The theme tune from BBC television’s series The Detectorists is audible from my mother’s television. The series was one of those delightful productions of which only the BBC would be capable, a piece of whimsy that spoke to someone searching for elusive treasure.

If there were a theme tune to the disastrous four year relationship that brought an end to my marriage, my clerical career and my relationship with my daughter, it is the guitar playing and folk song voice of Johnny Flynn. The metal detector search of the characters for the treasure of which they dreamed was undoubtedly more realistic than the hope that happiness would be found in turning away from all that had gone before.

Dreaminess has been a lifelong failing, imagining that if only certain things were possible then all would be well. Of course, it would not have been so, a new set of dark clouds would quickly have gathered. Treasure was something to be found by other people.

‘What would you like to have for Christmas, sir?  asked a 5th Year student on Friday.

‘Peace, love and understanding’, I replied. The girl and her companions smiled.

’In the words of Elvis Costello’, I said, ‘what’s so funny about peace, love and understanding?’

As a student forty-odd years ago, there was a realisation that people didn’t really want such things, what they wanted was a world where their views prevailed.

Any hope that my naive notions might find a seconder was dispelled by moving to Northern Ireland in 1983. I didn’t have much experience of the Catholic population but what I did discover was that the Protestant people who described themselves as ‘evangelical’ were often the most bitter and graceless people one might ever meet.

Perhaps the years of coping with the church should have destroyed any hope of finding the sort of treasure Elvis Costello described. There would be more chance of finding gold in a field in rural England than finding peace, love and understanding among the bishops.

Two months ago, I wrote to the Archbishop of Dublin offering to look after a vacant parish. An automated response came. The diocesan secretary said there would be a reply in due course. None ever came.

’Why would you want to return to the church?’ asked a friend. ‘Stick with what you are happy with. Don’t you love your school?’

’I do love the school’, I said, ‘there’s never a morning when I’m not happy to go.’

As with the detectorists in the series, the gold is found when least expected.