Thief, Prisoner, Soldier, Priest
Paul Cowley's autobiography — the whole road, from a Manchester childhood and a borstal cell at fifteen, through seventeen years in the Army, to ordination and a life spent opening the same door that was opened for him.
One life, four names.
Thief. Prisoner. Soldier. Priest. Four words that each belonged to Paul in turn, and the book is the account of how one became the next.
Paul is the real deal and a man of true courage, humanity and faith. His journey is as raw and real as they come. — Bear Grylls
What the book is
Paul was born in Manchester to parents who were both alcoholics. At fifteen, after an argument with his father, he left home and did not go back — sleeping rough, drifting into petty crime, and eventually serving six months in Risley borstal.
At twenty-one he tried to enlist and was turned away because of his record. He kept returning to the recruiting office until an officer took a chance on him. Seventeen years followed in the Royal Artillery, the Royal Green Jackets and the Royal Army Physical Training Corps, including tours in Northern Ireland and the Falklands campaign.
He left the Army in 1993, ran health clubs in London, and — after almost thirty-eight years as an atheist — went on an Alpha course in 1994 and became a Christian. He was ordained in 2002. The book carries all of it: the childhood, the cell, the parade square, the pulpit, and the prison chapels he has spent three decades walking back into by choice.
The launch that landed in lockdown
The book was published in March 2020. The launch date arrived as the COVID outbreak broke, and the publicity that had been arranged around it fell apart.
What happened next was not planned by anyone. Three people who knew Paul — two of them in other countries — wrote to him unprompted, and all said a version of the same thing: this book should go into prisons. That is how it got there. The book's reach came not from the launch campaign but from readers who put it into the hands it was written for.
A note on the writing
The book took years to write, assembled from Paul's own account of a life he had spent a long time not talking about. It was written with his wife, Amanda Cowley, who is credited alongside him on the cover.
In print, and in his own voice.
- Hardcover Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 978-1-529-30376-6.
- Audiobook Read by Paul Cowley. ISBN 978-1-399-80569-8.
- Ebook Available for Kindle and Apple Books.
Booksellers and listings.
- Amazon UK Hardcover, Kindle and Audible editions.
- Hachette The publisher's own page, with bookshop links.
- Church House Bookshop Independent Christian bookseller.
- Goodreads Reader listing and reviews — not a retailer.
Part of the story, in his own words — how the second chance began.