Derek Reeve - Portsmouth

Derek Reeve is a retired priest of the Diocese of Portsmouth. He found faith in the Church of England having had parents who had no particular religious affiliation but became a Roman Catholic in his teens. He tried his vocation with a  religious Order which, he says, gave him a very great love of the Liturgy but was then called up to do his National Service during which he was nursing. He was sent to Paris to do his studies for the priesthood for he is eternally grateful since it was the time leading up to the Second Vatican Council and life at the Seminary was very exciting and challenging. He was ordained priest in 1957 and spent ten years as a curate at the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Portsmouth during which time the Second Vatican Council took place and seemed to fulfil all the dreams and hopes of his days at the Seminary. He spent the next thirty seven years in the same small parish trying to implement the vision of the Council and doing a number of other tasks at the same time, among them, chaplain to students, to a psychiatric hospital, and to a lifers' prison. He is now retired and still lives in Portsmouth. He has always been enthusiastic about ecumenism and links with those of other faiths besides his abiding interest in the implementation of the Second Vatican Council.