THERE'S A CATCH IN IT

           England has many a village like it, but we like to think that Little Wattlingham, hidden deep in the inner recesses of the Herefordshire countryside, is something special.  If you want to pay us a visit, don't drive too fast. If you blink, you'll be through the village before you know where you are. And don't even think about stopping to ask for directions. The people who live here or hereabouts can be very secretive indeed. We have always prided ourselves on preserving our community very much the way it has always been for hundreds of years. Little thatched cottages with walls of yellow Cotswold stone line the narrow road through the village. What goes on behind our front doors is usually hidden from the casual visitor, and that's exactly how we like it. 

           The village has a post office and general store, a village green, a duck pond and a pub called "The Coach and Horses", and, as everybody knows, you can't have anything much more ordinary than that. The nearest railway station is at Greater Wattlingham, five miles away, and the only point of contact with the outside world is the bus from Hereford City Centre which stops in the village square twice a week (although it does wait there for half an hour while Seamus Finnagan, the driver, takes a well-earned break). 

           Nestling between Mrs Snodgrass's tea-shop (“serving you is a piece of cake”) and the butchers shop run by Mr and Mrs Winterbottom ("we can make both ends meat") lies the church-yard of All Saints, Little Wattlingham. If you do take the trouble to stop, pass through the lych-gate and wander down the path, you will come across the church itself, with the vicarage alongside it. This is the domain of the vicar, and for twenty years that vicar has been the Reverend Theophilus Pratworthy.

           Mr Pratworthy (we really should call him the Reverend Pratworthy, but nobody has called him that for years) is probably one of the kindest men you could ever hope to meet. He never has a bad word to say about anybody, and he always looks out at the world benevolently through thick horn-rimmed glasses which seem to magnify his eyes out of all proportion, giving him the look of a rather startled fish. He has thinning blonde hair, usually in a state of disarray, a rather pale, even pasty, face, and set in it a nose which is perhaps a little too prominent and a chin which isn’t. He is well over six foot tall, and rather angular, and there isn't a spare ounce of fat on his frame. 

           He’s not the snappiest of dressers. He wears black from top to bottom, and sports a white "dog collar", above which you can see his hugely prominent Adam's apple. When he speaks, this bobbles up and down in a most alarming fashion. In fact, when he stops to talk to people in the street, this is sometimes the only memory of the conversation that they take away with them. In part, this is because what Mr Pratworthy says usually goes totally over people's heads, literally and figuratively. For he is an enormously, stupendously, almost astoundingly clever man. 

           He is one of those people with Letters After His Name. He is M.A. (Oxon); he is Dip. Phil.; he is Ph.D.; he is D.D.; he is goodness knows what else. He knows Latin and Greek, plays five musical instruments, and has written a learned book on the antiques of ancient China. His general knowledge is encyclopaedic. 

           He can tell you all the books of the Old Testament from front to back (or back to front, if you prefer), and can recite by heart huge passages of the scriptures. If you want to know what Moses said in Deuteronomy about a particular topic - let's say, the eating of shell-fish - Mr Pratworthy can tell you without a moment's hesitation. He would be a real whizz on television on a programme like Mastermind, answering questions on such subjects as “Nebuchadnezzar And The Exile Of The Jewish People” or “The Mysteries Of The Book Of Revelations”. His brain is just bursting with intelligence.

           There is just one problem: he is always doing and saying the most silly things.

           For example, it is now Sunday evening, and a visit to the home of Albert Arkwright, the long-suffering vicar's warden, may help you to understand the problem. Of course, he is far too loyal to voice his doubts about the vicar in public, but his wife can sense that he has had a difficult day, and is a willing and attentive audience. Quiet now, for Mr Arkwright has slumped into his arm-chair with a very stiff whisky, and really doesn't need any interruptions. He just wants to vent his feelings about....

           "That blithering idiot!" he seethes. "He's really gone too far this time. Do you know what he did this morning at Parish Communion?" (It is a rhetorical question, because he knows Mrs Arkwright was busy baking a cake for the Mother's Union on Tuesday, and had to remain in the house to make sure it rose at the right time. The cake, I mean, not the Mother's Union.)

           "No, dear?" murmurs Mrs Arkwright, encouragingly. She is quite used to this, and is hoping Albert will get it out of his system so that they can settle down in front of the television for the latest episode of Poirot.

           "He walked in at the beginning of the service and accidentally turned to the last page of the prayer book instead of the first, said the blessing and told everybody to 'go forth in peace'! And the addle-headed dolts did it, almost to a man - and a woman. Or they would have done if I hadn't headed them off at the door."

           Mrs Arkwright suddenly feels an urgent need to giggle, but manages to suppress it, uttering a sort of strangulated cough instead. She is very fond of Mr Pratworthy, and feels that his mistakes brighten up the lives of the church members enormously, but of course she can't tell dear Albert that - well, not yet, anyway. She casts an eye at the clock - fifteen minutes to go. 

           "Then this afternoon, we had a christening. The Ainscough baby." Mrs Arkwright nods, as she knows the family well. In fact, if it hadn't been that she was busy sorting out a flower arrangement for the Mother's Union, she might have been there herself. "He got out the wrong books. We started reading the funeral service instead. Then at Evensong...!" 

           Mr Arkwright puffs out his cheeks indignantly. It isn't as if attendance at Evensong is ever very big - why, on one famous occasion, the congregation was outnumbered by himself, the vicar and the organist, Stanley Blenkinsop.  "That ass Blenkinsop ought to have known better. Should have put up the hymn-boards himself. But, oh no! He let our benighted vicar do it. Asking for trouble. And got it. That prize clot put up the numbers for one hymn in the wrong order. 13 instead of 31. Poor Miss Lavington and Mr Hardcastle and one or two ladies, including the Miss Plunketts, had taken the trouble to turn out, and what did they get? Abide With Me to the tune of Onward Christian Soldiers!" 

           At this, Mrs Arkwright utters a strangled moan and buries her face in her handkerchief, shoulders heaving. 

"Yes, it was pretty awful," he goes on, mistaking her reaction for tears of sympathy for the diminutive Miss Lavington - not to mention her life-long friend, the horizontally-challenged Lady Proudfoot-Dick (they are known behind their backs as 'Little and Large').  "You know how flustered Miss Lavington gets at the slightest excuse. She went absolutely puce in the face, and passed out during the third verse. We had to fetch brandy to revive her - and her a life-long teetotaller. Odd thing, though," he muses, "she seemed to come round and then collapse again at least five times. Had to be helped home afterwards." 

           This time, Mrs Arkwright just cannot restrain herself at the image of a drunken Miss Lavington being put to bed by Mr Hardcastle, and she bursts out laughing. Which, of course, sets Mr Arkwright off, because, despite himself, he can't help liking Mr Pratworthy. But he does wish being vicar's warden was less of an obstacle course. "You know," he murmurs, shaking his head, "everybody's got the right to be a bit stupid; but he abuses the privilege."

           And, with the pleasure of that aphorism still deep in his heart (it is his own invention), he begins to recover his sense of humour. They settle down to Poirot, and his evening is complete when he guesses the identity of the murderer before the second commercial break.        

Yes, HMS All Saints Church, with Captain Theophilus Pratworthy at the helm, is certainly not a dull ship, even if, at times, it runs aground rather heavily. Many is the time Mr Pratworthy has had to be fetched from his garden because he's forgotten about a christening or a funeral. Every year, at the end of March, when British Summer Time begins, he turns up late for the Parish Eucharist because he has forgotten to put his clock forward an hour. Quite what he thinks in October, when the clocks go back, and he finds the church totally empty when he arrives for the morning service, is anybody's guess. Nobody is there to see him, although everybody notices that he is unexpectedly early for Parish Communion that morning.

He is absolutely hopeless at remembering such ordinary things as the names of people, and making polite conversation is completely beyond him. He can be heard to say things, in an absent-minded sort of way, like "lovely weather for the time of day," or "the days are drawing to a close."  He keeps getting his words muddled up. Nobody has forgotten the day he reduced Mrs Darlington to hysterics by saying regretfully "Oh dear, I do seem to have clotted my botty-book."  However, none of this seems to phase Mr Pratworthy, who simply smiles benevolently and begs everybody's pardon, or says something totally disarming, and everybody instantly forgives his shortcomings. He is that sort of man. 

           And in case you're wondering - yes, there is a Mrs Pratworthy. Actually, she is Professor Pratworthy, and she teaches some obscure subject like Ancient Studies at the University of Cardiff. The two of them are well matched. She is another who was obviously at the front of the queue when brains were handed out but common sense was unaccountably held back. 

           One area where Mr Pratworthy's idiocy has always caused especial difficulty is with his house key. He is always locking himself out of the vicarage. He comes out of the door, probably trying to work out some abstruse theory of biblical knowledge, and quite simply forgets to take the key with him. By the time he realizes what he's done, the door catch has shut on him. 

           Through long experience, he has learnt that there is no point in waiting for Mrs Pratworthy to return home. Since she is as vague about the time as he is absent-minded about life in general, that can mean a long wait in the cold and wet. So he has to get back into the vicarage himself by hook or by crook. This can often be more difficult than it sounds.

He has devised a rather complicated method of re-entering the house by using a golf club in the back porch - a number 7 iron, I believe - to unhook the catch on the kitchen window. However, that only works if Mrs Pratworthy hasn’t locked the window securely when she leaves for work. And really, he is getting a little old to be climbing through windows. The same can be said for his long-suffering neighbour, Mrs Winstanley, who finds herself called upon for help on such occasions.

           One day, he decided to ask Mr Arkwright for his advice. 

"That’s a tricky one, vicar" said that gentleman. "Only one thing I can suggest - a magnetic box. You put a spare house-key in the box, attach it to a place where it's well hidden, and then, if you leave the house without your key, you always know where you can find it." The heavy iron railings just outside the vicarage, partly concealed by foliage, would be ideal, he thought. 

           This seemed an absolutely marvellous idea. There was a slight hiccup when Mr Pratworthy went to see Mr Ringbolt, the ironmonger (“try our mettle, you won’t regret it), and couldn't decide which of the keys on his key-ring was the correct one. He had to go back to the vicarage three times just to check which one it was (the first two times, by the time he walked back to the shop, he'd totally forgotten). But eventually, he succeeded, and Mr Ringbolt was able to supply him with the little magnetic box as well. 

           "Now remember, vicar," he warned him, "you have to put it somewhere where nobody is going to spot it or guess where it might be. Otherwise you might have burglars." 

           "Quite, quite," twittered Mr Pratworthy, who could only cope with one thought at a time, and was already mentally rehearsing his sermon for the following Sunday - something very abstruse about “The Prophesies Of Isaiah” or perhaps “The Epistles Of Saint Paul The Apostle”. 

           All the way home, his mind was engaged elsewhere. He arrived at his front door to find he'd locked himself out again. It was fully five minutes before he realized he was holding the key in his hand all the time. Grinning with delight, he opened the door and let himself in. Then he couldn't find the key - until he realized he'd left it in the lock, and had to open the door to retrieve it.

           At last, he stood there triumphantly in the hall, the key in one hand and the miraculous little magnetic box in the other. It was then that he had this Absolutely Marvellous Idea. Now you must remember that Mr Pratworthy is a very clever man indeed. Marvellous ideas are a regular occurrence. But mostly they are of no practical use whatever, whereas this one...! It is, of course, a Mortal Sin to be proud, but Mr Pratworthy could not resist a feeling of pleasure at having had such a wonderful notion. 

           The following day, he met Mrs Winstanley, walking down Little Wattlingham High Street. There was a moment's hesitation till he remembered who she was (they had only lived by each other for twenty years, after all, and he had been thinking Deep Thoughts about the Dead Sea Scrolls), but they had a pleasant chat. It was then that she plucked up the courage to say something that had been on her mind for a while.

            "I was just thinking," she explained, a little hesitantly, not wanting to offend, "that it might be a good idea if you left a spare front-door key with me, just in case, you know...."

           Mr Pratworthy smiled triumphantly. "Oh, you don't need to worry about that any more," he exclaimed.  "I've solved the problem completely." He explained about the marvellous magnetic box. Mrs Winstanley listened, wide-eyed. This was the first sensible notion she'd heard from Mr Pratworthy in twenty years.

           "It sounds a very good idea indeed," she commented. "Of course," she went on, "you have to be careful. You need to put it in a very safe place."

           "Oh, I know that," reassured Mr Pratworthy, "and I've thought of this absolutely stupendous place where nobody would ever think of looking." He looked up and down the street a few times in a very cautious manner, and then up in the air as if a passing blackbird might hear him. "But I don't mind telling you. In fact, it's probably a very good idea, with you living right next door."

           He lowered his voice till he was talking in a confidential whisper. "I've put it somewhere nobody would ever think of looking," he repeated. 

           Mrs Winstanley opened her eyes very wide indeed to make it clear she was listening attentively.

           "Yes," said Mr Pratworthy, "I've attached it to the side of the refrigerator in the kitchen. There’s only a very small gap, and the box fits it perfectly. Nobody will ever think of looking for it there."