An alien at St Wilfred's (by Adrian Plass)

(Amazon UK link)

I love re-reading the books by Adrian Plass. He’s one of my favourite modern Christian writers, and his books cover quite a variety of topics and styles. He’s best known for his fictional diaries that combine humour with insight. He has also written some more poignant stories that are thought-provoking in different ways. 

One of these is ‘An alien at St Wilfred’s’, a book which I had not read since 2007. I recalled the basic outline - that a small white being calling himself Nunc appears in a church and helps a few people. But I hadn’t remembered the characters concerned, or anything much of the storyline (other than the final sentence). 

The main character, the one who narrates most of the book, is a somewhat disillusioned Anglican clergyman called David Persimmon. He’s quite tall and somewhat overweight. He does care about people but is inclined to speak without thinking of the consequences, sometimes appearing quite insensitive. He’s also rather clumsy, often tripping over or knocking things down. And he’s having a crisis of faith. He lives alone, and is mostly quite unhappy - partly due to conflict with some of his parishioners.

Then one Thursday evening he sees Nunc, sitting peacefully on the church steps, emanating a kind of glow. Nunc agrees that he’s a kind of alien but won’t say anything about where he has come from, or why he’s there. He says that most people won’t be able to see him - just four or five in all. And he asks David to gather together a few people to ‘wait’ with. Nunc has learned most of his English out of the books he’s found in the church library, and some ancient editions of the prayer book. So his language is sometimes somewhat stilted.

Despite David’s extreme conflict (in particular with his organist) there are three very different people whom he likes and respects. So it’s not difficult for him to choose his small group. Hartley is the first one. Hartley cleans the church, and loves to do any little job he’s asked to do. It’s clear that Hartley has some learning difficulties, and has lived his life in institutions. He’s in a very good house at present, with an excellent carer who understands him. Hartley is very good-hearted and kind, speaking his mind, and letting people know when he doesn’t understand. He also has an excellent memory. 

The second person David chooses is Dot, an eighty-year-old woman of strong faith, who was recently widowed. She has evidently mothered him somewhat, and is outspoken when she has to be, but always in a positive way. She has been a believer for fifty years, and deeply misses her husband.  

The third person is Richard Craven, someone who shares David’s cynical outlook on life, and also his sense of humour. They constantly tease and criticise each other, but their friendship is deep - each feels that the other is the one person they can be truly open with. 

So they come with their very different personalities, backgrounds and problems and meet the little alien. There are four main chapters describing the four Thursday evenings they spend together. Each one is supposedly written by one of the four human participants, and I thought their different voices were handled very well. Hartley gives a detailed account of who said what, and also gives very poignant hints about some of the people who hurt him in the past. 

Dot then recounts the next meeting, not mincing words as she becomes exasperated with David and Richard’s flippancy. She also writes about a moving experience she has when she’s alone with Nunc, who has a gift for asking the right questions.  The other two meetings are described by Richard and then the last one by David.

There’s a lot that’s covered in each one. Issues are uncovered sensitively; there’s some entrail-sharing, as they say, and none of them is entirely comfortable with this. But Nunc, through it all, remains calm, and loving. And, as David says, they all quickly learn to love him, and to respect what he says. There’s some humour in the book: David and Richard have an ongoing joke with each other where they start out pretending to be very serious, only to end with a bad pun or other witticism. This is in part to hide their hurts, but it’s also quite amusing. 

Once I had started reading I found it difficult to stop. It’s not a long book, and perhaps it’s not all that deep - but the writing drew me in, the characters felt real (even if the minor ones are a tad caricatured). Overall, I thought it a very moving and encouraging book.

Definitely recommended. Sadly this book is not currently in print, but it can often be found inexpensively second-hand. 

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