The convent chaplain referred to by Professor Patrick Sherry (Letters, 18 April) was my great-uncle, Fr Frederick Askew. His response to Bishop Barnes’ enquiry was, according to his sister (my grandmother), not as quoted by John Barnes but, “Oh, I’m the local magician.” A past archivist of the Diocese of Nottingham once wrote to me that Frederick Askew was “the last of the great eccentric priests”. His sermons could raise laughter in the solemn atmosphere of