A Cup Of Coffee With...Linda Le Vasseur

It’s early December and you’re having coffee with a female vicar so how do you break the ice? “So busy month ahead then? So what do you think of the Vicar of Dibley?” Two simple questions but her answers certainly say a lot about Linda Le Vasseur.

Let’s look at the first question. Yes, December is certainly a very busy month for the Forest vicar who is also taking temporary charge of St Saviour’s too. As well as all of her church commitments, Linda publishes her charity book every year at this time and raises as much as £10,000 each time for charity. But let’s talk about the church.

Does it bother Linda that some people turn up at church over the festive period and then never show up again throughout the year? “Not really”, she says. “We will have a lot of big services in the month and it is tempting to think that if only they’d come back. I think it’s best to focus on the positive, not the negative of the situation. There are some people that come at special times and do come back.”

Linda loves Christmas but explained that, as a Christian, Easter is much more important to her. “If it had all ended on Good Friday, we would not need to bother”, was her refreshing turn of phrase.

Refreshing is a fairly apt word to describe the vicar’s work at Forest Church. Linda has introduced many new initiatives that have helped increase her congregation. “Everybody at Forest has worked hard”, she says giving full credit to the whole team around her. “When I started, if we got 20 people in church on a Sunday morning we’d be pleased. Now around 40 is the average.”

But there will be standing room only on Christmas Eve when the church holds its Birthday Party for Jesus. “Last year there were 250 people and it was heaving”, says Linda. “A really wild service. We even bring on a cake, light the candles and everybody sings ‘Happy Birthday’ to Jesus”.

“ I am very serious about the message but you can present it in a way that is fun ”

Fantastic but it must be the sort of thing that raises the eyebrows of other vicars. “I do remember when one clergyman said to me that he never let it happen in his church”, laughs Linda. “That’s his choice but it works for us and is a great way to remind people what Christmas is really about. I am very serious about the message but you can present it in a way that is fun”.

Midnight Mass, back-to-back services on Christmas Day, is there any time for Linda to relax on December 25. “I normally party on Boxing Day”, was her reply.

So what about the Vicar of Dibley? What does Linda think of it? “I think it’s wonderful, I think she has done such tremendous work for women priests because she has shown in her own way that we don’t have three heads. The Vicar of Dibley even illustrates in a low key way the pain of being a woman priest because there is a lot of pain associated with being one. Women priests are still not always treated equal to men priests”.

Linda has even used excerpts from the TV show in her sermons but is going to go one stage further in January. “Age Concern are having a function at the church and they have asked me to do a skit from the Vicar of Dibley. I’m going to be the Vicar of Dibley and my cousin is going to be Alice”, enthused Linda. “They are going to have to pad me out a bit. I think it will be a lot of fun.”

Both Linda and her husband Peter are famous in their own right so what’s it like being Guernsey’s ‘Posh and Becks’? Linda laughed at the question. “It’s very different for each of us. Peter set out to be famous. That is not a criticism because you have to be famous to be a successful artist. I never set out to be well-known, it kind of just went with the territory of being Guernsey’s first woman priest.”

So did Linda enjoy the GBG coffee or was it a case of ‘more tea vicar?’ “I love coffee and this is delicious, it’s got a real pizzazz,” was her verdict.

Linda too has a real pizzazz and it was a real pleasure and a privilege to spend time with her at her busiest time of the year.