Monk in the Market Place … and the Simpsons is a memoir like no other. Ray Simpson, Founding Guardian of the international new monastic Community of Aidan and Hilda, recalls the story of a unique life in which he has followed faithfully a calling to live monastically beyond the traditional enclosures of monastery or shrine.

Ray’s unputdownable account charts human pain and God-incidents in his childhood and college, baptisms of fire in industrial heartlands and multi-racial London, pioneering a Village of God at Bowthorpe, Norwich, the call to be ‘a contemplative in the market place’ living without a salary, his co-founding of the Community of Aidan and Hilda, and twenty years as founder of the Celtic Christianity library and CAH Retreat Facilities on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, ‘the spiritual capital of England’.
 
Ray Simpson is a Celtic new monastic for tomorrow's world, a lecturer, consultant, liturgist and author of some 40 books, including Exploring Celtic Spirituality, Soul Friendship and Celtic Christianity and Climate Crisis. He is Founding Guardian of the international Community of Aidan and Hilda, and the founder of the Celtic Christianity library and Open Gate Retreat House on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne.