David Seymour, and his wife Wendy

I was born in Reading in Berkshire, in Battle Hospital. The hospital no longer exists. It’s a branch of Tesco now. Both my parents were from the Reading area and I lived at our family home in South Oxfordshire until I went off to university. Nowadays, my only real reason for going back to the town of my birth is to watch football at the Madejski-not always a stress-free experience. I regard myself as so very fortunate to have been given a place at Oxford to read Theology. The late 70’s was a tremendous time to be studying in the Theology faculty, so many great minds feeding us. I have had only one career. I was ordained at the age of 24 and since then have served in four places before moving here. My curacy was in Tilehurst in the west of Reading, a large suburban parish where I had the benefit of an excellent training incumbent until his untimely death at the age of 52. From there I moved to the Diocese of Salisbury, where I was to serve for the next 31 years. First, I was Team Vicar in Parkstone, Poole, for 5 years, then vicar of Christ Church, Bradford-on-Avon, near Bath, for ten and a half years, before moving to Sturminster Newton in North Dorset in 2001.

Wendy and I have many interests outside church life. Music is very important to us, principally classical and jazz. We make occasional visits to English National Opera, and during our time in Dorset, were supporters of the excellent Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. We are passionate about birds and have been recorders for the British Trust for Ornithology for over 20 years. We also enjoy travel, and given our commitments at weekends, have found that midweek city breaks suit us very well. Highlights have included Paris, Pisa and Riga.

Three of our children live in the UK but two of our boys live in Australia, one in Brisbane and one in Sydney. A highlight of 2017 was our trip to witness Cane’s wedding to Megan in November. We have individual interests too. David would not dare venture too close to Wendy’s upholstery workshop and Wendy is not seen on a bicycle quite as often as David! Our unwritten motto is ‘work hard, and play hard.’

DS