Touching Cloth

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

A laugh-out-loud memoir of becoming a 21st-century priest, Touching Cloth is also a love letter to the Prayer Book, Liverpool, lager, funerals, homemade lemon curd, and, above all, to what the Church of England can be at its best.

The very word 'reverend' inspires solemnity. To be a priest is to dedicate one's life to quiet prayer and spiritual contemplation. Isn't it?

Fergus Butler-Gallie reveals what it's like to become a priest in the twenty-first century. Find out why black really is slimming, how to keep a straight face when someone is inadvertently hot-boxing a funeral, and which royal-themed biscuit tin can best contain a very loud personal alarm that no one knows how to switch off. Spot a sweet old lady trying to pay for a taxi with coinage from fascist Spain? Congratulations, shepherd, she's your problem now.

Behind the daily scrapes is an all-too-human love letter to the Church of England, and the amazing variety of people who manage to keep it going, providing a listening ear, company and community at a time when so many people desperately need it, as well as a reflection on what it means to follow a spiritual path amid the chaos of the modern world.

©2023 Fergus Butler-Gallie (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Critics Review

  • A witty and adept guide to the foibles of the well-intentioned and all too human figures who follow holy orders… Touching Cloth can be compared to Adam Kay’s This Is Going to Hurt and the writings of the Secret Barrister… there is a warmth and wit here that recalls everyone from Wodehouse to that other godly humorist GK Chesterton.

    Observer

  • I may be a non-believer, but I laughed my way through this warm and witty book, which made me admire the irreverent reverend Fergus Butler-Gaillie even more than I already did. It is so engagingly written, and could sit deservingly in the tradition of Monica Dickens’s tales of muddling amusingly through in unusual jobs where one might not be considered “a natural” (very high praise!). It’s funny, fascinating, and gorgeously humane.

    Marina Hyde, columnist and author of What Just Happened?

  • Funny and touching in equal measure, the diary of a priest that ranges from slapstick to the hauntingly profound.

    Tom Holland, author of Dominion

  • Touching Cloth is a delight – a masterclass in the way pleasure, laughter and even God can be found in the most mundane moments of daily life.

    Edward Stourton, author of Confessions

  • A warm-hearted and frequently hilarious insight into the daily life of the clergy that won over this inveterate atheist.

    Nick Pettigrew, author of Anti-Social

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