Greetings! I’ve been asked to write a piece about myself for ‘Rolling Along’
When I was eighteen, I was performing the rather routine chore of starting an old but rather large irrigation engine on the black soil plains of the family property in Northwest New South Wales. I must have been absent minded because after the effort of getting the thing turning over, I then pushed the compression lever shut and made a hash of taking the crank handle off. The engine fired, gained speed, and threatened to shake itself and the shed to bits. Without thinking I leaned over the blur of the handle and pulled the decompression lever open. It was only after wards I remembered my father’s warning and realized what might have happened to me if the handle had come off. A month or so later one of my school pals and Rugby boon companion did the same thing and was killed instantly. I think that was when I grew up.
Until then life had been relatively easy, even idyllic for me. As the Yiddish proverbs puts it; ‘With money in your pocket, you are wise, and you are handsome, and you sing well too’.
I’ve always been a reader and after an unhappy stint at University I started to read the Bible seriously for the first time. This culminated in my attendance at a Christian Youth convention where to my astonishment I realized that the truth of the Christian Gospel had been ‘under my nose’ and I hadn’t realized it. My previous reading was around Buddhism, some philosophy and the writings that were emanating from the counterculture of the American West Coast. Some of the latter was very seductive, and little did I realize what was really going on. The book by Oz Guiness (of the famous Irish brewing family) The Dust of Death, was an absolute eyeopener about what was and is going on with Western Culture at the time. A Chinese proverb comes to mind ‘If you want to know what water is like, don’t ask a fish’.
In 1980 I booked myself to travel to Nebraska (not the most exciting State in the U.S) to look at the new ` No till` farming practises. I decided to travel firstly via the UK after I found a nearby farming pal was intending to be there at the same time. The highlight of this trip did not turn out to be Nebraska but the meeting of my now wife Alison on a church picnic day near London. Alison grew up on a farm in North Devon.
Upon returning to Australia, I found I had a desire to study the Bible and deepen my new world view without necessarily leaving farming. Alison and I decided to be married and together we came to a growing conviction that ordained Anglican ministry was our future. This was difficult for me but right for Alison and myself.
I still miss hunting feral pigs and foxes (also feral in Australia) both of which are decimating to the sheep farmers. It was strange no longer having hands stained by dirt and diesel. I miss mucking around with machinery and fast cars and motorbikes. But then again maybe God is protecting me from failing the first and second commandments!
So after four years of intense theological study we worked initially for two years in a curacy/assistant ministry in country NSW. We then moved to the U.K town of Corby in Northamptonshire which we enjoyed enormously.
Then in 1992 for my first Parish in charge as Rector we settled in a village called Trull on the southern outskirts of Taunton in Somerset. We spent ten very happy years there and our three children thrived in school and community.
At the end of 2002 we moved back to Australia and I retired from full time parish ministry in 2019. Since then, Alison and I have been serving part time in locums, mostly rural Parishes in Western NSW.
My normal working days here will be Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. I’m looking forward to meeting folk and especially visiting farms. My knowledge of sheep is mainly about Merinos. If anyone wants a tractor driver for a day let me know!
I like rugby (both codes) woodturning and carving, doing up motorbikes and old Ford Trucks.
Most of all I love the Christian Gospel. There is no better news!