To laugh or cry

Father ALEX FROST once had ambitions to be a comedian. But his life took an unexpected turn and when he appeared in the spotlight, it was on BBC news programmes where he was seen shedding tears as he tried to help people in Burnley during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic. He talks about the joys and sorrows of his ministry among people who face difficult times but get through with hope and humour

Interview by Philip Halcrow

ASITCOM theme tune played a pivotal role in changing Alex Frost’s life and setting him up to engage with some serious issues in his home town of Burnley.

While working in retail at Argos, Alex not only loved to watch comedy but would also write his own jokes and sketches. At one point he had an agent who was getting him a few stand-up bookings.

perhaps you were in for an exciting journey through life. I floundered at the bottom. Just tying a knot in the rope was about the level of my success.

‘The comedy was very much in the northern style, making fun of myself rather than others.’ reference to loving thy neighbour as thyself.

But – true story – one day Alex found himself in an unexpected situation.

‘Driving down the avenue back to my house from the service, there was some suspicious activity going on in somebody’s garden, and I pulled over and phoned the police. I found that quite incredible: if I’d not gone to church and heard that sermon about loving thy neighbour, I wouldn’t have been on the avenue at that time and I wondered, in any case, whether I would have had the same inclination to call the police. It was clear that the first visit to the church had

‘In my comedy set, I wrote a lot about school and about the trappings of failure,’ he says. ‘For example, I wrote a bit about the monkey ropes in primary school and how they were maybe a good metaphor for how everybody was going to do in life. If you could get to the top of the monkey ropes without too much difficulty, Turn to page 10 f

‘Growing up, I didn’t have a faith,’ he says. ‘I didn’t go to church. But my daughter wanted to go to Sunday school because her friends were going. So I said that I’d take her, which led to me going to a small village church.

‘I felt like a fish out of water, but I listened to the sermon, and it was a

From page 9 left a mark. So I went back the following week.

‘As I was leaving, the vicar, Reverend Richard, tapped me on the shoulder and said: “You’re a new face. Do you fancy coming for coffee?” My head was saying, “Just say no”, but I said, “Yes.”’

Alex was worried that, when they met up, the vicar would ask him questions that he would not know how to answer.

‘Instead we talked about my love of comedy. He asked if I was familiar with the sitcom The Vicar of Dibley. When I confirmed I was, he asked if I knew the theme tune. I knew it, but I didn’t know much about it. He said: “The theme tune is the 23rd Psalm. Why don’t you have a little read of it over the next few weeks?” He had to lend me a Bible, because I didn’t have one. But that’s what I did.’

As someone who enjoyed poetry – ‘like John Cooper Clarke and the poetry of Leonard Cohen’ – Alex was attracted by the psalm-turned-sitcom-theme, which portrays the Lord as a shepherd guiding his sheep to green pastures and quiet waters.

‘It struck me as a beautiful piece of writing, explaining that life can be difficult, but that ultimately storms rage only for so long and must come to an end. Now I use that psalm for my own personal care but also with others who have experienced a bereavement or a challenging situation on the estate.’

Alex talks of using the words with people who are going through challenging times because Psalm 23, the coffee with the vicar and his visits to the church helped lead him to faith and even to his becoming a priest. He was ordained as a deacon at Blackburn Cathedral in 2015 and now serves as the vicar of

St Matthew’s Church in the town that he knows ‘inside out’.

‘Burnley’s a fascinating place,’ he says.

‘The landscape has changed. It was an industrial place for big manufacturers, but those sites have been replaced by call centres. There are some affluent areas. There has been some regeneration, but, as in other urban settings, there are a lot of empty shops now.

‘Many people were already going through difficult times – and then the pandemic made the situation worse.’

In the years of lockdowns and social distancing, Father Alex’s ministry was featured on BBC news programmes. Viewers saw him working with Pastor Mick Fleming, who runs the Church on the Street, as they distributed food and aimed to comfort people struggling with bereavement, isolation and desperation.

‘We got quite a lot of media attention,’ says Alex. ‘I broke down on the BBC news documentary. Afterwards I received hundreds of letters and our church received money to help support our community. The media interest passed, but the ministry didn’t.

‘We have a lot of issues in the town with addiction and poverty – and I don’t mean just money. I mean a poverty of aspiration, of mental health, of self-care. And the voices of people who are living difficult lives just aren’t being listened to.’

Father Alex tries to get the voices of people heard locally, attempting to persuade services to give them the help they need. He has also written a book, Our Daily Bread, in which he describes their struggles.

‘One of the chapters is about Jenny Swears-a-Lot,’ he says. ‘She is called that because she does. Her life has got some big challenges – her son is seriously poorly, she has children who have autism. Yet when she has reached out for help, she has received only a minimalistic form of support for them. For example, when she has looked for mental health help, she has simply been given a leaflet and told that there’s a 14-week waiting list to see somebody.

‘She’s extraordinary. She’s a hardworker. She manages for her family by cooking up big pans of pasta that last for days. Her standard response when she doesn’t get the help she needs is, in a typical Burnley way, “It’ll be rait.” But it’s not right that she gets only that low level of care and support.’

Alex talks of how his service to people can be ‘challenging, difficult and frustrating’. It sometimes seems as if society makes it ‘almost impossible’ for them to overcome obstacles.

‘I tried to make the book not political, but what I do believe is broken is a lack of the gospel – a lack of love and care and empathy,’ he says. ‘People are happy to do almost the bare minimum, to tick the box. There doesn’t seem to be the compassion in society to go beyond that.’

Alex is keen to point out that, although their stories can be heartbreaking, the people he ministers among are ‘kept going by their sense of humour, their ability to laugh at themselves’.

‘And there is hope,’ he says, ‘because when they come to our church – whether it’s for the community kitchen or whatever other help – they feel safe and that they’re not being judged. They don’t have to do something before we’ll help them. It’s an unconditional relationship.

‘In all the darkness they’re going through, they’re hanging on to a faith in Jesus. Actually they’re hanging on to the 23rd Psalm: they are waiting to be led to quiet waters.

‘At St Matthew’s we try our best to do that.’

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