GP Taylor's Pig in the Pulpit: Looking back on police and priest career of 1990s

“When you've got a man resisting arrest or attacking you with a knife, which has happened, you've got to use physical force against them and use as much force as necessary to bring that to a close,” says Taylor, 66. “On Sunday morning, I was in church, preaching peace and good will to all men. The night before, I was wielding a truncheon in the middle of a high street, fighting off a gang of blokes.”

The Yorkshire Coast-based author’s latest novel, Pig in the Pulpit, his first book since 2012, draws on his real experiences from three decades ago. It follows Peter Barnes, a young policeman who is also a parish priest, and Taylor describes it as a “murder story with a difference” – but it is also billed as Father Brown meets James Herriot.

Having worked in the music industry in London, Taylor himself headed back up north and went into the force in his 20s, inspired by his policeman grandfather Talla Taylor.

Aged 17, he had walked into a station declaring that he wanted to be a policeman, but a “big copper” told him to “‘come back in 10 years when you’ve got a bit of wool on your back’,” says Taylor. “So I did.”

While policing was in the blood, the idea of becoming a vicar had never occurred to him – he had not even grown up with religion.

He says: "I wanted to be just an ordinary copper, helping people get through their daily lives and protecting them from criminals. I’d become a Christian, I didn't grow up as a Christian, I actually got involved in church with people I was working with and went to church one day. The vicar, as I'm leaving the church, said: ‘Have you ever thought about getting ordained?’ I said: ‘Well, no, not really’. He said: ‘Why don’t you think about it? I think God might be calling you to do something else.’”

After being ordained by the Church of England, Taylor set out to make a dual vocation of policing Pickering and preaching at its Church of St Peter and St Paul. However, by his own admission, it didn’t work – and his motivation for writing the book is partly about reckoning with the past.

“There were a lot of ghosts that needed laying to rest,” says Taylor, who until recently wrote regular columns for The Yorkshire Post.

“It was a very difficult time in my life. I made the big mistake of thinking I was capable of being a priest and a policeman at the same time. The church were all for this because they thought it was good PR for them. The police were all for this because they thought it was good PR for them. And yet, in reality, it wasn't so much a calling other than a failing. It didn't work. It was very difficult. There was a lot of confrontation behind the scenes.

"The superiors in the police were sceptical about me, it turned out. I had a couple of supporters high up, but I got a new boss, and he said to me very clearly: ‘When you're here, you're just a copper. I want none of this bloody dog collar stuff’. And also the church were, I think, started to become quite sceptical very quickly about the fact that on a Friday and Saturday night, I was rolling around the street fighting with drunks and criminals.”

Exposure to terrible events led to Taylor suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, he says, and continued assaults in the line of duty ended his time with the police in 1995.

He remained a vicar and was posted to Whitby and later Cloughton, near Scarborough. However, his writing career took off with his fantasy novel Shadowmancer, which was published in 2002.

Its success coincided with health issues which meant he left the clergy. “It was a good job the books took off because I would have been on a minimum pension, with three kids to support and nowhere to live,” he says.

His daughter, Lydia, also became very ill with Crohn's disease and spent a long time in hospital, which took its toll on the family and also accounts for why he has not published for so long – though thankfully she has returned to health, says Taylor.

“Everybody's thinking, oh, worldly success – he’s having films made of his books, he’s a New York Times best-selling author – and my life was going down the pan. There's us trying to support a daughter who we thought was going to die.”

In 2007, he published his first Mariah Mundi book.

That also gained popularity and formed the basis of a major feature film, The Adventurer: The Curse of the Midas Box, starring Michael Sheen, Lena Headey and Keeley Hawes – but it was not to Taylor’s taste.

“I must be the only author in history ever to give his film two out of 10 on Rotten Tomatoes,” he says.

Would he be open to his latest work being adapted? "With Pig in the Pulpit, if it was the right company at the right time,” he says.

“If it was the people who were doing All Creatures Great and Small, I'd say yes, that's a really well made programme. But anybody else… there's a lot of chancers out there in the film industry.”

His latest work is published by the independent Markosia Enterprises.

Consequently, the promotional push has not been what the might of the bigger publishers can offer, so Taylor has been getting about to different places to talk about his work. “I'll come and talk to a fish tank, if I get the chance.”

Pig in the Pulpit is out on Friday. The ebook is available now.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​