Personal & family

Based central Sussex in Horsted Keynes John Twisleton was appointed Rector of St Giles, Horsted Keynes 30^th March 2009 with the understanding he would continue to work voluntarily with the Chichester diocesan mission & renewal team he led from 2001-9.

Before ordination in 1976 he worked as a scientist, resigning his research fellowship in Chemistry at St. John’s College, Oxford after receiving a call to the priesthood in the beautiful gardens of the same College on Sunday 20^th May 1973.

Fr. John served with the Company of Mission Priests as Curate of SS. Philip & James, New Bentley (1976-8) and then Vicar of St. Wilfrith, Moorends (1979-1986) where his parishioners were driven to cut down and burn telegraph poles to keep warm in the 1984-5 mining dispute.

From Moorends he received another call to serve God in Guyana as Principal of the Alan Knight Training Centre for training Amerindian priests. Whilst training to go out to Guyana at USPG’s College of Ascension in Selly Oak he met his wife to be, Anne Cockerham, a widow with two sons, David (11) and John (9).

Between 1987 and 1990 John helped train six men from Guyana’s Amerindian community as priests at the Alan Knight Training Centre, Yupukari. He was joined by Anne. They were married in 1988 by an Amerindian priest at St. Mary’s Church in Yupukari. After the priests were ordained in 1990 John, Anne and John junior returned to the UK for the birth of their son, James.

From 1990-1996 the family were based at St. Luke, Holbrooks, Coventry where Fr. John was Vicar of a multicultural suburban parish with a strong West Indian component to the church.

In 1996 he was appointed Edmonton Area Missioner in London Diocese serving the renewal, growth and evangelistic outreach of 100 parishes. He served on the London diocesan millennium planning group and coordinated The Edmonton Walk beating the bounds of the boroughs of Barnet, Camden, Enfield and Haringey just prior to 2000.

In 2001 John moved to Haywards Heath to take up similar work in Chichester diocese but with greater responsibility as diocesan adviser for mission and renewal. In that role he organised Caritas 08, the 2008 diocesan Eucharist and helped encourage the 500 churches to establish mission action plans, many of which were pledged at Caritas 08.

John is married to Anne, another former missionary. Their oldest son, David, based in Islington, is married to Denise and they have two daughters, Victoria and Robyn. Their middle son, John works as a domestic in a residential home in Burgess Hill. Their youngest son, James, remains at home.