60 years ago today...
On 23rd February 1950, bonny Bishop Harold was born.
Also on this day in 1950, a UK general election was held. Despite polling over one and a half million votes more than the Conservatives, Labour received just a slim majority of five seats, and the party called another general election in 1951.
Sharing a birthday with the Bishop:
Samuel Pepys, diarist, 1633, George Frederick Handel, composer, 1685 and Mayer Amschel Rothschild, founder of the Rothschild dynasty, 1743. Exalted company indeed!
This is also St Polycarps' Day
St Polycarp, 2nd Century, was the Bishop of Smyrna and one of the disciples of the apostles. However, when a storm of persecution broke out, Polycarp was betrayed by a servant. He was taken to a stadium where he was burnt alive. As he died, the smell of incense filled the air.
Sorry, not a very cheerful thought on your birthday.
Bishop Harold was born in north Belfast and later baptized in Jennymount Methodist Church. He grew up on the Shore Road in Belfast, and went to school at Lowwood Primary.
His father worked as a wages clerk on the Herdmann Channel, and his mother as a telephonist in the Ulster Unionist Headquarters, then in Glengall Street.
Young Harold was a pupil at Belfast High School in the 1960s, and as a teen in 1965 through the witness of the Boys' Brigade, came to faith in Christ at a BB camp in Port Erin on the Isle of Man.
After School, he studied Philosophy and English at Trinity College Dublin, where, in his very first week, he met his future wife Liz, who hails from Kilkenny. Following Trinity, Harold studied theology at St John's College, Nottingham, which at the time was a brand new campus under the leadership of Michael Green,
His first curacy was in St Nicholas Carrickfergus, under Canon Bob Wright, and during those years, he married Liz. They have a family of four grown up children.
The next years were to provide an amazing variety of ministry. From 1979-84 Harold was on the staff of St John's Nottingham as Chaplain and Director of Extension Studies (the latter being a challenging new concept at the time!). He then became Chaplain of Queen's University, leaving in 1989 to become rector of the Carrigrohane Union of Parishes in Cork for 71/2 years.
Harold was consecrated bishop in St Patrick's Cathedral, Armagh, on St Mark's Day 1997, and duly installed in the two and a half cathedrals of the diocese, Down, Dromore, and Belfast (shared with the Diocese of Connor). He describes being a Bishop in the Church of God as "a humbling and deeply rewarding experience," and counts it. "a real privilege and joy to lead the Diocese of Down and Dromore".
Bishop Harold's main interests are theological education, youth ministry and mission/outreach and in his leisure time he enjoys travel, photography, phillumeny and music.