Would I were in Grantchester

 εἴθε γενοίμην. . . 

I can tell you that's optative mood. Latin manages just two moods — indicative and subjunctive, but the Greeks had already said 'Hold my Limnio!'and come up with a third. You have just been treated to a proper classical education in 1950s-60s Dublin.

Some present may recognise the expression: it's from Rupert Brooke's well-known celebration of Cambridgeshire:

... would I were
In Grantchester, in Grantchester! —
Some, it may be, can get in touch
With Nature there, or Earth, or such.
And clever modern men have seen
A Faun a-peeping through the green,
And felt the Classics were not dead,
To glimpse a Naiad’s reedy head,
Or hear the Goat-foot piping low: ...
But these are things I do not know.
I only know that you may lie
Day long and watch the Cambridge sky,
And, flower-lulled in sleepy grass,
Hear the cool lapse of hours pass,
Until the centuries blend and blur
In Grantchester, in Grantchester. ...

Gorgeous, pretentious, affected goo. Exactly what one expects from a privileged, effete Rugbeian. But — ooh — so emotive. Of course, the place and the poem come with all the trimmings. Byron swam nearby (Brooke gets that it). The village is the most up-market end of Cambridge, and it used to be an irregular number 18 bus.

If you detect empathy for the mosquito that got Brooke, you may have a point.

A Cantab once muttered his imprecations against his fellow alumni: 'The trouble with them is they spend the rest of their lives trying to crawl back into the womb of alma Mater.' I feel his pain.

One such is James Runcie, son of a former Archbishop of Canterbury. As I work it out, young Runcie was born while Runcie senior was dean of Trinity Hall — which, by a strange co-incidence, was young Runcie's college.

Young Runcie, though, made it in the big, bad world of media as a novelist, film-maker, and playwright.  And — perhaps more significantly — arts guru for the BBC.

In 2012, to gild a shining hour, young Runcie began a series of detective short-stories based on the fictional vicar of Grantchester. Either by intent, or calculation those six books provided a perfect basis for TV adaptation. Moreover, they had the quaint, cozy English feel that appealed to an American audience. The Runcie table would never be short of honey still for tea.

After half-a-dozen volumes of his Sidney Chambers, young Runcie went back to the fountain-head. And something quite remarkable came up:

18. James Runcie: The Road to Grantchester

We get four evenly-spaced 'Parts' — War, Peace, Faith and Love.

It starts:

London, 28 February 1938

They are in the Caledonian Club, dancing the quickstep. Sidney is eighteen. Amanda, his best friend’s little sister, is three years younger. The band is playing ‘Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen’: ‘To Me, You’re Beautiful’. He has asked her to dance out of politeness. He has good manners, everyone thinks so, but he enjoys the dance more than he had expected.

 Amanda Kendall is, of course, the on-off love-interest in the early Grantchester Mysteries. Then a crash cut:

No one believes there will be another war and, even if there is one, how can it possibly ruin the memory of this golden evening, with everyone in their finery, dancing on a polished wooden floor under the chandeliers with the orchestra playing and the candles ablaze?

Five years later, Sidney Chambers is on a transport ship with the 2nd Battalion, Scots Guards, preparing for landing south of Salerno.

Sidney's school- and Cambridge-buddy, Amanda's brother, Robert Kendall is in the same unit. 

We follow the blood-and-gore of the Italian campaign from Solerno to Monte Cassino. Sidney's problems with faith are implied: a visit to Mass at a ruined chapel, his occasional guilt, his exchanges with the padre:

'Rev Nev' Finnie is an Episcopalian from Markinch in Fife. He is an asthmatic in his early forties, technically too old for service, but he is a family friend of the Colonel. He has been offered leave but he has a determination to continue with his ministry, wherever it takes him, and people can’t be bothered to argue about his age or suitability. He is only a priest. There are plenty of soldiers to console and bury.

Page 69 (of 327) comes the crisis:

Kendall leads the advance; Sidney is behind with the Bren, waiting to open up when the German defence has weakened. It is a sustained cacophony, rifles firing, blazes of illumination, silhouettes of movement, men stumbling, falling, shooting, killing, dying; a sustained attack and then a lull; a moment for replenishing, rearming, reconsidering before another opportunity to take the initiative while both sides work out what to do next.

Sidney calls, ‘Down,’ and the men nearby fall low, allowing him a clear line of fire. But a few soldiers in the distance either haven’t heard or are confused about the battle orders and are scrambling back. In the darkness, it is hard to tell if they are Allied troops returning or whether it’s an enemy attack.

Sidney keeps firing. He can’t see Kendall, but then he can’t see very much at all in the melée. He only stops when he runs out of ammunition. Then he realises how many of his own men are wounded. He calls out for the stretcher-bearers. Where is the Advance Dressing Station? How soon can they get help?

One man is unconscious, bleeding from the neck and chest, his head to one side, his eyes open in glazed surprise.

It is Robert Kendall.

Two days later Sidney has a field promotion to Captain, and awarded a Military Cross. Robert Kendall gets a posthumous DCM. Sidney goes to 'Rev Nev' for some comfort:

‘Would you like to pray?’

‘I’m not sure if I can.’

‘Let me start for you.’

Rev Nev bows his head. ‘Merciful Father, look down on this, thy servant Sidney. Accept his penitence, calm his fears, bring him your peace, in the name of your son, Jesus Christ, who suffered and died for us. Amen.’

Sidney just manages to repeat the ‘Amen’.

A lesser writer might have skipped then to Sidney, post-War, taking Holy Orders. Runcie doesn't, but rushes the story through Sidney being wounded, cared for by an Irish nurse (hinted flashback to Sidney's earlier relationship), and the end of the War.

The reader now possesses Sidney's causes of guilt and of 'belief'. Post-war he is rootless: suggestion of a career in the Foreign Office, in teaching or whatever leave him inert, unmotivated. Amanda takes him to the National Gallery: 

They find themselves in front of Caravaggio’s Supper at Emmaus, Christ with outstretched arms in blessing, the two strangers suddenly realising who is with them, light in the darkness, the simplicity of bread and gesture, its distilled meaning. [...]

They study the picture in silence. It is an image of commanding serenity, perfectly proportioned in its beauty and stillness. He feels the painting is calling him. Christ is calling him. This is the peace that the world cannot give.

 Then follows a series of awkward exchanges: he meets 'Rev Nev' who arranges a retreat, he talks to his father, he tries to explain his intention to Amanda ...

From then there is a killing (involves a pair of duelling pistols, no great mystery), we follow Sidney through theological college, into his first parochial involvements in Coventry as curate to Canon Clitheroe (there's an awkward, youthful pregnancy which involves secrets needing to be confessed), he finds himself growing away from the social scene of Amanda and her family, until ...

On Easter Monday, Graham Clitheroe asks for ‘a serious conversation’. Sidney worries what this might be about. Has a parishioner made a complaint? He does not think he has been neglecting his duties. On the contrary, he has been working all the time. Perhaps the vicar thinks he has been too lenient with Julie Jordan? Or maybe someone has died? Or Clitheroe has decided to retire?

They sit in deep old sofas, inherited and in need of reupholstery, drinking sweet dark sherry that Sidney does not like but won’t say. There’s a loud clock too, and he wonders why people need to be so constantly reminded of time.

‘Do you fancy a trip back to Cambridge?’ Clitheroe asks. The tone is kindly, almost amused.

‘Why there?’

‘I’ve had a letter from the Bishop of Ely. I don’t think you know him, but he’s been asking after you. They need a new man in Grantchester and he wants to know if you might be ready for the task. It’s quite a job.’ 

The conclusion involves Sidney telling Amanda how her brother died, a finely written scene — any comment would be a spoiler.

The novel concludes with Sidney induction at Grantchester:

Sidney is supported by friends old and new: his parents and siblings [...] together with all the regular villagers, including Mrs Maguire, a fierce-looking woman who has been earmarked as his housekeeper, the Mayor of Cambridge, and Inspector Geordie Keating from the local police.

Sidney looks out into the congregation and spies Amanda at the back of the church. She must have arrived late and on her own.

They walk by the Cam:

‘I’d like you to answer another question,’ he begins.

‘Questions, questions, Sidney. Whatever next?’

‘Will you look after me, Amanda?’

‘That sounds like a proposal of marriage. You know I’m engaged to someone else?’

‘I think it’s more than that.’

‘More than marriage?’

‘Yes, probably, given our history, given all that we know about each other, given my hopelessly uncertain and impoverished future. . .’

‘And you expect me to answer that?’

‘I do.’

‘There you go again. Is that the only time you are going to use those two words in my company?’

‘Probably.’

Cliff-hanger ending.

All of that side-steps the question: to what extent is the story of Sidney Chambers at least partly an analogue of Runcie's father?

Robert Runcie served in the Scots Guards (✔︎ check), was in the Normandy campaign (not Italy), was awarded the Military Cross for acts of bravery ((✔︎ check), was a Classics scholar (✔︎ check), studied for ordination at Westcott House, Cambridge (✔︎ check), served as a curate in Newcastle, returned to Cambridge (✔︎ check), and then became Bishop of St Albans. Robert Runcie died in 2000.

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