Priest is kept busy

Minchinhampton man Jeff James has come a long way from humble Welsh origins. But does he feel he has arrived? SNJ reporter David Gibbs spoke to him.

JEFF James has a lot on his plate.

The 50-year-old has just been appointed the new chairman of Gloucestershire First - the county's economic development partnership.

He is also chief executive of Gloucestershire Partnership NHS Trust, which provides specialist care for people with mental health problems and learning disabilities, and is responsible for a staff of 2,600 and an annual budget of £64 million.

And, somehow, in between shouldering these formidable working challenges, he has found time to train as a priest and be a husband to wife Vicki and a father to his two teenage daughters, Ruth, 18, and Hannah, 16.

He readily admits juggling his home and work lives has been difficult.

"It was quite tough finding the time to fit everything in. I couldn't have done it without my family," he said.

"Like a lot of busy people I am not as good at putting the balance right between work and home as perhaps I should be.

"I think most of us have recognised in recent years that we have to pay more attention to our general wellbeing as well as pursuing jobs and careers and things of that kind."

Paying attention to his wellbeing includes a passion for classical music, cricket and rugby.

He steals visits to watch the county's teams whenever possible but concedes his days of participation have passed.

"I'm very much an observer," Jeff said with a smile.

"It is quite reasonable, I think, if you are in your fifties to be a spectator rather than actively involved."

When we spoke recently, he was looking forward with that singular parental anticipation to his daughters' respective A-level and GCSE results.

Both girls attend Stroud High School under the regime of Jo Grills for whom Jeff has only praise.

"She is great at affirming whatever talents and abilities girls have," he said admiringly.

"Whatever they are good at she will find it and build it up.

"She is a great inspiration."

All being well daughter Ruth, recently-returned from a five-week World Challenge expedition to help build a school in Zambia, on the border with Mozambique, is set to study English and Philosophy at Edinburgh.

The James family, it is soon apparent, is an active one.

Wife Vicki runs a livery yard in Frampton Mansell with a partner.

"It's like most rural small enterprises - as much a way of life as it is a business," said Jeff.

"You wonder how they keep going but then you realise it is sustained by their passion and their sense of continuity."

And encouraging small, rural businesses to thrive in Gloucestershire is some of what Gloucestershire First is all about.

That and working with county authorities and companies to ensure Gloucestershire gets its fair share of rural development handouts and distinct communities work together for the benefit of all.

"The purpose is to promote the economic well-being of the county, to create an environment where existing businesses can thrive and people are encouraged to set up new businesses.

"We want to make sure Gloucestershire speaks with a well thought out, well-heard voice and that when the Rural Development Association makes decisions about where to invest and spend money, Gloucestershire gets its fair share."

He is also concerned to ensure the relative prosperity of the county is spread to its less well off and more deprived areas.

But he is not an advocate of economic development at all costs.

"We need to ensure we are building Gloucestershire's strengths.

"They include a wonderful natural environment and we need to make sure economic development does not undermine that," he counselled.

So speaks a man conscious of the proper order of things.

Jeff was born in Newport, South Wales in 1953 and grew up in Cwmbran.

Despite long ago leaving his homeland, his Welsh is not entirely forgotten.

"I know when I'm being insulted," he said.

He left school at 16 and spent the next seven years in jobbing around before enrolling at Cardiff University at the age of 24 to study Social Sciences, admitting he had no idea of what it was he wanted to do, at the time.

After graduating in 1980 he joined the NHS as a management trainee going on to work in a variety of health-related roles, including hospital operational management, service planning, education and training.

"I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I was attracted by the quality of training in the NHS," he remembered.

While building a broad portfolio of health service experience he completed a part-time MSc in Policy Studies from Bristol, graduating at 33.

In 1990, he moved with Vicki and the two young children to Truro, Cornwall to work on setting up the NHS' internal market.

It seemed an obvious choice.

"My wife is Cornish and the children were then of an age when growing up in an environment like Cornwall seemed a very attractive option," he explained.

His career trajectory was set and in 1995 he was appointed chief executive of Gloucestershire Health Authority.

When the government disbanded it last year, to replace it with three primary care trusts, Jeff became chief executive of Gloucestershire Partnership NHS Trust, overseeing the provision of specialist NHS services for people with mental health problems and learning disabilities.

In the midst of this upheaval Jeff qualified as a priest and now shares the service rota at Minchinhampton's Holy Trinity Church with Rector Michael Irving and curate Alison Guy. Becoming a priest was, he recognises, the fulfilment of a lifelong albeit inconsistent relationship with God and the church.

"I had a sense of being called to ministry at various times in my adult life but I had tended to put it off, until I reached a point in my life where I realised this was something to which I had to respond," he said.

"Faith and church were part of my life but like a number of people I had times in my early twenties when the church was less important to me - I was experimenting with what the world had to offer.

"There have been moments in my life when I have been absolutely sure about the existence of God because I have sensed a complete meeting of God and me."

His faith, alternately wrestled with and nurtured over a lifetime, has come to inform his view of the world and the fine lines between what is healthy and unhealthy.

"What my faith tells me is that competitiveness and selfishness are often close together but they don't have to be.

"Competitiveness, which is about driving our talents to their full, is compatible with having a sense of responsibility for our neighbours," he said.

It is a sense he finds alive and well in his adopted hometown of Minchinhampton.

"Minchinhampton life is very good because it does have a full sense of community which is partly to do with its size.

"It is big enough to be quite an active community but not so big you don't recognise people," he continued.

"It is also a caring community where people look out for one another."

Jeff James has journeyed far from his humble Welsh beginnings but does not yet believe he has arrived.

"I guess I am hesitant about claiming to be anywhere in particular," he said.

"If you had asked me ten years ago would I be the person I am now doing the things I am, the answer would have had to be no.

"Life is a journey and as you become more experienced with travel you know not to take things for granted because you can't be certain what is around the bend."