YOUR VICAR: AN AUTO-BIOGRAPHY
A big thank you to everyone who has made our move from Featherstone so painless - nay it has been a very warm welcome. As I have been visiting, naturally people have asked me about my family and myself.
I am a 'Norfolk Bouy' having grown up in a small village, on the outskirts of Norwich. My mother still lives in Norwich and despite having lost my 'bootiful Norfook' accent, I am very much a country lad. I left home to study History and Sociology at university in the Midlands, and later pursued a career as a social worker in Essex and north Derbyshire. I was working in the communities in north-east Derbyshire coal-fields during the miners' strike, and I will never forget the strife, yet also the sheer grit and determination so evident from individuals, families and communities at that time.
This experience led me to train as a mental health social worker and as a group psychotherapist; more recently, I have managed and trained staff working in mental health services, across the Calderdale and Kirklees areas of West Yorkshire. I have found it to be the most inspiring work, in knowing that even though some people have the most severe depressions or mental health disabilities, they have so much to give to the rest of us.
We have all had our personal trials and difficulties and it is only through care and 'love' of one another, (God's love), that 'we win through'. A great joy to me is my two children (young people). Eveleigh is 19 years old, and has just completed her first year reading Geography at Leicester University. Eveleigh takes the name of her maternal adopted great grandmother, and it is a name local to the SE Devon coast. She's a great Harry Potter fan, loves reading and surfing the net. Lawrence is 20 years old and is following a Fine Arts Degree, based in Bradford in West Yorkshire. Lawrence has passed his driving test, and has become a more independent spirit by adopting my wife's car to explore (terrorise) the neighbourhood.
I met my children's mother Judith, when working with her as a fellow social worker in the 1980's. We never did marry, however we were very happy as a family, seeing the kids grow up from our home in Halifax, where Lawrence continues to live.
Judith sought her own path in the mid-90's and I met Stephanie (then a manager of the charity 'Age Concern') in 1998, and it has been a journey of sheer delight. We were married at our local church, St Jude's in Halifax, in 2000, and she has shared in my 'spiritual' journey fully with the kids, and through my vocation and theological training. Until our new move, Stephanie has worked as a regional manager of 'New Era', a charity that provides homes and services for people with a mental disability. She is a very chatty person who loves reading detective novels and gardening. Stephanie originates from Lincolnshire; however she has lived and worked in West Yorkshire for the past 20 years and sounds very 'Yorkshire'.
We both love taking walks with the dog (especially if there is a pub involved), visiting old places/churches or, even better, friends' houses, collecting books as a good reason to regularly visit charity shops, and meeting people. We all look forward to meeting you and your families as we embark upon this wonderful adventure as part of our local communities in Haslingfield, Harlton and the Eversdens.
Very best wishes, Michael Matthews
This month you will see wild fruit in abundance: blackberries and damsons in the overgrown hedgerows and trees in the garden. Such fruit appears in the most unlikely places. Fruit arising from nature, from the seasons, from the sun, rain all brought together and nurtured by faith.
"He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard-things like affection for others."Galations 5:22.
Fruit isn't manufactured or earned, it is just simply there to be enjoyed. So is the time we spend this summer, just like the fruit of the hedgerow....
Sometimes we experience the joys of them in one another, or simply enjoy them in ourselves. As you share the summer at home or with the family or friends, enjoy the fruits that are there for the picking.
MRM.7/07