Fiona is new vicar for villages

Last night Fiona, 56, was inducted as vicar for St Bartholomew’s, Chipping, and St Michael’s, Whitewell.

She has been ministering to five villages and two churches in the Burnsall area and five parishes in the Upper Wharfedale cluster, which saw her covering 200 square miles of the Yorkshire Dales.

She says she has already been receiving a warm welcome and is looking forward to her new role.

She said: “I enjoy meeting people and hearing their stories and you have the privilege of meeting people at very different and really momentous times of their lives – births, marriages, deaths – all events where people are open to the possibility that there is more to life than meets the eye.”

Originally from the north east where she studied zoology at Durham University, Fiona became a commercial insurance underwriter in London before the couple’s daughter Vicky and son Philip came along.

Later, she returned as a broker, specialising in liability and complex and bio technological risks after the family moved from South Wales to Embsay 21 years ago.

Fiona then became a licensed reader and studied for a part-time masters degree in theology before finally answering her calling for ordination. After studying in Nottingham she was ordained in Bradford Cathedral in 2006 and served her curacy in the Settle area before moving to Burnsall.