We had been to a neighbouring seaside resort to visit an old priest living in semi-retirement. The winter atternoon was pallid with weak sunshine that strove to conquer the Crome-grey sky. The top of the bus was thick with stale tobacco smoke. Behind us, as we sat over the driver’s cabin, were the quiet low sounds of East Anglian men making speech. My companion, a venerated canon, lived some miles outside the city to which we were returning. A parish priest who had never lost the wonderment of childhood : a student who had learned Hebrew long after leaving college by a correspondence course so as to deepen his love of the Breviary.

We too spoke quietly, but what follows are simply the remembrance of his words. Men are not always the poorer for their gregariousness. Indeed the wealth I have gained, not once but many, many times, from the deep waters of this priest’s mind, is a wealth immeasurable and beyond gratitude ....