Grease and fever
Peter Mullen
TAKING STOCK: CONFESSIONS OF A CITY PRIEST by Victor Stock HarperCollins, £15.99, pp. 368, ISBN 0002740699 Father Victor Stock is the colourful, dazzlingly witty, multi-talented Rector of St Mary-le-Bow in the City of London. He is much in demand not only for his preaching and pastoral skills, but as a personal counsellor to the great and the good, an entertaining broadcaster and a hilarious after-dinner speaker. Over the last 14 years he has interviewed in his pulpit everyone you've ever heard of in politics, the arts and showbiz in his renowned St Mary's 'dialogues'.
Now he has published these scintillating memoirs which are so full of life that I read the lot at a gulp. What's astonishing, moving and ultimately unsettling about Victor's self-portrait is that, for all his ebullience and spectacular gifts, his tone is so often sour and he comes across as a dangerous combination of insecurity, melancholy and rage. Why, from a man who enjoys a position of authority and respect, the relentless name-dropping? His Excellency took me right down to the front door ... The Queen Mother half-turned around and winked ... Prime Minister Tony Blair came up and shook hands with me ...' And so on, every page.
Why does this hugely successful and frequently likeable priest constantly demand so much reassurance? He feels bound to tell us about 'a posh woman' who approached him and said, 'I carry about a sermon you preached at St Paul's Knightsbridge two years ago ... The PM's Patronage Secretary was appreciative of my sermon ... The High Commissioner said kind things about me ... Shades of Mr Collins. Why does he hate traditional Anglicanism? 'At the Church Council we abolished the 1662 Communion Service ... The whole weight of the tradition pulls against pleasure and enjoyment.' No, it doesn't.
Why does a man who came willingly to work among aldermen, liverymen and senior bankers despise the City? Sometimes this hatred propels Victor to pinnacles not of holiness, but of holierthan-thouness: 'At dinner I sat next to the Garter Secretary of Arms and inserted concepts of truth and justice into my Grace. I intend to put the Graces I say to good effect.' Gosh! Beware the leaven of the Pharisees.
Why so often is he just plain nasty? 'Princess Margaret present, straight out of Spitting Image the dreary face of the royal personage, bored and lifeless, spoilt and old'. We shall all be old one day, Father; and some are spoilt already. Is he serious or only playing? Victor himself offers us a clue to the origin of all his turbulence: 'Quite a lot of people think I am merely dressed up as a vicar and not a real one. It has been a problem on more than one occasion.' This man is fascinating. Read him.
The Rev, Dr Peter Mullen is Rector of St Michael's, Comhill.
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