The classic comedy Father Ted sometimes comes irresistibly to mind when the Rev John Theobald talks of his career.

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It would seem priesthood has a lot to do with black comedy – events which should otherwise be sombre, dutiful affairs have an innate tendency to turn to farce, like one particular funeral which is well remembered by John.

"It was tanking down with rain as we proceeded to the grave, which were far deeper in those days. It had been raining for days and the waterlogged ground had pushed the sides of the grave inwards, bending the boards which prevented collapse.

"We trod carefully through the mud and stood on the perilous edge... I began the words of committal and the coffin was lowered... but the shoulders would not go past the top of the grave timbers.
"Up came the coffin to be lowered feet first. The feet went down but the shoulders stuck fast. We tried several times without success.The family were becoming distressed, saying 'He doesn't want to leave us'.

"We finished the service by the graveside. I put my arm around the widow and shepherded her away from the grave... as I looked back I saw the gravediggers kick the coffin in and it went down sideways and hit the bottom with a great whoosh, and a fountain of water shot up from the grave!"

John was born in Anfield, Liverpool, in December 1933 but has lived and worked in Leeds for many years. Now he has written a book, The Man Behind the Collar, about his life.

His first job aged 15 was as a butcher's boy and shortly thereafter he served a five-year apprenticeship as a bricklayer, throughout which he was working as a lay preacher. He entered the ministry full-time after a brief spell in the Army, still in his early 20s.

Farcical funerals aside, John, who lives in Garforth with his wife Barbara, has also had to keep his cool during a number of marriage mishaps, from bridesmaids throwing up just as the vows were being declared to bigamous unions.

That said, there's a serious edge to his work which cannot be ignored – he has seen it all, from knife-wielding maniacs in his kitchen to
unrepentant hardened criminals.

Perhaps the most intriguing chapters of his book come in the form of extracts from his personal diaries when he was the vicar at Armley Jail.

The jail had been in the news for all the wrong reasons: there had been a spate of suicides and claims of guard brutality and prisoner abuse.

He acknowledges these and more and his entries make for enthralling reading.

He worked at Armley from 1986-9 and again from 1993-7, when two new wings were built, an exercise which involved the digging up of a courtyard.

He recalled: "Unfortunately, there were lots of bodies of people who had been hanged over the years under the concrete yard. It was decided to reinter them in the cemetery behind the yard.

"The prison advertised for relatives who wanted their kinsman's remains.
"We re-buried the bodies in two batches... in February 1989. Few sets of remains were claimed."

On one occasion, after urging prisoners not to tear pages from their bibles to use as cigarette papers, he made them an offer – if they sent him their bible, he would give them a packet of cigarette papers.
He added: "Once the word got around, I was inundated with bibles from the whole of the north of England!"

The Rev Theobald comes across as refreshingly honest and unpretentious, even calling to mind a story during his brickie days when a bread van spilled its load on the road. He ended up with some of that bread, and when the police came looking for it, he and a mate bricked up the stolen loot inside a chimney breast.

Then there's the time he played an Army chaplain in a BBC drama for £50, the time he almost met Henry Ford II at Number 10 and the numerous
times he's fallen off his longboat into the canal.

* The Man Behind the Collar is published by UpFront Publishing.