Local Face: Carolyn Bailey

Carolyn was born in Lincolnshire the eldest of three and had an unremarkable but happy childhood. I attended my local comprehensive school, no 11+ in Lincoln thank goodness, and worked through the sixth form to achieve the grades needed to fulfil my ambition to be a nurse, the only real sadness being the death of my Dad when I was sixteen after a short illness.

I moved to Boston to train, far enough away for independence, but close enough to pop home to Mum. I thoroughly enjoyed my training and the work that followed, I specialised in medical and coronary care nursing.

In 1990 I decided to spread my wings and joined the Queen Alexanders Royal Naval Nursing Service and moved down to Haslar in Gosport. It was while I was there that I met an RAF officer David Bailey which was not the plan, coming from Lincolnshire I had joined the navy to get away from the RAF.

I left the navy as the RAF and Navy don’t share many bases and relationships between Nursing Officers and Doctors was frowned upon and we got married in 1991. We have lived in Wendover for most of our married life and now have three boys, Joshua, 16, Sam, 13, and James 10.

I started attending St Mary’s in Wendover after Josh was born and it was then I began to feel really involved in community life in Wendover. It was lovely to wander round the shops always seeing someone you knew, when the boys started getting older it was reassuring to know that if they wandered off they wouldn’t wander long before they bumped into someone who knew them. When my family visit they are always amazed at how many people remember them and make them feel welcome.

I gradually became involved in Junior Church at St Marys, eventually coordinating all the groups. I then became involved in the setting up and running of the @st marys shop in the High Street , enjoying the opportunity to play at being a shop keeper and enjoying the contact with people popping in and out. Then in 2007 I passed my BAP, no not a large soft roll, but the Bishops Advisory Panel, and started my ministerial training at Cuddesdon.

This has been an incredible journey, from visiting Spring Harvest and knowing I had more to offer, to going to a vocational advisor to discuss where my vocation might lie, to beginning at Cuddesdon and now looking forward to my ordination and taking up my post as a curate in Great Missenden.

Although I will still be living in Wendover and the future is exciting, I am nervous about leaving St Mary’s and the family I have ‘grown up’ in, I am hoping to still pop in to morning prayer at St Anne’s in the mornings as the chat and fellowship there is as important as the prayers we finish with.

We live happy chaotic lives with our dogs and sport being our main interests, obviously with three boys and three dogs we can’t say we have a quiet life, but we are happy and living somewhere surrounded by the beauty of the Chilterns sometimes just feels too good to be true.