Police chaplain Graham Choldcroft tells Jo Duckles how a sense of right and wrong and a series of ‘God-incidences’ led him through a career in the justice system, and on to ordination training.

IN 1966 England won the World Cup, three police officers died after a shooting in London and Graham Choldcroft  left school. ‘I remember coming out of church thinking “I have to leave school, I’m wasting my time,”’ says Graham. ‘My Dad said I could leave school as long as I had something to go to, so I got a job in local government, but when I heard about the shootings of those police officers, I felt an intense anger.’
 

Meanwhile Graham was growing in his faith. He says: ‘Life with God for me was not the result of a “Road to Damascus”’ experience; no blinding light or sudden transformation but just a growing awareness acquired in the same way I learned to speak.
Graham’s father, a teacher and church organist/choirmaster was the greatest evangelist in his life. ‘He taught me about God as much through the way we lived as by anything he said,’ he says.
 

‘My mum died when I was six, and I remember an aunt trying to answer my “Why” questions by telling me Jesus had taken her. I never doubted God’s existence or his right to take her. I’ve had moments of doubt since then, and times when God has felt far away, or I’ve strayed from him, but that sense of God’s hand on my life has always come back.’
 

Graham wanted to be a police officer, but he failed the entrance exams because of his eyesight and became a special constable, before landing a job working as a law clerk for the Crown Prosecution Service. His role saw him liaising with police and barristers before major court cases.  His career included a stint in the CPS headquarters in London. ‘My abiding memory of that was boxes and boxes of gruesome photographs,’ he says.
 

Graham returned to the Thames Valley as Area Business Manager, at a time when his faith was becoming increasingly important to him in the workplace. ‘I used to feel quite strongly that church was good at telling us what we should do, but not at telling us how to do it. Church life seemed to be very separate from secular life,’ he says. ‘Around that time I realised the qualities important to me were integrity, compassion and humility, which I interpreted as reflecting Micah 6: 8.’
 

Pressure was growing on CPS staff and Graham was instrumental in establishing a prayer and mutual support network for Christians working in CPS Thames Valley. He was also becoming more and more active at his church, St Mary’s, Thame.  
‘I was involved in the music and the PCC and was increasingly feeling called to some form of ministry which had a direct bearing on life in the secular workplace.’
 

In 2002 he came out of a meeting with the Diocesan Director of Ordinands, having decided to become a Minister in Secular Employment, a decision that worried his wife, Janet who he met while working for the CPS. He describes her as ‘God’s greatest gift to him’ and says she has been his soul-mate and mentor for the last 30 years. Within a week he realised she was right, and that work pressures meant he could not take up the role.
 

Then, in May 2006, Graham took early retirement and knew it was time to speak to a DDO again. After further vocations coaching and discernment, he was invited to start ordination training. The following month Graham, who is due to be ordained in July 2010, emailed the then force chaplain, Mark Badger, to offer his services working on the business administration side of the chaplaincy. It turned out Mark was standing in St Mary’s, Thame, and replied to Graham from his Blackberry, asking him to drop in and see him.
 

Graham went, thinking he was going to get a commission to play the organ at a roads policing memorial service and some administration work, and came out having been invited to serve as a police chaplain in Didcot and Wallingford. He remained in that role until March last year, when he became the chaplain for the Oxfordshire Basic Command Unit (the unit charged with policing the Oxfordshire area). The dangerous side of policing leaves Graham awestruck. He recently attended a course training officers how to respond to chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear incidents.
 

He says:  ‘It’s scary stuff. It’s humbling to think I can be there with people who are prepared to undertake that job. The emphasis is on officer safety but inevitably there is a serious risk. These officers are trained to go into extremely dangerous situations. The amount of trauma and emotional stress they are put through is quite extraordinary. It’s an immense privilege just being alongside cops and feeling I’m there for them, listening when they want to talk and being the butt of their humour.’