The Chaplain and his wife

The present Chaplain and his wife the Rev Robin & Val Brookes both hail originally from Suffolk in the east of England.

Born in Lowestoft in 1947 Robin attended St Margaret’s Infant and Primary Schools and having scraped through the 11+ exam went on to Lowestoft County Grammar School as it was then known. At 16 having been deemed by the careers master that he was not suitable material for an A level course in the 6th form he left school and went to work in London at the British Council as a filing clerk in the registry department. Promotion to the Travel Section came after two years, followed by a move in 1968 to British European Airways. It was in 1971 that Robin began exploring what he felt to be a call to ordained ministry in the Church of England and after all the necessary selection procedures went to Trinity College in Bristol in 1972.

Val trained as a junior school teacher at Westhill College Birmingham and taught in John Scurr Primary School in London’s East End. Both Robin and Val were involved at that time in Scouting and met at a weekend Cub Scout camp at Meopham in Kent in June 1967. They married in August 1968 at the church of St Mary Stratford atte Bow in East London, having returned to church attendance after some years’ absence, after deciding to get married.

After training at Trinity Bristol Robin and Val moved to Blackburn in Lancashire in June 1975 for Robin’s first curacy at St. Andrew Livesey, Blackburn, with Vicar, the Rev Peter Isherwood and his wife Winifred, now retired but who often carry out Thomson Holidays Young at Heart work with the Intercontinental Church Society. Robin’s second curacy was from July 1978 – April 1980 at St Peter, Burnley, Lancashire, under the Rector, the late Canon Hugh Williams. Having been involved in radio ministry in College Robin became involved in BBC Radio Blackburn (as it was then called) and in Burnley with Hospital Radio Burnley as a sideline to assisting the Rector who was also chaplain to the Burnley General Hospital. It was not surprising therefore that in 1980 Robin and Val moved to Norfolk where he became Norfolk Churches’ Radio Officer (Religious programme’s producer for BBC Radio Norfolk) and priest in charge of the country parishes of Foxley and Bawdeswell.

Something of a quantum leap occurred when Robin felt called to ministry in the Church of Ireland and the family moved across to Glaslough in Co. Monaghan where for eight years he was Rector of the Donagh group, comprising the parishes of Donagh, Tyholland and Errigal Truagh. A move to Dublin followed in 1991 to the parishes of Drumcondra, North Strand and St. Barnabas.

Then after sixteen years in Ireland the Lord called Robin and Val to Cyprus and confirmed this in a marvellous way when the provision of £10,000 sterling came in not much over a month in January 1999. They arrived in Cyprus in May 1999 and spent a widely varied ministry in Ayia Napa and Southeast Cyprus which involved taking 1346 weddings, care of Migrant Workers and outreach amongst local expatriates and holiday makers. Having assisted in Famagusta on a part time basis since autumn 2001 they moved on to this chaplaincy in January of 2006 and Robin was licensed by Bishop Clive Handford as the first Anglican Chaplain on March 5th. (see photos here) They have four adult children scattered in Colorado USA, Dublin Ireland, and Manchester England and there are eight grandchildren and an unofficial ninth grandson in the Philippines called Robin Dereck, whose mother Olivia has returned to Ayia Napa to work.