“I Don’t Look Like A Vicar…”
Real Life
With his long hair, bracelets and casual shirts, the 61-year-old Reverend Peter Owen-Jones cuts an unlikely figure as he officiates at a parish wedding.
With his trademark hat, leather waistcoat and jeans, he looks more like a member of a rock band than a member of the Church of England, but dig a little deeper and it soon becomes clear that it’s not just his unconventional appearance that sets him apart from most other vicars.
Until his early 30s Peter spent a decade working in the cut-throat world of advertising. As the creative director of one of the country’s top agencies, he enjoyed all the trappings that life at the top could offer.
With his office in Soho, he
had the pick of London restaurants on his doorstep and enjoyed all the capital city could offer. But then he made the dramatic decision to turn his back on it all, quitting the rat race to become a parish priest.
“If you follow your heart it’s going to be colourful and bumpy, but I’d always had this very deep feeling that I needed to be a parish priest, from my teens,” he explains. “It’s a calling. It’s very strange to experience that and it takes time to come to terms with. I kept thinking ‘why me?’ I’m not a particularly good human being, I’m the last person who should be a priest.
“I wasn’t brought up in a religious household, but I was very spiritual as a young boy.
“I’ve always had a great sense that there’s much more to this story than we were perhaps having the courage to explore.”
Married with a young child at the time, Peter broke the news to his family and friends. “They were shocked, but incredibly supportive,” he recalls. He quit his job and began studying at theological college. After being ordained in 1992 he began work as a curate and by 1998 he was the rector of three rural Cambridgeshire parishes. Then, in 2008, Peter’s life took another startling turn when he became a television presenter. “The BBC were looking for someone of a religious persuasion to present some programmes,” he recalls. “They gave me a call and we took it from there.” The series Howto LiveaSimpleLife: ExtremePilgrim was followed by Aroundthe Worldin80Faiths and earlier this year he hosted New Forest:AYearintheWild Wood,SouthDowns.
Peter, now separated from his wife, has four grown-up
“I’m not from the vicar mould – I’m far more comfortable with long hair”
children, and is currently a non-stipendiary priest for three parishes in East Sussex. It means he doesn’t get paid, but is provided with a house and works a certain number of weeks a year as a priest. “I’m doing 25 weddings this year,” he says proudly.
Despite his devotion to life as a rural vicar, Peter admits people often do a double take when they see him.
“I’m constantly told I’m not vicar material. I get it twice a day – ‘you don’t look like a vicar to me,’” he chuckles. “What they’re saying is ‘you’re not of that mould.’ And they’re right, I’m
not of that mouldmould. I think it’sits the way I dress, my lifestyle and my beliefs. I’m not a natural conservative, put it that way, and I’m far more comfortable with long hair. I’m not a short and tidyhaired man!”
As if life isn’t busy enough, Peter has also branched out into writing and has just penned EverestEngland: 29,000FeetIn12days, which guides the reader on a 12-day hike across the country, with Peter’s hand-picked hillclimbs climbs equating to the height of Everest.
The keen environmentalist came up with the idea after meeting a man who had climbed the peak. But the recent image of climbers queuing to reach the mountain’s top simply re-enforced his views.
“I thought that there has to be a kinder way of doing this,” he says. “We don’t need to conquer Mount Everest anymore. There have been enough human beings up ththere, let’s leave her be now. If we want to walk up 29,000 feet, then we can do that right here in this country.”
Never happier then when out walking alone in the hills, Peter has no regrets about leaving his life as a city high-flyer.
“I loved working in Soho – during the 1980s it was a great place to be – but I don’t think that the purpose of life is to acquire things materially, so I don’t miss material things,” he explains. “And I’m a different person to the person I was back then. Hopefully I’m more patient and kinder-natured.”
The only thing Peter does miss from his old life is weekends off. “The weekend is a fabulous invention,” he smiles. “It’s two clear days when you can do what you need to do, but as a parish priest, weekends don’t exist!” Everest England: 29,000 Feet In 12 Days by Peter Owen-Jones by AA Publishing is out now.