Memoirs of a Very Dangerous Man

But that didn't mean that it didn't live in fear '“ and not just of the enemy attacking from the sky.

The threat of invasion was a very real one in the early days of World War Two '“ a threat which the Rev Donald Reeves, former rector of St James' Piccadilly, remembers well.

"I was born in Chichester," says Mr Reeves who returns to the city of his birth for the Chichester Festivities.

"My father had a garage in North Street called Reeves garage. It's about where Smith's is now. It was bombed in 1942.

"Chichester was a very interesting place as a little boy growing up there. I definitely have memories of a lot of anxiety about whether we were going to be invaded during the war. My mother always said 'I will take you to the hills if the Germans come'. I remember seeing dogfights above where we lived in Salthill Road.

"What was interesting was the Cathedral which became a very important place for me. In those days it was rather shabby and dingy inside. I can still member the smell of the boilers, the rather acrid smell of the boilers that heated the place. My mother used to use it as a short cut from East Street to North Street, and I used to go into the Cathedral to hide.

"Now the Cathedral is quite different. It has been cleaned up, but there is something missing from it. There were places where you could hide. Now you are greeted by people and asked to provide some money and everything is signposted. And something is missing. I don't want it to be dark and dingy again'¦ but something is missing.

"I remember very well a very famous Dean of Chichester, Arthur Duncan-Jones. I was a small boy of nine or ten. He already had a family of eight children of his own, but he took a real liking to me. He used to invite me to tea at the Deanery. I got to know him quite well."

These and other stories Mr Reeves will doubtless recall when he returns to Chichester for a date in St John's Chapel on Wednesday July 1 at 6pm to discuss his autobiography.

It's called Memoirs Of A Very Dangerous Man, something he was dubbed by Margaret Thatcher no less '“ and instantly thought it was a fine thing to add to his CV.

It was 1982, and Enoch Powell was taking part in Any Questions where Mr Reeves was also one of the speakers. Mrs Thatcher called Powell to warn him that Donald Reeves was a "very dangerous man".

"The Labour party had more or less collapsed. I was very much against the Falklands War and had demonstrated against it. And I was very much in favour of the miners' strike. The wives of the miners used to come to tea.

"And during this time I had set up a major project that went on for 15 years, public seminars on issues of security and peace. Margaret Thatcher on the whole had a rather black and white approach to politics. We had a rather more nuanced approach."

Hence her words. Words which were over the top, Mr Reeves says. "I was only a priest in the centre of London. But I was quite pleased. I thought that they could go on my CV!"