The Church at Sea by Commander George Fewling

Thanks to Royal Navy

Title: The Church at Sea

Author: Commander George Fewling (or possibly Father Tubby Fewling)

Publisher: Not known 

Source book: Love At All Ages by Angela Thirkell (Barsetshire #28)

Father Fewling is rather a high Church of England priest. High church means, erm, with more incense and perhaps a bit more Latin than you might expect in a Church of England service. Although I expect there is a lot more to it than that. Anyway, now ex-Navy, we know he served in WWI, and he’s rather portly, and of a jolly, caring character but he struggles to escape his (mostly) female congregation at St Sycorax in Northbridge: they will adore him which he finds quite terrifying. He falls for impoverished Margot Phelps, daughter of a retired admiral, but she has only just accepted a proposal from Donald MacFadyen, a successful businessman. 

When Donald dies unexpectedly, leaving Margot a wealthy widow, Tubby finds the courage to ask her to be his wife. (I don’t think I could marry anyone called Tubby. I don’t think I could take him seriously. Marrying someone called George would be hard too, but for different reasons.) And, I think they live happily ever after. Not that she wasn’t supremely happy with Donald because she was.

Somewhere in his busy schedule, Tubby, finds the time to write a book about how the Church works with the Royal Navy. Or perhaps how the Navy works with the Church. At any rate: The Church at Sea. He really is a very nice man. But spends a little too much time playing the piano in later books.

In a previous book Angela Thirkell book (can’t remember which), Tubby has written an article for the Church Times on Saint Paul’s qualifications for the Royal Navy if he had lived today, which is to say, about 1953. I’m not sure that tent making would be a great qualification.

Thanks to WIRED