Iain's Macfarlane's Placement at RUH Chaplaincy
My Placement at RUH Chaplaincy
By Iain Macfarlane

I’m very grateful to Revd Narinder Tegally, lead chaplain at Royal United Hospitals Bath, Bishop Viv and Revd Ian Wallace for giving me the opportunity of a full-time placement at the RUH chaplaincy for 3-6 months starting from mid-October. I will continue to live in the vicarage in Yate and commute from there, but you won’t be seeing me in parish ministry for a while. I’m very excited, as this gives me the chance to test a calling to hospital chaplaincy, as well as giving me the experience and training to apply for a job (hopefully) in the near future. I’ve spent a lot of time in hospitals over the last 3 years and, despite the sadness and struggle of those times, I’ve felt strangely at home there.
If all goes to plan, my last Sunday in the parish for now will be 18th October. This is not ‘goodbye’ from me, more ‘au revoir’. As Arnie would say: “I’ll be back!”, but this is with a view to moving on in 2021. You will see me in the parish again in the New Year, and I would like to have a memorial service at St Nix for my wife Val to enable all of us to say goodbye to her properly. In the meantime, I’d be glad to have a coffee and a chat with you if you’d like. I’m very grateful for all my friends in Yate Parish, and I do hope you will make sure that I keep up to date on all the gossip! Please remember Ian Wallace and the ministry team in your prayers as well as the good people of St Nicholas – with a member of the team missing, this will mean more work for them and they will need all our prayers. Ian is a very gracious man.
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