Chaplain to the High Sheriff
The Reverend Val Tait
Val Tait was born in Nottingham in 1960 and trained as a Paediatric Nurse at The Hospitals for Sick Children at Great Ormond Street London. After qualifying in 1982 as a State Registered Nurse and Registered Sick Children’s Nurse, she specialised in the care of children following neurosurgery at Great Ormond Street for eighteen months, and then moved away from London. First, briefly to Huntingdon Hospital, and then to Hereford County Hospital where she remained for the next fifteen years. During her time in Hereford as well as caring for sick children in the general paediatric wards, she also undertook further training and qualified as a District Nurse, then along with a colleague, she pioneered the introduction of the Community Paediatric Nursing service for Herefordshire and its wider catchment area extending into Mid Wales, thus enabling the continued care of sick children in their own home environments.
In 1999, after more than two decades as a paediatric nurse, Val went to study theology at Trinity College Bristol, and was Ordained Deacon at Hereford Cathedral in July 2001, and Priest there too the following year. Her title post was as Curate to two city Churches and one rural Church in The West Hereford Team Ministry and during this time she also served as the Bishop of Hereford’s Ceremonial Chaplain at Hereford Cathedral. In 2006 she moved to Shropshire as the Priest in Charge of The Ford Group of Parishes at the farthest north west ‘outpost’ of the Diocese of Hereford, with responsibilities for the Churches in the rural communities of Ford, Alberbury, Cardeston and Wattlesborough. In 2008 a further parish with two more Churches at Great Wollaston and Middletown, were added to her ‘group’,
For relaxation and inspiration Val finds endless joy, fascination and delight in ‘creation’, and especially loves the opportunities provided by the wonderful Shropshire landscape for exploration, and also for visiting the nearby Welsh coast. She is described as a ‘people person’, and has discovered that her training and experiences as a nurse have not only prepared her for holding all those babies for baptisms…!, but also for the multifaceted role she fulfils as a Priest in these communities today. She describes her duties thus; - to ‘rejoice with those who rejoice, and to weep with those who weep’ (Romans 12:15)
About her appointment as Chaplain, she said:
Val is very honoured and delighted to have been appointed as the Chaplain for Richard Burbidge’s year in office as the High Sheriff of Shropshire. St Michael’s Church dates from the 12th Century, and Val is not sure if it has ever witnessed a Shrievalty Service for the installation of a High Sheriff in its long history previously. It is exciting to think that after all those centuries of prayers ‘soaked’ into the walls of this special and holy place, that we are forever celebrating ‘new beginnings’ as we are witnesses to Richard’s declarations to this ancient and historic office and ministry, and of it being blessed by God in this place.