Anybody can and does come into St Saviour’s – and into Adam’s life. From scheming MPs trying to educate their children on the cheap to Colin, a heavy drinking, unemployable lost soul who is Adam’s most devoted parishioner. Then there’s Mick, the local crackhead in need of £20 to visit his ‘dying mother’ in Southend… She’s died three times in the last 12 months.
Every day throws up a moral conflict for our vicar. Adam’s door must always be open to urban sophisticates with ulterior motives, the chronically lonely, the lost, the homeless, the poor and the insane. All are welcome at St Saviour’s and Adam can’t turn any of them away. Even if they’re clearly lying, mad or just very annoying.
In addition to caring for his flock Adam has to worry about the financial burden of running a huge, decaying building – with a smashed stained glass window – and a dwindling congregation. He has to contend with hopeless volunteers, ambitious church rivals, the sinister attentions of the Archdeacon and the romantic attentions of Adoha, a renowned ‘cassock-chaser’ and church regular. Even his supposedly supportive Lay Reader Nigel is a pedantic careerist who thinks he should be running the place himself.
