PRESS newshound turned Church of England priest Matt Woodcock loves to talk. You only have to listen to him bubbling away on Pause For Thought (on Zoe Ball's Radio 2 breakfast show) to know that.

But even for him, spending a couple of days in a studio this week recording the audio version of his new book, Being Reverend, was stretching it a bit.

"I love to talk but two days reading it out loud into a microphone is testing even my vocal chords!" he said.

Being Reverend is the follow-up to Matt's 2016 bestseller Becoming Reverend. In that earlier book, he described his journey from cheekie-chappie cub reporter on The Press to ordained CofE curate of a large church in Hull, via a 'road of Damascus'-style revelation - on the road to Selby.

Matt was on his way to cover a case at Selby Magistrates Court when he was overcome by a dizzy feeling.

He pulled into a layby to pull himself together. “And as strange as it sounds, I felt an overwhelming sense that God had something urgent he wanted to tell me,” he wrote in Becoming Reverend.“Either that, or someone had spiked my pot noodle.”

It was the kind of cheeky humour familiar to anyone who knew Matt in his days as a young newshound - but not necessarily what you'd expect from an ordained minister of the Church.

But then, he's never exactly been your traditional priest. “Charlie Chaplin said a day isn’t a proper day without a few laughs,” he once said in an interview with The Press. “What does it say about me and my faith if I have a face like a slapped backside?”

Zoe Ball raved about Becoming Reverend. "Matt’s honesty, wild humour and huge love of humans shines like gold in this book," she wrote. "He is one super gifted chap. I loved it."

Four years on, he's back in York (at St Barnabas Church in Leeman Road and St Paul's in Holgate). And he's finished writing (and recording) 'Being Reverend', the follow-up to his first book.

It will be out, in various formats, from Church House Publishing in November. And if you loved the sheer gleeful humour of 'Becoming Reverend' - well, then expect more of the same.

Being Reverend tells the story of his first 18 months as an ordained priest in Hull: a period in which he staged a sell-out beer festival in his church every year - and managed to walk real camels down Hull's main shopping street at Christmas.

"It was the wildest period of my life!" he said. "By a mile! My grandma can't wait to read it!"

And so say all of us...