THE team vicar of the three churches of Malvern Link with Cowleigh conducted his last service on Sunday before retiring due to ill health.

Rev David Gutteridge joined Rev Graham Lyle as his number two in February 1999, coming from Abberley, where he had held the same post for more than five years.

Prior to that Mr Gutterid-ge had been a non-stipendiary priest with the Droitwich team ministry, a position he took after studying part-time while working as a county council schools inspector.

Explaining his move, Mr Gutteridge said: "I'd been moving towards being a paid priest since my teens. I wasn't ordained until I was 45.

"I think the call was always there but one gets married and gets tied in with a mortgage.

"However, the opportunity opened up when I went in 1982 to train in Queen's College Birmingham, when I discovered training could be done part-time."

Although born and brought up in Nottinghamshire, Mr Gutteridge originally moved to Worcestershire from London to work as the head of a mathematics department in a Broms-grove teacher training school.

"I think we've become very much Worcestershire people," he said.

"We love it and we intend to stay here in Malvern because it's a very pleasant town with nice people and good facilities. It suits us."

As for his future plans, he said he would be taking it easy and adjusting to a slower pace of life.

At his final service, Mr Gutteridge told the congregation not to lose heart as God had a bright future arranged for them.