COVID is 'everybody's challenge' says retiring Weymouth Vicar

It's 'everybody's challenge' - those are the words of outgoing Reverend Canon of Weymouth Ridgeway Team, Tim West.

He's retiring after 23 years in Weymouth and says he's looking forward to taking a break to write his third novel.

But, his advice to us is to learn to cherish life as we have it, and challenge the injustices we face in today's society.

Tim said:

"COVID is an amazing challenge because it's everybody's challenge and I think it's brought the best and the worst out in us.

"There's far more good than there is bad, and I think that's something to be celebrated. The community has been absolutely fantastic and I think we need to make sure that we celebrate what is good and true, and what is fake and hate we challenge it were passive then a lot of that stuff through social media and so on, which is absolutely brilliant but of course it's a a channel for a whole range of stuff...

"If we don't challenge it ourselves by standing up for what's good and true and just and lovely...

"We need to celebrate what's fantastic in our world and of course, living down here by the sea what an amazing gift we have all along the coastline.

"So I would say, relish the gift of life and live it to the full because we only get now once."

The reverend says one of the blessings of being incumbent here for so long is marrying people he's seen grow up through school.

He added:

"I've loved it, and I've been welcomed into thousands of peoples homes, never had a door slammed in my face, which is very gracious of them."

"There comes a point when it's good to hand over to other people, because it needs a different kind of energy.

"My successor James Menzies has been appointed and he'll start in the new year, and he will take things in a different direction, and that will be good."

Tim says he's looking forward to completely 'unplugging', writing his third novel and some children's stories as well.