Learning he will receive a Cross of St Piran Award, Bill Nimmo from Trebetherick says he is hoping the Bishop of Truro doesn’t stick too closely to the legend as he doesn’t fancy having a millstone hung around his neck!

Bill has been chosen as one of 25 people to receive the Cross of St Piran award from the Bishop, the Rt Revd Tim Thornton. Bill was nominated by the Parish of St Enodoc who praised him as a ‘devout member of the congregation’ highly thought of by all.

Bill has been attending St Enodoc since he, and his late wife Mary, moved to Cornwall over 31 years ago from Surrey. Bill had been a senior lecturer at the City of London Polytechnic and he and Mary had enjoyed many holidays to Cornwall over the years. “My wife’s grandfather came from Padstow and having gone to sea when I left school, I fell in love with the county after I came into port in Falmouth following my first voyage.”

In fact Bill credits Cornwall with bringing him into an active phase of his faith. “I always had a faith but I wasn’t really active until I came here.”

Bill has certainly been busy in the last three decades. He has been a member of the PCC for some 26 years, it’s chairman for some years spanning several interregnums and is one of the original members of the Trust of St Minver Friends, has been a Chapel Warden and the treasurer, has organised many fundraising appeals to restore St Enodoc’s spire and even brought the church into the modern era by getting electricity put into the building.

And if all that wasn’t enough, Bill also leads Evensong services, something he never thought he’d be doing. “On two separate occasions someone said why didn’t I take services. When the vicar was about to retire he said if they couldn’t find anyone to take our services, I could always do it myself. I said I didn’t think I could do that and that’s when my wife gave me a withering look, told me not to be so stupid, and so it was then a challenge and so it started.”

Bill added: “I used to say to the congregation ‘I am not qualified or competent to deliver a sermon’ so I put in an extra hymn instead and actually it went down rather well.”

After 25 years of taking services the opportunity arose for Bill to undertake a course as a Local Worship Leader. “So this was all really accidental although I often wonder whether it was really accidental, who knows? It keeps me out of mischief.”

Bill says his efforts give him the satisfaction of trying to do something useful. “There’s always the hope something one says or does may strike a chord with someone else and do some good. I shall never know, but that is not important.”