TRADITIONALLY a priest is expected to bring wisdom and spiritual guidance to a parish.

So what happens when he brings a blue poodle and the skills of a concert musician with him too?

When you’re Father Richard Williams and your church is in a town famous for nurturing all things literary, there can only be one answer – and that is someone ends up writing a book about it.

“Father Richard is a friend and it grew out of a conversation that perhaps we should record what goes on in a year in the life of a parish priest,” the man behind it, Jack Tait, explained.

“And we thought ‘this won't take long’.”

Jack and his wife Rita, from Bronydd, started compiling information with an aim of completion within 12 months, but it was a life fuller than anyone expected.

Their year-long project became a three-year study of life and death, celebration and reflection, and of a community now apparently living its life very much in the eyes of the Lord, thanks to Father Richard’s five-year stint in the town.

Now A Curate's Kingdom, Hay-on-Wye is selling well as locals and congregation members at St Mary’s and associated churches – no doubt eager to see this wellliked priest get the recognition he deserves – snap it up.

The foreword is written by the Archbishop of Canterbury himself, a sure sign that Father Richard is the kind of person who merits the attentions of such a book.

Alluding to his sometimes unusual practices – like asking congregation members to share their pew with a poodle – the Bishop says: “People recognise when they are being taken seriously.

“And it helps a lot when the person (or parson) who takes them seriously doesn’t take himself too seriously.”

Divided into 12 chapters and dedicated to the numerous community figures and church officials who helped to compile it, the book takes a comprehensive look at the Christian calendar in Hay and at the residents Father Richard works hard to make a part of it.

His great affinity for music is also emphasised in a chapter written by Rita, who is also driving St Mary’s £100,000 appeal for a new organ, which claims Julian Lloyd-Webber as its patron.

In it she explains how the church serves as the venue of choice for all BBC recitals, some of them performed by the priest himself, that are transmitted during Hay Festival and later the quest to expand on this is explained further.

During the ‘tail end’ section of the book, the four-legged friend who has supported Father Richard in all his successes, his beloved dog ‘Curate Jimmy’, explains how the organbuilders are set to arrive and install a new one-off, world-famous pipe organ.

A gift from Holmer Parish Church, the instrument will help Father Richard stage many more concerts and also provide organ scholarships using his expertise as a trained concert pianist.

The summary brings this story of a somewhat unconventional priest to a rather appropriate close.

Perhaps echoing the words of the parishioners, whose dedication to their church and to Father Richard is so clearly marked out by the book, the dog sums it up. He is quoted as saying: “I would rather be a poodle in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of ungodliness.”