Our Team Rector, Graham Minors, is of Cornish ancestry.  He spent his childhood in Truro, Madron [Penzance] where his father was curate, and his early teenage years which he remembers with much affection, at St Mawgan in Meneage and a short time at St Breward on Bodmin Moor – the two latter parishes, where his father was Rector.

On leaving school, with no work in Cornwall, he became an apprentice at R A Lister in Dursley, Gloucestershire [Diesel Engineers] where he eventually became their senior research and development engineer.  During this time he met [through bell ringing] and married Elizabeth [a vicar’s daughter]. They have three children, Richard, Catherine and Christopher [and six grandchildren] who we welcome when they are visiting!

He felt called and was accepted to train for the ordained ministry however, felt it was too much to follow father and father in law in to full time ministry – he opted to train as a Non stipendiary priest, which, in those days was very much a ministry of ‘worker priest’. On more than one occasion he received a phone call from the ‘Passport Office’ asking did he really know X? Why was he signing so many passport application forms?  The answer was easy – ‘I am a priest in the Church of England, however, I have a full time job and work with all of these people every day!’ 3000 colleagues!’ He tells of being up to his elbows in diesel oil and receiving a message to go and see the Managing Director – ‘I need someone to talk to. You know what is happening, and the problems in the factory – you understand – I need to let off steam’. 

He says of his time as a worker priest, ‘It was a good life, a school boy’s dream, playing with engines, a magnificent salary, being a priest in the Church of
God - however, a wife, two children, and a third on the way – was he working for Lister’s or the Church of England and what of family life?

At work, the demands on his time as a ‘priest’ were becoming more and more demanding – ‘I have a marriage problem.  Can you baptize my child?  Can you marry me? Will you conduct the funeral of my father?  – You knew him when he worked here’.  Additionally he says, he enjoyed his work in the parish he was attached to however he could not do it all.  After much thought and with the support of Elizabeth, he decided that the decision was to go into the full time ministry. He says this is something he has never regretted.  Although this meant a tremendous drop in salary, giving up a home of their own, and other luxuries he says life has been good, very, very good.  The love and affection of parishioners, the love of the job, the glories of wonderful churches and worship outweigh everything.  Graham says there is one phrase to describe his life.

‘Deo Gratis’.