sets about it. Days lengthen into summer and it’s time for the village fête in the Bignells’ garden. Elizabeth has pulled out all the stops, hiring some particularly impressive portaloos, and feels justified in charging an entrance fee. This has never happened before and it doesn’t go down well. A strange woman, thin as a rake, rummages frantically through the vintage clothes stall: it’s unsettling. One of Lucy’s authors drops out of the Literary Festival and she has to find a replacement. Her son has failed his exams at uni. She’s still anxious about Nick’s mysterious drinks-for-two receipt: might his best friend at work be able to explain it? Kindly Hugh receives a letter from the only girl he ever kissed at Oxford – or anywhere – suggesting she come for supper: an old friend is appearing at the Festival and it would be lovely to see him again. Hugh gets down a recipe book, the prospect of retirement suddenly brightening. Applications for the post of rector trickle in. On the final shortlist are three very different candidates: an Oxford college chaplain, an ex-social worker (female), and an evangelical team vicar, whose out reach activities have boosted numbers in his Hertfordshire church. They will be asked to preach on the Feeding of the Five Thousand; points will be awarded in this and various other categories, and the final selection made according to a complicated system designed to cut out bias – an inspiration of the Archdeacon’s. As he himself puts it, ‘it’s all about level playing fields’. Chantelle’s ambitions for a coveted school place turn to machinations. The daughter of her Bulgarian cleaning lady is higher up the waiting list than Jazzy: she isn’t having that. All the threads of parish life are about to interweave, and sinister events accumulate. Someone has slipped toothpaste into one of the Easter Hunt creme eggs: who could be so malicious? Who hung an eyeless teddy bear in a tree? Why is an old nightdress with an arm ripped out discovered in Elizabeth’s garden shed? Who was Nick Fanthorpe’s companion in those drinks à deux? By Christmas, all will be revealed. Told in a beguilingly funny mix of narrative, letters, emails and emoji-spattered texts; of prayers, extracts from sermons and Parish Council minutes, Love Divine is life in the Church of England writ small, but no less acutely for that. Whether or not anyone actually believes, it is the values of Christian kindness and forgiveness that prevail in this diverting novella.

Extract from Slightly Foxed Issue 87 © Sue Gee 2025