Colin Wj Hodgetts

Action! A cleric off the leash Colin Wj Hodgetts

Colin Hodgetts was born in Jersey, C. I. just before the German Occupation and moved to Guernsey when he was seven. The themes of this autobiography are: youth work, radical social work, refugees, nonviolence, education, theatre, music, religion and spirituality, and building a house. The author has been a curate in Hackney, run a youth centre on Loch Awe, Scotland, been employed as Peace Officer of the Martin Luther King Foundation (UK) and Director of Christian Action. He founded Tent City, Refugee Action and the Third Sector Schools Alliance; co-founded with Satish Kumar the London School of Nonviolence and Human Scale Education. He was chaplain/warden, and is now Chair, of the Othona Community. For eleven years he was Head of the Small School, Hartland, an alternative secondary school. He has taken two Shakespeare plays and his own puppet opera, The She-Fox of Shinoda, to Japan. He was Area Dean of Gambella, Ethiopia, and director of a development project there. In the absence of a bishop he oversaw twelve priests and 52 parishes. He plays many instruments and was co-founder and conductor of the Hartland Chamber Orchestra; bass player in the folk group the Common Round and a published composer. For four years he was 'Vicar of Hartland', the rest of the time he was a worker-priest employed by charitable organizations. When they moved to North Devon he and his wife turned a cowshed and a barn into a house and a holiday let. He has planted lots of trees. He argues that faith without action is not real faith, and action that is not nonviolent is not Christian action. He believes that small is beautiful and that we should lead simple lives. His published works include Sing True, two plays for youth groups, the Othona Psalms, Exploring Worship and Inventing a School.