I am Jeremy. I live in Southwell with my husband, Laurence. We both have families from previous marriages, and we see a lot of our families and love them all dearly.  It is so hard to describe anyone without reducing or pigeon-holing them. But so that you have an idea about who I am, here are a few headlines:
I am a retired Church of England priest. 
Husband, father, grandfather.
Gay, political, activist.
Musician, singer, theologian.
Needleworker, cook, gardener.
Wild swimmer, walker, naturist.

I have been blessed with so much in my life. By that I mean so many good things, obviously, but also some very difficult and painful things. Some of those were self-inflicted, and some I had no control over. There were times I would dearly love to have avoided or escaped some of them. But I didn’t, or couldn’t. So,I have had to learn that going through, enduring, is itself a source of real blessing, a school of life.

Because I came out later in life, and because it was a difficult and painful process for me as for many people I have been very aware of the challenges faced by the LGBT+ community both in society and, perhaps particularly in the church and wanted to give something back. I have been a volunteer and a trustee of seceral LGBT+ charities, offering time and what skills I have to support the ongoing struggle for equality and dignity.

I worked in parishes in the north-east, north, midlands and east Anglia. I was an NHS chaplain, and I worked as a mission partner in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In the last few years before retirement, I had my own celebrancy business, mostly doing semi-religious and non-religious funerals. In addition, I had fifteen immensely happy years singing as a lay clerk at Southwell Minster.

In retirement I have returned to study, working on the decline of the Church of England and ecclesiological responses to this. I still sing as a deputy lay clerk from time to time, and I have started a pilgrimage. Beginning in Burgundy, I will walk in stages to Santiago de Compostela. It will take years, as I can’t afford too many days away from home at one time. I may never complete it. It is one of a number of actions I am taking to review my life course before God. For, with all its complications and failings, my life has been one lived as a follower of Christ – and I am still on the Way.