"You certainly did give me a surprise!" said the vicar,"You've probably woken up everyone in the village as well."

"Whatever are you doing up here Bill?" asked the vicar in surprise.

With the tourchlight, he caught sight of a figure whom he immediately recognized as Bill Wilkins, our local grocer.

Armed with a tourch, the vicar went up into the clock tower to see what was going on ,

Looking at his watch, he saw that it was one o'clock, but the bell struck thirteen times before it stopped .

One night, however, our vicar woke up with a start: the clock was striking hours!

The big clock which used to strike the hours day and night was damaged many years ago and has been silent ever since.

Our vicar is always raising money for one cause or another, but he has never managed to get enough money to have the church clock repaired.

It's disturbing to think that a dangerous wild animal is still at large in the quiet countryside.

The hunt went on for several weeks, but the puma was not caught.