The Story so far... A Brief History...

First of all ‘thank you’ for the welcome I have received at The United Church since the start of the year.

While I have met a number of you in various contexts since I came to Winchester, I thought it would be helpful to fill in a few of the gaps in my story.

Life began in the Midlands just north of Birmingham in a Christian family. Dad worked for a joinery firm and Mum was a teacher. Dad was made redundant just before I started secondary school and we moved to Cornwall to run a small hotel.

The scenery was stunning, but life was a bit of a roller coaster as Dad developed cancer and I developed diabetes in the same year. We moved from Brethren to Baptist to Anglican churches during this time and also encountered the early days of the Charismatic renewal movement.

We moved again, this time to Stoke-on-Trent to be near my grandparents. It was a Methodist pastoral tutor in my 6th form college who asked if I had ever considered ‘going into the ministry’. Just to keep things balanced, one of my lecturers was a member of the United Reformed Church; I also recall a couple of Baptists, no Anglicans though!