Revd Robert Fisher

Tel: 01782 638805 E-mail: robert.fisher@methodist.org.uk

I was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, so I can lay claim to be a true ‘Geordie’, and although I don’t think I have an accent I am amazed how often folk that I meet tell me where I come from.  We lived in Prudhoe until, at the age of six, my parents and I moved to Durham where I lived until I left school at eighteen.  In Durham I attended Jubilee Methodist Church, then after it united, North Road Methodist Church.  I have very fond memories of Durham Methodism, in particular I recall the annual ‘Methodist Big Meeting’ when the cathedral was packed with Methodists from all over the county!

When I left school I went on Voluntary Service Overseas, for twelve months, to teach in the Methodist Secondary School in Sibu, Sarawak.  That was a tremendous experience for which I will always be grateful.  It was my first experience of American Methodism and my first encounter with people of other faiths.  When I returned to the UK I went to Cliff College, near Sheffield, and during the year I was there I offered as a candidate for the Methodist Ministry.  I was accepted and spent the next four years at Hartley Victoria Methodist Theological College in Manchester.  During a pre-Easter ‘campaign’ in my first year at Theological College I met Kath – who came from the other Newcastle!  We were married during my final year in College.

My first appointment as a ‘Circuit’ minister was in Bury St Edmunds.  My second appointment was back in the Manchester area.  I then left ‘Circuit’ ministry to begin a career in teaching as, what Methodism calls, a ‘Sector’ minister.  My first teaching post was as an RE teacher at the Blue Coat School in Oldham.  After three years there I was appointed as Head of the Religious Education Department at King Edward VII College in Coalville, Leicestershire. Six years later I was successful in my application for the post of Head of the Religious Education Department at the Lakes School in Windermere.  Although we lived in Kendal, for the first few years I was a member of the staff of the Ambleside and Windermere Circuit then I moved, without changing either job or home, to become a member of the staff of the Kendal Circuit.  After seventeen years at the Lakes School I left the ‘Sectors’ to come back into ‘Circuit’ ministry. 

In 2001 I was appointed Superintendent Minister of the Blackburn Methodist Circuit.  Four years later I was asked to come to the Newcastle (Staffs) Methodist Circuit as Superintendent Minister and continued in that capacity until the Circuit merged with the neighbouring Wolstanton and Audley Circuit in September 2011 and their Superintendent Minister took over as Superintendent Minister of the newly created North Staffordshire Circuit.

For Kath our move to Newcastle was like coming home as she grew up in our neighbouring Circuit and attended school in Newcastle.  We have two grown-up children and three grandchildren. Our son lives in Kendal and his son, now in his teens, lives in Canada.  Our daughter, who with her husband, lives in Blackburn, has a daughter who is now in Primary School and a son who will soon be going to Nursery School.

Kath and I look forward to retiring in the summer of 2012 and hope to move to County Durham.