When a newly ordained young priest, Neil Boyd, comes to the parish of St Jude's, he discovers that nothing in the seminary could have prepared him for Father Duddleswell - a robust and cheerful eccentric, who has been the parish priest for 12 years.

Neil is befuddled when Duddleswell insists that as well as the usual virtues of patience, love and charity, a parish priest must have sagacity, and both the reserve and resourcefulness of a poker-player. His confusion increases when Duddleswell and his housekeeper of twenty years start hurling insults at each other...