SLIGHT VERSE Richard Tydeman, UpFront Publishing, Leicester, 2003. Paperback, 132 pages, £7.99. ISBN 1-84426-231-6

At first sight the request to revue a book by a prominent masonic writer and a clergyman to boot, might have prompted doubts of intellectual adequacy for the task. In fact there was nothing to worry about. In this volume the Canon has discarded both his regalia and his ecclesiastical hat in favour of decidedly humbler and less formal apparel so that his offerings are more generally accessible. Many of the one hundred plus poems were produced during a ten-year stint of monthly contributions to The Felixstowe Town Crier which explains why a number have a distinctly seasonal flavour.
    In these lightweight verses the author addresses a range of topics revealing some prveiosly unsuspected interests, such as a passion for cricket, equating love for the game with the laudable quality of perspicity and a phobia about falling into the classic speaker’s trap for which another cleric, Dr. Spooner, is best remembered. In one poem an announcer, having successfully delivered the name Rimsky-Korsakov, falters over the composition’s title by saying, ‘It’s the Bumb of the Flightle Bee’. Predictable targets are by no means neglected: exploitation of Christmas by retailers ever earlier each year; Christmas cards with no religious message; fast food; cannibalism; grumbling about the weather; all are subjected to his gentle but witty lampoon.
    Neither is the clergy exempt. In my favourite, entitled ‘Responses’, a visiting Bishop, preaching to a well-drilled congregation, fails to switch on the pulpit mike. ‘There’s something wrong with this thing’, he says, and the people come back with ‘And also with you’. This is sort of humour which enlivens a lot of the verses where the punch comes in the last line prompting a smile or even an audible chuckle, though nothing so vulgar as a belly laugh. The author’s evident skill with words and a facility for rhyme only a little less than Gilbertian, make these verses highly readable. You could get through the book at one sitting but that would be a pity. Better to savour them a few at a time and make the enjoyment last.
    David Sermon