Bury St Edmunds cathedral's Rev Canon Jonathan Ford pens spiritual thriller novel A Day in the Death of Charlie Vaughan
Charlie Vaughan sets off for church on a mild September morning. He steps onto a zebra crossing and is mown down and killed outright by a speeding van.
You might expect the only role for a member of the clergy in Charlie’s story would be conducting his funeral.
But no, the retired plumber’s untimely death is the start of a rollercoaster of a thriller...penned by a canon of St Edmundsbury Cathedral.
Angels and demons. Heaven and hell. The tragic accident is not the end for Charlie but the beginning of a tumultuous journey to the ends of the universe and beyond.
A Day in the Death of Charlie Vaughan is the first novel by the Rev Canon Jonathan Ford, minister of Christ Church on Bury St Edmunds' Moreton Hall estate.
And until it was published recently most of his congregation had no idea their parish priest had been setting aside an hour a day to let his imagination rip on what he describes as a spiritual thriller.
It is unlikely to be his last. Ideas for half a dozen other books are already whirring around in his head. Thinking up stories is his way of getting to sleep at night.
He also sees a link between his long experience of writing sermons and whisking readers at breakneck speed through a fast-paced plot.
“Each chapter is 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 words which is the average length of a sermon,” he said. “The whole structure is so you can read a little bit then go and get a cup of coffee.”
His book has already had rave reviews from sources as diverse as a leading BBC presenter and a bishop.
Those who know Jonathan are unlikely to be surprised he has added another skill to his long list of interests and occupations.
For more than 20 years his parish commitments were combined with work as a broadcaster, and being a very active member of the Church of England general synod.
He also wrote and produced five Bury St Edmunds passion plays, which won two national awards.
Jonathan came to Christ Church more than 30 years ago before the church itself was built, while the ecumenical parish serving all Christian denominations was still being developed.
Now the congregation numbers around 150 people with up to 50 attending on Sundays, and more joining the service online.
He has been a canon of St Edmundsbury Cathedral for 15 years. “I’m the longest-serving clergyman in Thingoe deanery,” he added.
So where did he find the time to write a novel - especially one packed with so many twists and turns.
“My parochial work takes up 50 to 60 hours a week, so if you carve out a slot you can manage your time,” he said.
“Quite some years ago I had this picture in my mind of Charlie leaving his house, crossing the road, and getting run over.
“I set aside one hour between 5pm and 6pm each day and wrote, and did that for a year and a half and that was the guts of the book done.
“I got a press agent, and two organisations in the UK and US liked it and went up until the final process, then turned it down.
“So I put it down and started on some other books – detective novels. Then halfway through Covid I finished it off and wrote to five or six celebrities I knew and asked ‘is this any good?’
The response was positive so he set about getting the book ready for publication.
“We brought in a professional proof reader and he rang me up and said ‘I have a real problem with your book’.
“I thought oh no, but he said ‘every time I start to read with my proof reader head on, I finish up just reading it’.
“’Charlie’ is what I would call a spiritual thriller – it’s all about angels and demons. You don’t know what’s going to happen next. Nothing is taken for granted.
“The reason I wrote the book is that one of the big issues everyone is quite interested in is what happens after we die.
“I think it’s a book non-Christians or people of other faiths could read and find interesting and compelling.”
“I have already sold half of the print run of 252 books, and we have just managed to persuade Amazon to put it on Kindle. We’re now talking to the printers about doing a second run.”
Jonathan also writes articles for the Moreton Hall Directory, and has previously had poems published in anthologies of Christian poetry.
He is originally from Lowestoft, where his grandfather had a shop. “When I was a young boy my dad worked for Woolworths so we moved around East Anglia with his job.
“Then he joined the coastguard and we came back to Lowestoft. My family were military, and I planned to be a helicopter pilot in the Navy.
“When I was about halfway through the process I started to go to church, and got converted to Christianity.
“Then I got a job with an insurance company. In 1980 I went back to college and got A-levels, then went to university to do theology.
Jonathan and his wife Jane, who have been married for more than 40 years, have two daughters Elizabeth and Rebecca, and four grandchildren. “Jane really supports me and my ministry,” he said.
He recalls been a keen story writer as a child but, apart from some children’s stories for his grandchildren, that side of his creativity had to take a back seat for years.
“In my teenage years I wrote a couple of plays at college but once you get to university you are churning out essays.”
He served as a curate in King’s Lynn, then went to Herne Bay, in Kent, where he was responsible for the building of a small church, before coming to Suffolk.
For 22 years, until retiring recently, he was a member of the Church of England General Synod.
“I was involved in three major projects. One was securing a 10 per cent VAT reduction on repairs to churches, which saved the Church £20 million a year.
“Another was the Church’s response to the Ofcom bill. I did a report to the House of Lords for independent Christian broadcasters which resulted in 80 changes to the bill.
“And I was on the commission merging three dioceses in Yorkshire into one,” he said.
In the early 2000s he began broadcasting with Premier Christian Radio and continued until stepping down last year.
The radio work came about through being involved in the Ofcom lobbying process. “Premier asked me to cover it, and I enoyed it immensely.
“My job was to summarise the complexities of the general synod and make it understandable, as well as commenting on the stories.”
He was also chairman of the trustees of the radio station for five years.
In the end his heavy workload began to take its toll. “I like to be busy – if it needs to be done, we’ve got to get it done,” he said.
“But with all the things I was doing my health began to suffer. I was getting constant heavy colds and respiratory problems. My doctor told me you have to stop overworking.
“I got Covid early on and was completely energy-less for three weeks afterwards. My wife got it too.”
But with ideas for a host of potential novels already germinating, he is unlikely to be short of ways to fill his time.
“The way I get to sleep is to start thinking of a story. I have five detective stories in my head, one called The Honourable Estate Agent. I also have a couple of ‘Downton Abbey’ type stories in my head.
“The other period I’m really fascinated by is the late 18th century when Britain was becoming a great power.
“I don’t necessarily write the ideas down in detail, other than headings.”
He is quick to point out that none of the characters in ‘Charlie’ are drawn from real people he encounters.
“As a parish priest for 30 years you get a lot of insight into people’s lives – but no characters in this book are based on any people I know.”
But one does, coincidentally, share a name with his grandson. “I had started the book and called one of the characters Danny, then my daughter had her eldest, and without knowing called him Danny.”
Jonathan is also a keen reader. “I like history, particularly military history. My grandfather on my mother’s side was in the Army.
“And at the moment I like J K Rowling’s books she writes as Robert Galbraith. She’s a good writer. I admire the fact she can do multiple disciplines, and the way the Harry Potter books grow with the children.”
C S Lewis and Tolkein are also among his favourite authors.
A Day in the Death of Charlie Vaughan is published by Jotham1957, and is on sale at jotham1957.co.uk, and in St Edmundsbury Cathedral gift shop when it reopens in March.
