AN ASSISTANT curate in Keighley is being temporarily promoted to run Ingrow’s Anglican church for the next three years.

The Rev Dr Tracey Raistrick will be licensed as interim priest at St John’s Church during a special service on Sunday January 20 at 3pm, led by the Right Reverend Toby Howarth, the Bishop of Bradford.

The Rev Raistrick has led some services since last September when Rev Clive Kirke, vicar at St John’s Church for the previous 20 years, retired. She has been assistant curate with the Keighley parish for about three years.

Nottingham-born Clive Kirke left school at 15 with no qualifications and worked in various parts of the engineering industry before being called to the ministry in his late 20s.

He served as a curate in Ainsdale, near Southport and at Crosby, in the Liverpool Diocese, before becoming priest-in-charge at St Andrew’s, Litherland. After this, he move to his post in Keighley in 1998.

At the time of his arrival at Ingrow, the Rev Kirke admitted that due to his background he was more comfortable in a backyard full of bicycle bits than in a manicured garden.