Born in 1957 in Newport, South Wales, my earliest years were in the valley and coal mining communities of Senghenydd and Ystrad Mynach. My pharmacist father and nurse mother moved our family to Shepperton in 1966 and I attended Hampton School. After studying biochemistry at Brunel University in West London I worked for 8 years in Cambridge with Marthe Vogt, one of the greatest neurochemists of the 20th century. I then spent two years at Trinity College in Bristol training for ordination in the Church of England. I was ordained deacon in Guildford Cathedral in 1989 and priest in 1990. After interview in the Bishops' Robing Room of the House of Lords I became curate in Epsom (St Martin of Tours), the home of the Derby horse race. I became Priest-in-charge of the parish of Send in 1995. I have painted most of my life, but not abundantly, giving it more time recently. Birds are a favourite subject. Jesus was definitely onto something suggesting them as models of not worrying.