A breath of fresh air has been breezing through church life in Hove over the past six months.
Talisker MacLeod, 30, was ordained as a deacon in June and joined All Saints in The Drive as a curate, assisting Father Phil Ritchie, a relative newcomer to the parish himself.
She was ordained by a bishop who opposes women priests and she was part of what the church authorities described as “a bumper crop”.
The Reverend Talisker MacLeod stands out in a number of ways. She is tall and striking with flame orange hair. She is one of a growing number of women in the ministry although still a minority. And she has an unusual name.
Ask her about it and you start to get a flavour of the down to earth humour she brings to her spiritual calling.
Talisker is the name of a whisky taken from the place on the Isle of Skye where it’s distilled. She said: “It’s one of the finest single malts. It’s exceptionally nice, I have to say. I’ve been blessed by the spirit.”
She confessed to being a bit flippant and mischievous at times, saying: “I find it quite difficult sometimes to realise I’m now one of the pillars of the community.
“When people are being too serious I just want to poke fun. I’ve got wicked sense of humour.”
Sharing a name with a Scotch, it should be little surprise that Talisker ran the college bar when she was a classics student at St Andrews.
She said: “I left university knowing that the two things I was never going to do were being a teacher or a priest.”
Well, after a spell teaching, and just six months after being ordained as a deacon, she said: “I think that God has a sense of humour.”
In June she was ordained as a deacon by the Bishop of Chichester the Right Reverend John Hind, who is due to retire next April.
Like his predecessor, the late Eric Kemp, he has opposed the ordination of women priests although Talisker said: “Bishop John is remarkably supportive of us as people.”
Of her posting to All Saints she said: “I’m here to be trained. Your curacy is effectively your training post. I’m here to experience ministry in as many of its varied forms as is feasible.”
Talisker is not the only curate at All Saints. Father David Weaver is the other assistant curate at the church.
Talisker said: “I do quite a lot of visiting – not just to the old and the housebound but also to younger people who’ve come to the church.
