Born in 1946, the son of a Yorkshire Coal Miner, I began working life as an apprentice at the Prince of Wales colliery Pontefract. Always a musician, I progressed from Salvation Army bandsman and brass band, to dance band singer and Drum Major in the RAF music services. In 1972 I decided upon a civilian musical career and spent the next 13 years working in theatres, clubs, television and radio. After training for the Ministry in 1986-88 I served in Lincolnshire and Cheshire, before returning to Yorkshire in 1998 after a 34 year absence, to become Minister at Mill Hill Chapel, Leeds.

So how and why did I become a Minister?

As a child I looked at the world about me and asked the sort of questions we all do: Why are we here? What is life all about? I naturally believed in God, but could never accept the creeds that insisted only Christians were true children of God. Even at that time, the mill towns and industrial centres of Yorkshire were home to various people of other world faiths and cultures, and the only difference between them and myself was the accident of birth.

I have always believed therefore in the "oneness" of God, and hold that people worship -- by different approaches, intermediaries and names -- the same God. So finally, after a long and exhaustive search, I found my spiritual home in Unitarianism, where Ministers and congregations are free to think for themselves.

It is a fact, that the countries of our modern world now realise their dependence upon one another, whether it be a matter of politics, economics or the environment. It inevitably follows that whatever particular faith a person holds, it must be recognised as one of the many golden threads in the universal fabric of religious belief. As a Minister, I am therefore committed to the cause of bringing people of different faiths together, in the hope that a new and inclusive approach to belief in God can, at sometime in the future, be attained.