The Revd Rob Saner-Haigh
Rob is the Vicar. He’s married to Emma and they have three children. He will tell you he loves sailing so he can appear windswept and interesting, but his real love is a good meal with friends or reading Private Eye in his favourite armchair. Rob loves to see people come to know Jesus, and believes that, for all its faults, the local church really is the hope of the world.
The Revd Ashley Henderson
Ashley was ordained in 2005, but has a long connection with the church as his father and grandfather were both members of the choir here.
Married to Janet (church administrator), with 2 sons Matthew and Robert, his hobbies are crime novels, cooking, gardening and sport. He has been a Cub Scout leader for over 30 years and lists France and Herm Island as his favourite holiday destinations.
Ashley oversees the pastoral work and welcome brief for the church, and has a particular passion (and gift) for funerals and bereavement ministry.
The Revd Michael Hunter
After six year’s research in metallurgy and ordination training, Michael helped to train clergy in Uganda and then worked in parishes in Wolverhampton and Sheffield. Retirement brought him and Linda to Kendal in 2012. He volunteers at Manna House and has particular interest in the parish’s teaching ministry and its involvement in world mission. He loves to see people thinking and growing in their faith. Walking, playing the trumpet, table tennis and skyping with their two adult daughters keep him well occupied.
The Revd Dr Ian James
Ian is married to Mary and spent most of his working life as a lecturer at the University of Reading. He was ordained as a Self-Supporting Minister in 2002 and following his retirement from the University, became Priest in Charge of four tiny parishes in West Cumbria. After his second retirement in 2015, he and Mary moved to Kendal where they joined the congregation at Kendal Parish Church. As well as providing occasional cover for a number of local churches when they are short of a priest, Ian is also currently Carlisle Diocesan Environment Advisor. His role there is to encourage the Church to engage with the Fifth Mark of Mission, “to strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth”, and to help its people explore how they can be part of that mission. When he is not doing the garden, Ian plays music, paints pictures and works on his model railway.
Sarah Jones
Lucy Foster
Lucy sometimes leads worship & gives talks here on Sundays but she spends much of her ministry as a ‘Pioneer & Development Worker’ for our mission community partners at Kendal United Reformed Church. She likes exploring ways to honour our Christian responsibility to God’s Creation and spotting the ways God is present in popular culture. Originally from Kent, she has lived in Kendal for 20 years with her husband, Jonathan. Together with their two cats they spend their spare time watching ‘Hannibal’ & ‘The Sopranos’, eating vegetarian food and thinking about their next holiday in Sicily.
Anne Underwood
Mary Brown
As a lay minister, Mary leads worship and preaches. At The Gathering she meets and greets folk looking for signs of God at work in our lives. Listening to other’s experiences and taking pastoral care she journeys in hope trying to make a difference. She organises house groups and visits care homes sharing communion with residents and their carers.
The driving force of her ministry is a belief that God through Jesus changes lives and renews hope.For a change of scene she gardens and admires God’s created world on the Fells.
Philip Heyes
Philip was licensed as a reader in Kendal in 2012, having moved here from Wigan. He has been a reader at St Michael’s in Wigan since 1974 and still helps with the services there once a month.
Philip was born in Bolton and is a retired solicitor. He was first admitted as a reader in the Manchester Diocese in 1968.
Philip enjoys being part of the ministry team which seeks to welcome people of different Christian traditions. He hopes that the spiritual warmth of Holy Trinity will help enrich their faith and give them cause for hope in the Gospel message.
Linda Hunter
Linda is a retired horticulturist who can be found on her allotment or in various gardens when she is not playing cello in an orchestra or hillwalking. At KPC she is a Reader, leading and preaching but also singing in the choir, playing in the music group and helping encourage World Mission. Her faith impacts all of her life. She knows God is with her helping a child in school or sharing with someone how she has been given peace (over the leeks!). Exploring what the Bible teaches and how it applies to daily life in Home Group (with lots of laughter) is also important!
Libby Tulley
Diane Letheren
Born and raised in Barnsley, Diane now lives near Kendal with her husband and two children. She has been Rob’s PA since November 2011 and enjoys the diversity that this job entails! Amongst a variety of other things, Diane helps organise the Annual Charity Christmas Tree Festivals. She will probably be your first point of contact should you wish to meet with the Vicar. In her spare time she does a little jogging around the lanes, and has completed the Great North Run twice.
Janet Henderson
Janet joined the team in September 2017, having spent the previous 35 years as a librarian and finds the challenges of being an office administrator very rewarding. Married to Ashley (Assistant Priest) and with a church background (her late father being a lay reader for 57 years and a member of general synod), she has worshipped at the Parish Church since 1976.
Her duties include dealing with the day-to-day finances, producing the weekly handout, collating rotas, updating the website, answering telephone calls and email enquiries, plus other general office duties.
In her spare time she enjoys tracing the family tree, reading, jigsaws, gardening and listening to classical music.
Duncan Lloyd
Andy Plowman
Andy is a retired actuary and spent much of his career in London. As well as playing for Sunday services he organises our fortnightly Friday lunchtime concerts and has recorded here with BBC ‘Songs of Praise’. Andy is concert accompanist for around ten choirs in Lancaster and Cumbria and has played at cathedrals around the UK, including a dozen weeks in residence at venues such as Durham, Salisbury and York Minster.
Andy believes that life is about knowing and enjoying the love and companionship of God in every circumstance. In his spare time he works with a number of faith based charities, plays fun songs at a lunch club for friends living with dementia, and tries to keep up with his nine grandchildren.
Joan Carnaffin
David Donnison
David moved to Kendal from South Yorkshire in 2010. Following seven years as a production manager of a national advertising agency, he trained as a youth and community worker and was employed by Sheffield City Council, being initially responsible for developing full time Youth and Community Centres. He was a member of the Council’s Training, Development and Research unit of the Youth Service.
As a member of the Sheffield Diocesan Parish Education Committee and with Diocesan Youth Chaplains he supported and encouraged parishes to examine and develop their mission with young people. He was a consultant to clergy and parishes. He is enthusiastic about providing opportunities for lay members to discover their ministry within their church.
Dick Forsyth
Dick arrived in Kendal in 1987 to teach at Queen Katherine School, intending to move on after a while but never did! He finally retired from the school in 2015 and currently works as a part-time gardener.
He has been involved in KPC life over all those years in various capacities, more actively so since retirement, and rose to the dizzying heights (?) of becoming a Warden in 2019.
Currently he is involved in developing Prayer within our community of faith, attempting to minimise water ingress to the building and singing in the choir. He is also trying to make the churchyard less of a ‘green desert’.
He is very much of the view that God has by no means finished with any of us.
David Richardson
David Richardson is Churchwarden and Reader. His favourite Bible verse is: ‘as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive’. For him this sums up the purpose of Kendal Parish Church – to make it known that the gospel of Jesus is good news for everybody. David is active in the community as a board member for South Lakes Housing and as Vice Chair of the Kendal Dementia Action Alliance.
Norma Bates
