Well of course I was pretty confident that Jeff Smallwood’s talk would be
dynamic and interesting: after all he is a Naval Officer!
But it is quite amazing how little we know about our fellow members of
the congregation until they stand up at a CAW meeting and reveal all.
Well at least quite a lot. His
Mosaic of Careers all began on his parents’ farm where he was employed on
Sundays to deliver the milk in a horse drawn cart.
It kept him out of church and he admits to being something of a
“revolving door” Christian (it must be a naval thing).
Despite his parent’s sensible protestations that he should learn
something useful in the Navy he insisted on becoming an Awficer.
He chose to become a Supply Officer after an unrewarding spell in the
Executive Branch and for the next 11 years he moved from appointment to
appointment getting confirmed at HMS Pembroke (sometime home of a young Brian)
along the way. He retired from
the RN in 1986 and before choosing a new career path he went back to school and
read for his MBA at
The Rural Development Commission kept him entertained from 95-99 before it
merged with another government department and became the Countryside Agency.
By 2006 it became clear to Jeff that further mergers were in the pipeline
so he forsook the Yes Minister lifestyle and looked for something else.
Now there is a very clear thread running through Jeff’s life and that
is that all along the way others have “led me along.” Caring and prayerful
friends and family have been an enormous and often discrete influence.
About this time a friend introduced him to a book entitled “What colour
is your parachute?” about job hunting from a Christian perspective.
It includes a self analytical exercise – The Flower Exercise – with
which you can very precisely determine what it really is you want and then how
to get it. And then miraculously he
was headhunted on the recommendation of a friend for a job that ticked all the
boxes. And since all fairy tales
must have a happy ending, he got the job and the girl and lived happily ever
after – well so far at least! And
the job is with Land Use Consultants who provide key environmental services,
landscape design and ecology advice to many major projects including the Eden
Project, Clyde Waterfront and the Antonine Wall (you know the one the Romans
built to the North of Hadrian’s wall).
Well who knows where the mosaic might take him next, not far away I’m sure.
You might think that Jeff has been very lucky in his life but I can’t
help but think like Gary Player that the more he practices the luckier he gets.
Oh, and thanks Bob Beckford my cycle clips saved the day.
Iain Hime
For some years there have been regular visits by the Christians at Work group to Prinknash Abbey to share the beautiful Compline service with the monks there.
Recently the monks have left the large monastery building and moved back to the smaller, older and very beautiful St Peter’s Grange. It was in the chapel there that seven of us joined the monks for their evening service of Vigils.
There were some differences to services we had previously attended. The service was in English not Latin and the layout of the chapel meant we could hear the monks but not see them.
Father Francis, the Abbot, as always, made the time to welcome us to Prinknash and told us about the progress of the community’s move to their new home. We congratulated him on his recent appointment as a canon of the Cathedral. He expressed the hope that it would not lead to attending more committee meetings!
Compline is sung in Latin every Sunday evening so we are planning to return to Prinknash in the early Autumn to share in this service again. There will be more details nearer the time for anyone who might want to go.