Biochemist on verge of priesthood

A HINCHINGBROOKE Hospital biochemist will take a crucial step towards the priesthood later this month when the Bishop of Ely ordains her a deacon.

Forty-nine-year-old Rosemary Murrills will serve as a self-supporting minister in the parishes of All Saints’, Hartford, and St Mary’s, Houghton-with-Wyton, while continuing part-time in her NHS post as a biomedical scientist in the pathology department at the hospital.

She has also worked at Papworth Hospital and St Thomas’s in London.

Rosemary has lived in St Ives since she was a toddler, attending Eastfield, Westfield and St Ivo Schools and was a chorister at All Saints’, St Ives, for over three decades.

She started attending All Saints’ as a teenager and served for three terms on the church council, including five years as treasurer.

Since exploring a vocation to ministry Rosemary has spent one year as an ordinand-in-training at St Mary Magdalene, Brampton, and a further four years at St Mary’s, Houghton, where the rural dean, Canon Brian Atling, is rector.

“I first started exploring this vocation seven years ago, but I still can’t believe it’s coming round so quickly,” she told The Hunts Post. “It has been a seven-year slog that’s now coming to fruition. “I feel I’m part of the furniture at Houghton.”

After a year as deacon she will qualify to be ‘priested’ next summer.

Rosemary lives in St Ives with husband Peter, who works for the John Lewis Partnership in Cambridge.