22 AUGUST, 2021

Dear Harry,

Time for a laugh? Writing about the Bishop at the Vicarage tea on the day of our confirmation reminded me of an old joke which you probably heard many times already, but it stands repeating. You were no prude. You could still get a little chuckle out of irreverence, even today.

Ready?

The new curate has been very nervous about delivering his first sermon, and asks the Vicar in the vestry afterwards if it went well. “Oh,” says the Vicar, reassuringly, “it was very good—aside from a couple of tiny faux pas.” “Faux pas?” asks the curate, unsure what that means. “Well,” says the Vicar, “remember that time when the Bishop came for confirmation? And we all came back to the Vicarage afterwards for tea, and he pricked his finger in the rose garden?” Yes, says the curate, he remembers this. “And then afterwards, at tea, my wife asked ‘How’s your prick?’ and he said ‘Still throbbing,’ and I said ‘Christ!’ and you dropped the teapot? That,” says the Vicar, “was a faux pas.”

I can hear your chuckle, Harry. Ever the humorist.

Be well. Your naughty son, Peter

PS Regarding your sometimes bawdy sense of humor: it was you who told me about the fundamentalist religious group at Cambridge during your days there. They called themselves the Cambridge University New Testament Society, you recalled with more than a hint of mirth, and spread word of their pious evangelical events with city-wide posters headlined by their acronym.