ROSSENDALE's first female vicar has spoken of her delight at being asked to take over the joint benefices of St Mary and All Saints Church, Goodshaw, and St John's Crawshawbooth.

The Rev Wendy Oliver, currently a curate at Christ Church, Walmsley, will move to Rossendale and be licensed on November 23.

She said: "I am delighted and very excited about coming to Rossendale. I am from Rochdale, so I knew the area already and it is such a lovely place to live.

"It is exciting more because of the challenge that lies ahead of becoming part of the community in the area."

Before being called to the church, Wendy, 45, worked as a personal administrator and she said that had helped her not just with the administration side of church business, but also to work as part of a team.

She said: "I had always gone to church as a child with my parents but I stopped going when I was a teenager. Then I got married and had two sons and I was in the process of getting a divorce when I realised there was a God.

"I experienced the spiritual side of God and my whole life just changed."

Wendy was ordained in 1996 and has served Christ Church since then.

She added: "A lot of people think it must be different to have a woman in charge, but I do hope my move will be a positive one. I don't believe whether you are a man or a woman makes any difference to you being a vicar.

"A lot of the work I do is with children and young people and I would like to encourage that, as well as working with the elderly, infirm and people who are housebound."

Her younger son, Chris, lives and works in Chester and Wendy's older son Paul, who works with children, will be moving with her to Rossendale.

For the past year the curate of the parishes, the Rev Eric Lomax, has been in charge of both churches. He will work with Wendy when she takes over, but he is also applying for posts in the York diocese.

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