Lent Addresses 2007
Speaker Profiles - Week 5
Monday 19th March
The Revd Canon Paul Nener has been Vicar of St John's
Tuebrook since 1995 having previously served as Vicar of St James the Great,
Haydock (1983-95). Before Ordination in 1981, Fr. Paul qualified in medicine and
was a surgeon in a South African Mission Hospital (1973-78).
A Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, he has a keen interest in the
Ministry of Healing, and as well as being Chairman of the Liverpool Diocesan
Healing Panel, he is the Sub-Warden of the Guild of St Raphael, which seeks to
promote Christ's Ministry of Healing in the world. Fr. Paul also has an
extensive knowledge of and interest in the Orthodox Church; he has travelled
widely in Romania, and has made many valuable and lasting contacts with Romanian
Orthodox friends. Building and maintaining these ecumenical links is a priority
for Fr Paul.
Tuesday 20th March
Dr
Kate Ardern studied medicine at Manchester University,
qualifying in 1986, where she was
awarded the Professor Patrick Byrne Prize for General Practice. After working in
a number of acute clinical specialties, she decided to specialise in Public
Health. She came to Liverpool in 1995 to complete her specialist training, becoming
one of country’s first consultants in Environmental Public Health in 1998. She
is also an Honorary Lecturer at both Liverpool University and Liverpool John Moores
University. She is a graduate of Merseyside Common Purpose (1999) and now
teaches on the Common Purpose programme.
In April 2002, she was appointed to be the first Director of Public Health for the newly established South Liverpool Primary Care Trust. In April 2005, she became Head of Public Health for the Cheshire and Merseyside Strategic Health Authority and in Sept 2006, she was appointed to be Associate Director of Public Health for NHS Northwest. She jointly pioneered the use of health impact assessment in the UK, on Manchester Airport's second runway development in1994. Since then, she has been leading the development of health impact assessment projects and capacity locally, nationally and internationally. Her other research interests are in Respiratory Health and she is a systematic reviewer for the Cochrane Collaboration with published reviews on the effect of diet on asthma.
Spare time activities include: music especially opera, film and theatre. A former church chorister, Kate was a member of the Halle Choir 1979-1993. Kate has taken professional acting classes in Stanislawski method and Improvisation with the Premier Acting Studio and if she hadn’t become a doctor, would have studied English and Drama. Kate has a lifelong passion for British and Irish history and a special interest in Richard III and also in the history of the Ardern family - her surname is the oldest in England. Kate is a keen horsewoman - she regularly hacks out on 7 year old Oliver. She has inherited a love of football from her father and follows the fortunes of Liverpool FC.
Wednesday 21st March
Canon Donald Gray was Rector of Liverpool from 1974 to
1987. After leaving Liverpool he became a Canon of Westminster, Rector of St
Margaret’s and Chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons. He retired to Stamford in Lincolnshire in 1998 where he
continues to write on historical and liturgical subjects. He is President of the Society for Liturgical Study, Chairman
of the Alcuin Club and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
Thursday 22nd March
Professor Ian Tracey has had a life-long association with Liverpool Cathedral and its music and, with his two illustrious predecessors, continues the tradition of an almost apostolic succession. He studied organ with Lewis Rust, then with his immediate predecessor Noel Rawsthorne. Studies at Trinity College London culminated in Fellowship, after which scholarship grants enabled him to continue his studies in Parish with both Andre Isoir and Jean Langlais. In 1980, he became the youngest Cathedral Organist in the country and was subsequently appointed to his present position of Organist and Master of the Choristers two years later. In the intervening years he has played most of the major venues in this country and an increasing number in Europe. Very much in demand in the USA, he has made twenty extensive tours playing in all the major cities and in 1999 and 2003 undertook major tours of Southern Australia, recitaling, examining and teaching. The year 2004 included concerts in Notre Dame Paris, California, New York and the Bermuda Festival, and 2005 Seattle, San Francisco and Cologne. He returned to Australia in 2006 and will tour the USA in 2007.
On the wider musical canvas, he is a frequent broadcaster with the BBC and a regular soloist at the Proms. His recordings on the Cathedral organ have met with a wide acclaim fromthe critics and he is a signed EMI and Chandos artist. He holds fellowships from sixteen prestigious musical institutions both here and abroad, including the Royal College of Organists, as one of only 28 Honorary Fellows worldwide. He regularly examines and adjudicates and, over the past 20 years, has conducted 170 concerts with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus. His other posts include Organist to the City of Liverpool, at St George's Hall; Chorus Master to the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society; Guest Director of Music for the BBC Daily Service; Professor, Fellow and Organist at Liverpool John Moores University, and Past President of the Incorporated Association of Organists of Great Britain. This year, the University of Liverpool have conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Music, both in recognition of his long and distinguished service to music in Liverpool and of his national and international reputation as a musician.
Friday 23rd March
The
Revd Canon Humphrey Southern ‘came home’ eight years ago when he
returned to Wiltshire on becoming Team Rector of the Nadder Valley, based in
Tisbury, where he lives with his wife Emma and children Laura (9) and Kate (8).
His ministry before this point took him to three different dioceses,
including a very happy period in Liverpool in the early 90’s when he was
assistant curate at Walton Church. He
has also spent short periods of time working in Anglican Churches in Sudan and
Zimbabwe and – during a sabbatical in 2003 – in Australia and in the United
States of America. As well as being
Rector in a Team that serves 16 villages of various sizes in rural Wiltshire, he
is a Rural Dean and Chairman of the House of Clergy in the Salisbury Diocesan
Synod and was, in 2006, made a Canon of Salisbury Cathedral.
He brings to his ministry a passionate interest in Anglicanism and a
concern for the unity of the Church both within the Anglican Communion and
beyond. He has published articles
on Anglicanism in Australia and made a particular study of the theology of
Archbishop Rowan Williams (who is something of a theological hero of his) that
he entitled ‘The Impossibility of the Last Word.’ Horses, dogs and children (in no particular order) together
with food, drink, friends and good conversation conspire to fill – most
acceptably – the time Humphrey finds to spend away from such weighty matters.