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St Peter's Episcopal Church, Inverkeithing

Hope Street, Inverkeithing, Fife

Clergy

Val is our rector (person in charge).

Val was born and brought up in Lancashire. After leaving school she went to train locally as a nurse, then as a midwife in Cornwall and Wiltshire. After a year at the Maternity Unit attached to the Airedale Hospital in West Yorkshire she travelled to New Zealand, where she continued to practice as a midwife. While abroad she obtained a pilot's licence.

After returning to Britain overland through Asia, Val married and went to live near Carlisle. When her husband, Bob, obtained a job in Edinburgh, she came with him to Scotland. They settled in Dalgety Bay to raise their children and began to worship at St. Peter's.

After a year or two as a member of St. Peter's, Val undertook a Diocesan training course and then felt called to the ministry. She was ordained deacon in 1990. Val joined the then West Fife Team Ministry as a non-stipendiary curate (unpaid) and conducted many of the services at St. Peter's, as well as helping out as required elsewhere in the group.

At that time it was not the custom to ordain females to the priesthood so Val continued as a deacon until the Scottish Episcopal Church changed its mind about it. Val was then ordained a presbyter (or priest) in December 1994, among the first group of women presbyters in our Church.

The clergy of the Diocese elected Val a canon of St. Ninian's Cathedral in Perth in 1997.

Val continued as a member of the West Fife Team Ministry until 1999, when the West Fife Group split up. The Bishop then instituted the ABI Group (comprising Aberdour, Burntisland and Inverkeithing) with Val as rector. Val would now be paid, although, sadly, we could not afford a full stipend but are working towards that goal.

Val was elected Synod Clerk by the clergy in 2007 and continues to minister to the ABI Group, including St. Peter's, Inverkeithing, until the present day.

Reverend Canon Val Nellist