Unlike most households, Sunday is the busiest day of the week in Sue and David Griffiths' home. Why? Because they are both vicars. Helen Mead spoke to them about life as a man and woman of the cloth.

THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE may not seem the most likely place to find romance. But it did the trick for David and Susan Griffiths, although, admits David, it did not happen immediately.

"I was a bit of a late starter in life and it was not until our final year that we began to get to know one another."

They had arrived at the college, in Nottingham, through very different paths. Bradfordian Susan changed career after working as a tax inspector in the district for more than 13 years. She experienced a calling and knew that she had to act upon it.

"I was listening to a sermon in Eccleshill," she recalls, "and I just felt God was asking me to consider doing it. I struggled with it for about nine months before mentioning it to anyone, and then things started to happen."

David, from Birmingham, trained as a production engineer with Leyland Cars in the Midlands. He spent seven years, as he says "bashing cars into shape," before deciding that he wanted to see more of the world.

So, aged 24, he headed overland for Australia via India, becoming a Christian along the way.

Susan had gone to college to train to be ordained for the church ministry, while David was studying for a degree. Although they were in different classes, they knew of each other, but did not mix in the same circles until later.

In fact, they began seeing each other only a couple of months before their courses finished in June 1994. Jokes David: "Susan saw the light." He explains: "I had been interested in her, but she had not responded. I even went to a keep-fit class to get to know her better, but got no response at all."

They got chatting properly during the college rag week, when David helped to raise cash for the third world. "I had a beard and had half of it shaved off, and then all of it. Susan doesn't like beards and when she saw me she thought that underneath all that hair I wasn't bad looking."

Adds Susan: "I thought he looked better, then he grew it back again. But I'd got to know him by then and we started going out."

David, now 46, had been accepted to work as a curate in Nottinghamshire, while Susan, 38, was returning to Bradford to take up a post in Ingrow, near Keighley. So, for a while, they continued their romance by commuting up and down the M1.

Says David: "We were up and down the motorway, and after 18 months we had to decide who was going to move."

David took the plunge. The couple married in January 1996, at Ingrow, and, after both were ordained as priests, they got new jobs and moved close to their respective churches.

Their vicarage home stands alongside St Mary's, Wyke, where Susan is vicar, and is two miles down the road from St Andrew's, Oakenshaw-cum-Woodlands, where David is priest-in-charge.

The pair, who recently had a baby son, Matthew, recognise that they are unusual. "There are other couples in the diocese who are both clergy and are married, but it's not that common."

Indeed, some visitors to the house are surprised to see two dog collars greeting them at the door. "Most people know now." says Susan.

Being in the same profession has its advantages. Says Susan: "We talk about what we may be saying in our sermons - we share ideas, which really helps. We can also discuss any problems that may crop up and work out solutions."

But the couple's working arrangements occasionally clash. Says David: "We share the office in the vicarage and have to organise who is going to use the computer - there can be a bit of a fight over that."

They realise that, while they take an interest in each other's work, time-wise it is impossible to get too involved. Says David: "In the more traditional set-up there would be a male vicar and his wife helping in the community and doing all sorts of things."

But with their demanding workload it is not possible to become heavily involved. "On the down-side, I can go along to very few of Susan's services and social events and so on."

The pair are so busy on Sunday, in their own parishes, they never get time to worship together. "People say it must be strange not worshipping together on a Sunday," says Susan, "but we've always worked in separate parishes - to us it's the norm."

They stress that they talk to each other a lot. Says David: "We have always done that. It is nice to share the joys - if a service has gone well and someone has been touched in a special way. It's nice to be able to sit down and tell Susan."

And they make sure they take the same day off during the week. says Susan: "If we didn't do that we would pass like ships in the night."

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