A former Vicar of Huddersfield has teamed up with a rock star.

The Very Rev Catherine Ogle, former vicar at St Peter’s Church, has collaborated with Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi.

Mrs Ogle, who left Huddersfield to become the Dean of Birmingham, worked with the rocker when he recorded a haunting choral work with the Birmingham Cathedral choir and cellist George Shilling.

The five-minute-long recording, How Good It Is, was inspired by Psalm 133 and is available on iTunes.

Mrs Ogle, who will soon become dean at Winchester Cathedral, said: “We had been introduced by a friend then, when Tony was unwell, we got to know one another better when I began to pray for him.

“I kept in touch with Tony and his wife about his health.

“This is a most wonderful gift Tony offered to the cathedral. He has a huge fan base in the city. The cathedral is here to serve everyone so we want to connect with them, too. The words come from scripture and are really positive about people living together in peace and harmony.”

Mrs Ogle spent nine years as Vicar of Huddersfield and brought a freshness and energy to life at St Peter’s Church in Huddersfield town centre.

When she left in 2010 she was one of only three women to have become a dean in the Church of England.

Iommi, who plays acoustic guitar on the track, says modestly: “They’re a fantastic choir but the guitar player’s crap!”

He added: “Catherine and I gave it a lot of thought, then I recorded the tune on which the piece is based at my home recording studio. I sent it to Catherine, she liked it, and came up with the words, which are based on the psalm.

“Then we recorded the choir inside the cathedral, which has gorgeous acoustics.

“The whole process took around nine months because I was out on Black Sabbath’s final tour, and there were lots of things happening at the cathedral, where work was being done.

“We called in cellist George Shilling, and invited him to work his magic, too, and we’re all very happy with the finished result.”

“It’s a bit different to Sabbath!” he said. “We’ve done instrumental work before with orchestras and it’s something I enjoy doing – but this is completely different.

“It’s something we have started from scratch, a completely new piece of music unlike anything I have done before.

“People used to think we were Satanists but we weren’t. The songs were the opposite – they were all about the dangers of black magic. The closest we came was Black Magic chocolates!”

The Black Sabbath guitarist says that How Good It Is will be the first of many new challenges he hopes to explore after the Sabbath UK tour which gets underway later this month.