I was born in Dagenham and have spent all my life in the Borough.
Although I did not come from a Christian family, my next door neighbours were Christians and took me as a child to the Baptist Church in Oxlow Lane, Dagenham, where I went to Sunday School and Girls’ Brigade, and in my teens became a Christian.
I was baptised and received into the Church at the age of 16, and helped in the Youth Club and Sunday School.   
I was married at Oxlow Lane Baptist Church, to Malcolm Toft of the Becontree Avenue Baptist Church, Dagenham, and we have two children Sarah and Andrew and now twin grandsons, Zachariah and Harrison.
The move to Chaplin Road came in 1973. The Church was having a difficult time and Pam (now our Treasurer) transferred there from Oxlow Lane, to open a Girls’ Brigade Company.
I followed a year later to work with the older girls.
The Company is still an active part of the church's life and witness. 
While our children were growing up I qualified as a preacher and preached in local churches and became a deacon at Chaplin Road. In 1998 the church asked me to be their pastor. I attended Spurgeons Baptist College for two years and then went through the process of Ministerial Recognition.  
My greatest joy in ministry is to see lives being changed (for the better!) and people grappling with hard issues finding the strength to do so as they trust Jesus to keep his word, ‘I will never leave you or forsake you’ (Hebrews 13:5). 
The baptism of adults by total immersion, according to the Bible, is practised in our Church and our next baptismal service will be soon. 
It is also a great joy to have some of the ‘girls’  who came to the Girls’ Brigade Company when I first went to Chaplin Road, now in Membership with the church, and also others bringing their own children to the church. 
My pastorate at Chaplin Road is very hands on.   I work part time for a local funeral director
(West & Coe) to earn a living, so I am mindful of the pressures of running a home, going to work, and being part of church.     
Our Church is very much a local church, made up of local people.
 We are ordinary Dagenham people, a gathered community of people who want the world to be more the place God intended it to be, i.e. one where God is the focus, for then everything else falls into place. This Church is not a showcase for saints but a workshop for sinners.