LEAVES MUST WHEN THE DEVIL DRIVES

It’s a rare writer who can effectively read his work for an audio production. Unfortunately, Fred Secombe is not one of these. Secombe’s voice sounds inappropriately elderly for relating events that happened to him as a young clergyman with small children and a physician wife. Nonetheless, his memoir of life as a Church of Wales vicar in a troubled parish in the 1960s will appeal to listeners who enjoy gentle tales of church-related life. In the course of this story, he takes a vacation at the beach with his family, calls on various parishioners, meets a flirtatious young wife who later accuses him of having an affair with her, and drums up participants for a production of THE MIKADO. D.T.H. © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine [Published: JUN/JUL 03]