I was born on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent, just as the Luftwaffe were bombing  the shipping in the Thames and Meadway estuaries.

My formative years were spent in Rochester and at the age of sixteen my family moved to St Paul’s Cray near Orpington.  Here I joined a thriving Church Youth Fellowship (120 in all).  In that group I received God’s call to ordination and there I met Carol,  my wife.  So in 1969 I was ordained deacon in Ripon Cathedral and married Carol 6 months later.

My first curacy was in Horsforth, then a village on the edge of Leeds where people left their doors unlocked and I learnt, when visiting, to “go round the back”.  I stayed in Yorkshire for  another 7 years serving a curacy at St George’s Leeds in the city centre and then in Heworth on the edge of York.  During this time our daughters Susannah and Rebecca were born.

In 1981 we moved to the Coventry diocese, to Budbrooke an ancient village on the edge of Warwick swallowed up by a new housing area.  We spent 15 years there during which time the church changed radically both inside and out.  We built a new centre to house 3 children’s teaching rooms, a hall, a kitchen and office complex.  We made many friendships there and still find prayer support amongst some of its older members.

A highlight of that time for me was taking part in a Deanery visit to Dresden, linked with Coventry, to experience the 50^th  Anniversary of the bombing of the city. It was a pleasure and privilege to meet so many Christian folk and find we had so to share.

In 1997 we moved to Stone in Staffordshire where I was vicar of a United Benefice with three churches and three church schools.  There we built another church centre which has become a resource for both the church and the community in that expanding canal town.  We left behind many lively Christian people and brought with us a love of Staffordshire Oat Cakes!

We have now joined the church family of Collingtree, Courteenhall and Milton Malsor  and have enjoyed setting up our new home In Northamptonshire.  We look forward to sharing in the growth of the Body of Christ in this Benefice.  I have also discovered, to my delight, that the Benefice is full of other steam train enthusiasts!

At my confirmation, at the age of 13, I resolved to “be a pilgrim”, 46 years later that still remains my aim and objective.