Shropshire Star

Priest charts journey from pop to pulpit at Church Stretton School

When the only vicar in Britain to have a number one single wanted some peace and quiet to write his latest book, he came to Shropshire.

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And today Reverend Richard Coles, who has been a pop star, chaplain of the Royal Academy of Music, a parish vicar and a radio presenter, was returning, speaking about his unusual career at Church Stretton School as part of the town's two-week arts festival.

"People are curious how someone who was in a pop band can end up as vicar," he told the Shropshire Star. "It doesn't seem strange to me because it's just what happened but other people do find it unusual and I try to answer some questions about that."

Today Richard is perhaps best known for presenting BBC Radio 4's Saturday Live, and his face may be familiar from appearances on such panel shows as Have I Got News For You and QI, not to mention 2016's Celebrity Masterchef, in which he finished fifth.

But in the 1980s the multi-instrumentalist was half of The Communards, along with singer and gay icon Jimmy Somerville, who had a string of Top 10 hits including number one smash Don't Leave Me This Way.

Richard's appearance in Church Stretton was in part tracing how he got from there to where he is now, inspired by his 2014 book of memoirs, Fathomless Riches: Or How I Went From Pop to Pulpit, which was released in paperback at the end of 2015.

Since then he has been writing again, however, and somewhere close to home for those who might be attending his Church Stretton talk.

He said: "After Christmas I always take a little holiday and this year I took off on my own and went to stay in an old medieval gatehouse, and Church Stretton was the nearest town.

"It was the first time I had been to Shropshire really and I absolutely loved it."

Richard was at Langley Gatehouse, near Acton Burnell, and used the time to wander the leafy lanes of south Shropshire and work on his new book, Bringing in the Sheaves: Wheat and Chaff from My Years as a Priest, now finished and set to be released in October.

The prospect may appeal to fans of the BBC Two sitcom Rev, as Richard was an advisor on the show and in part the inspiration for the well-meaning but hapless titular character Reverend Adam Smallbone, played by Tom Hollander. Ordained in 2005, since 2011 Coles has been parish priest of St Mary the Virgin, Finedon, in Northamptonshire, under the Diocese of Peterborough. "It's a traditional middle-England parish," he said, "What's different about Northamptonshire to Shropshire is that it's a county that's rural character has changed quite a lot, because it is a place you go through on the way to somewhere else.

"In Shropshire you raise your eyes and see those 'blue remembered hills', in Northamptonshire you raise your eyes and see warehouses and the logistics on the A45."

He said he was looking forward to today's sell-out talk at Church Stretton School. "The other day a lady stopped me at Crewe Junction and said how excited she was about attending – so if people as far away as Crewe are speaking about it, that's very flattering," he said.

The two-week Church Stretton Arts Festival, celebrating its 50th year, will conclude this weekend, with an arts, crafts and photography exhibition at Church Stretton School showcasing both amateurs and professionals open every day until Sunday.

Tomorrow will see a Top 10 Beatles Tribute Show at the school, while on Saturday, The Tim Kliphuis Trio will be there, both shows starting at 7.30pm.

On Sunday the London Festival Opera will present A Night at the Opera at Concord College, Acton Burnell, to conclude the festival, again at 7.30pm.

Visit the festival website at www.strettonfestival.org.uk

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