Where are you from? Being from an RAF family, I’m from all over, but born in York and finished schooling in Manchester, so both sides of the Northern Powerhouse. After a job in Lancaster University, I’ve been back in Oxford since the late Bronze age.
How did you find St Margaret’s? It was/is our Parish Church, living as we were in the next street, strategically equidistant between St Margaret’s and the Anchor. I remember a previous incumbent positioned on the street corner by the bench, repointing the boundary walls and engaging passers-by in conversation. His combination of the worker priest and muscular Christianity was quite a draw.
What do you do here?I’m a Churchwarden and help with St Margaret’s Institute (SMI). SMI is (over)fully booked for community activities such as the Limes Club, AA, a creche, therapists, music lessons, line dancing, coffee mornings, carol service etc. When the Church gets its westward extension, we will be able to engage more with the community by coordinating our offer of public space with SMI, as well as having more capacity for concerts, so that the Church can be an even greater asset to the community.
What do you like about the church? We noticed from the beginning that St M’s is a great place for families, and many new ones have joined from all the developments across the Jordan in Waterways etc. It is remarkably good at holding on to its teenage congregation, very much due, I think, to the excellent Sunday Schools, and to the friendship and high quality music training offered in the Choir. The Church has also been generous and longsighted in compensating for lack of municipal provision by investing in children’s work and in helping the elderly population of the parish, some of whom are lonely and in financial difficulties. This matches the excellent work being done in St Giles with the homeless, which St M also supports in its Christmas collection for the Big Issue sellers. I like the wonderful choral music here and the liberal catholic liturgy, which has a wide appeal to other traditions : my late wife was Catholic, and Ela is that rare species, an Italian Methodist.
What are you looking forward to over the next few months? Trying to rise to the challenge which Covid-19 is presenting to our small College of 100+ souls, now scattered from California to Singapore, but connected through the ether. They are being taught online, listening to lectures and making the best fist they can of research degrees without access to labs or libraries. Keeping up a sense of community and welfare support is a challenge in lockdown, but our Benedictine Chaplain, Fr Oswald, who preached at St M’s last year, is a tower of strength, and I think St M’s is also doing a wonderful job with streamed services!
What three words would you use to describe your faith? Active rather than contemplative ; respect for difference ; commitment to interfaith dialogue.
Tell us something most people would never guess about you… I am left-handed (contrast the two in the picture to the right)