'Colonel' to join army of the Lord

He has decided to follow his true calling as an evangelist, after a 40-year career that has covered art, music, farming, gardening and missionary work.

In the last three years he has become a familiar figure outside the Guildhall on Saturdays, preaching to shoppers and inspiring a mixture of apathy, hostility and interest.

In Worcester City Parks Department, the 56-year-old was known as "The Colonel" because of his military bearing and impeccable accent.

"I'm going to miss the city council. For 37 months it's been my life. It has been a lot of fun and I've been very well looked after, but I have to follow my real calling," he said.

Married, with seven children aged from 14 to 26, he lives with his family in Ronkswood.

Originally from Hagley, he gained an Honours degree in Fine Arts at Stourbridge College of Art and qualified as a teacher in Bristol.

Working with Christopher Brown at Broome, near Hagley, he then spent several years researching and making mediaeval musical instruments.

He taught himself to play the psaltery, bladder-pipe, bagpipes, organistrum, lute and fiddle and the pair released three records of mediaeval music under the name of Goliard.

Later, he taught art and music at a private school in Stourbridge and then tried his hand as a farmer, taking work as a gardener after his farming business failed.

"I was either over or under-qualified for everything I applied for," he said.

He became a Christian in 1986 and studied for a diploma in Biblical and Pastoral Theology with his wife, Caroline, at Birmingham Bible Institute.

They have since spent nine years doing missionary work in Albania at a time of Balkan unrest, returning to England for a year in the middle.

"After my conversion, it took me 10 years to pluck up courage to do open air preaching, but that is what I am going to do now, financed by the Open-Air Mission, which is supported by hundreds of charities," he said.