Anthills & Stars by Kevin Duffy Bluemoose Books, £7.99

To get the measure of Hebden Bridge you have only to go into the Shelter shop in St George’s Square.

The morning I was there to meet Kevin Duffy, author of Anthills & Stars, they were playing Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here, I think it was.

In all the charity shops I have frequented in West Yorkshire, I have yet to hear the Floyd played as muzak.

But then Hebden Bridge has a reputation as the Haight Ashbury of the county.

Hebden Bridge, thinly disguised as Broughton, is the location for Kevin Duffy’s comic novel, published by Bluemoose Books, founded in 2006 by the author.

Set in 1968, the year of political revolutions after the Summer of Love, an unmarried hippy couple, Solomon and Cas, arrive with Leo, their son of 18 months, in this Calderdale backwater to set up house in Prospect Street.

Their next-door neighbour, Ethel Hebblethwaite, is a cross between Nora Batty and Hyacinth Bucket; the difference being she is a righteous Roman Catholic – not a hypocrite, as the novel reveals, but ardent.

Their arrival causes uproar. But after Solomon deflowers Ethel’s 19-year-old grand-daughter Margaret, the local war against the flower children gathers hysterical momentum, culminating in a petition to Bishop Bone to exorcise the flared-jean spawn of Satan before the entire town is corrupted.

Stir into the mix a couple of insane zealots, a comic policeman and a Roman Catholic priest, Father O’Dowd, troubled about his sexuality, and you have all the ingredients of an English Father Ted seen through the eyes of Joe Orton or Peter Tinniswood, with perhaps just a dash of David Nobbs.

I am not implying that Kevin Duffy has no distinctive voice of his own, he does...

‘“Your grace, I think I might be having unnatural thoughts’.”

“The Bishop looked worried, very worried. Worried enough to forget about the pain from his feet. ‘You’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking?’”

“‘Yes, Your Grace,’ Father O’Dowd replied, grateful he didn’t have to spell it out.

“The Bishop held the telephone at arm’s length. ‘Good God! O’Dowd’s thinking of becoming a Protestant…’”

And... “…As the Anti-Hippy element rounded Market Street and into Water Lane they met the Exorcists who, although much better dressed, were outnumbered ten to one. It was like the joining of the waters at Avoca, two turbulent rivers vying for supremacy. Nothing was said, but if looks could kill then the Bishop would have been up for mass murder.”

In places that sardonic, sharply-observing voice – flared jeans are likened to the flapping of a stranded fish on dry land – gets the better of him.

Would Mrs Hebblethwaite really invite Father O’Dowd to “take the weight off your crucifix” so early on in the novel?

Minor plot and linguistic inconsistencies aside – for example, were “sorted” and “under wraps” part of the currency of everyday language in 1968? – Anthills & Stars is an enjoyable romp written by a quick-witted writer whose relish for unlikely analogies and observations occasionally gets out of hand.

But Mrs Hebblethwaite, Bishop Bone and Father O’Dowd are all rounded-enough characters – not the caricatures the writer suggests they might be early on.

And as in all good reads, there are surprises. The story starts out seemingly as a satire on small-town religious nutters – Kevin was raised as a Roman Catholic – but develops into a demolition of the values of the Sixties counter-culture.

Commonsense values are re-established at the end: community triumphs over ego-driven selfishness.

The sisterhood of practically-minded women is asserted and raised above the idea of sexual liberation.