OKEHAMPTON'S new team rector says he is amazed how quickly he and his family have been made to feel at home in the town.
The Rev Stephen Cook, whose last post was in Hanham on the edge of Bristol, said a warm welcome from the townspeople had helped them settle in well.
'We imagined there would be lots of aspects of city life we would miss, but so far there have been none at all,' he said. 'We feel really privileged to be asked to come and work in such a beautiful place which has so much going for it.'
Mr Cook, who has taken over from the Rev Russell Chamberlain, has family roots in Devon, but was born and brought up in Amersham in Buckinghamshire.
After graduating from Bristol University, where his met his wife, Fiona, Mr Cook became a police officer.
'For a long time I had felt a sense of calling to be ordained and when it became clear that the police force was not the career for me, I had the courage to go to the church and ask what they thought,' he said.
Prior to working in Hanham, Mr Cook was a clergyman in Hereford. He is a father to two sons — Ben, ten, and Sam, two whom he calls their little millennium surprise!
'They have both adapted to their new home surprisingly quickly and we are pleased to think of them growing up here,' he said.
Mr Cook said with seven parishes in the Okehampton team ministry, it was a big job, but he was lucky to have some first-rate colleagues and very hard working and dedicated church members.
'It will take a while to get to know people and I am anxious to listen to what they have to say so that we can find an agreed way forward,' he said. 'But my top priorities at the moment are renewing the children's work in Okehampton and building on the excellent work of my predecessors in making the church open and welcoming to all.'