Vicar uniquely qualified to separate sheep from goats

RELIGIOUS AFFAIRS EDITOR HE IS the cleric of the cattle marts, a herdsman-turned-priest who counts farmers as his flock.

The Church of England has appointed a roving chaplain to agricultural communities across parts of the SouthEast of England amid fears that the pressure and strains facing farmers and their families are being overlooked.

The Rev Chris Hodgkins, 40, worked on farms before a career change which eventually led him to ordination. He is now priest to a group of parishes around Rolvenden in Kent, with the new post of farming chaplain.

It means combining the life of a country vicar with special responsibility to attend cattle auctions in Ashford, Kent, and Hailsham, East Sussex, as well as agricultural shows, ploughing contests or anywhere else where farmers might gather.

“Farmers keep their problems to themselves, it is just their way,” he said. “I tell them I’m the new farming community chaplain and that I’m here for anyone who wants to talk.”

It follows warnings from welfare groups of a rise in suicides among farmers as a result of acute financial pressures, isolation and the growing difficulty of making a living from the land.

“The farming community is scattered so you haven’t got that density of population that you would have in, say, an old mining town or the steel industry,” he added. “Sometimes the problems slip under the radar.”