The Cast Part One - Clergy

A brief guide to the figures who will make themselves known in these posts in the coming weeks and months.

The Dean: Very Revd Oliver Snell
Oliver came late to the priesthood after a dazzling career in Public Relations, from which he has never fully recovered. Blessed with a certain double-jointed ability to wriggle out of trouble, he courts the media wherever possible. His mission is to chair a Quango. It is widely beleived that he bought his degree, a moderate Second in Land Management from Cambridge. He pays a great deal for his haircuts.

The Sub-Dean : The Revd Canon Winifred Box
Win was a Commonwealth javelin thrower before she was converted at a beach mission and gave it all up for Jesus. She sees her role as the sergeant-major of the Cathedral Close, holding back the waters of chaos with Canute-like persistence and about equal success. Her boyfriend gives everyone cause for hope - he is a tattooed former Buddhist monk who breaks horses for a living.

The Precentor: Canon Bob Swallow ( and his wife Bea)
Bob recently retired after a lifetime's work translating Suppuration and Stringing Nettles, the autobigraphy of the 9th Century East Anglian Saint Osfrith, who lived in a cowshed and was tragically stung to death by bees. His other passions are enumerating precisely the semicolons in the Church of England Ordinal. His wife, the very-appropriately-named Bea, is an expert on the Dewey Decimal system. Surprisingly, they have several children.

The Canon Pastor: Canon Edie Hurdlecroft
Edie was a Scottish presbyterian by birth, and is still slightly perplexed by the liturgy and apt to stand for long periods smiling vaguely into space. She is widely believed to love all living things, and often tries to pat them, which has worked well with children, but has proved problematic with crocodiles, and the Administrator's labradors.

The Canon Theologian: Ven. Canon Dr Pamela Holford-Crivvens.
Although relatively young in priest years, Pamela is often confused by the nature of reality, though it has got easier since she started to label her own possessions, particularly her shoes. She is largely peripatetic, since she cannot easily find her office. Often she is to be found writing sermons under trees, or editing articles while sharing a park bench with derelicts. She has an irrational fear of librarians, and otters.