IT'S not very often you hear about a vicar getting locked in the tower, but that's just what happened to the vicar of Boscastle last week.

Rev Robert Thewsey and his wife Margaret went up into the bell tower of Forrabury Church in Boscastle to sort out the flag pole, after the flag was blown off in a recent storm.

They left the door open at the bottom of the tower for safety, and were up in the tower for around an hour-and-a-half to two hours trying to rectify the problem.

In the meantime, ex-churchwarden Shirley Bannister went into the church and noticed the bell tower door was open with the key still in it, so she locked the door and removed the key.

Shirley then went to the rectory to deliver the key back to Rev Thewsey, but he wasn't there (as unbeknown to her, she had locked him in the tower!).

She took the key to someone else, who was, at the time, sitting in their garden. While she was there, they noticed the flag was again flying at the church and eventually put two and two together and realised the vicar must have been in the tower.

Fortunately, after Shirley left the church, Jennifer and Ian Stewart — who were staying in the area — went into the church and heard Mrs Thewsey's cries for help coming from the tower.

After gaining the visitors' attention, Rev Thewsey gave them some instructions and they managed to open one of the windows in the tower screen, allowing the vicar and his wife to climb out.

Rev Thewsey told the 'Post': "We were there for about two hours as we were at the top for a long time trying to sort things out. It was only about 40 minutes that we knew we were locked in.

"We do have a lot of

visitors that come through the church, so we were assured that we would get somebody's attention

eventually."