What was the inspiration for Grantchester's crime-fighting vicar?

“Sidney fought in the Scots Guards, which is exactly what my dad did; he was there at the Normandy landings, just as Dad was; and he was one of the first people into Bergen-Belsen, like Dad.”

Robert Runcie won the Military Cross for his bravery. How many clerics have deliberately killed another man, as the Archbishop did on the battlefield? “Well, yes. And of course he never talked about it. And that’s the same with Sidney.”

James says that he wanted to explode myths about Anglican priests: “I wanted to get as far away as possible from Dick Emery and Derek Nimmo... the idea that vicars are soppy and never make any decisions.”

Did Runcie senior, like Chambers, fall in love with a woman he couldn’t have?

“I don’t entirely know the answer to that,” says James, “but women fell in love with my dad because they thought he was a caring, sensitive person. He did have his fair share of what’s rudely called ‘spinster adoration’. There’s no doubt about that. And my mother went mad about all of this.”

Grantchester is on Mondays at 9.00pm on ITV