Where is Home? Perhaps for you home is the place you were born, or the place where you have lived for many years, a place where you feel safe and secure.

Where is My home? After 14 years serving in the Navy, followed by a further seven years as an officiating military chaplain, my home is Plymouth. To utilise a recruiting advert, ’I was born in Preston but I was made in the Royal Navy’.

I’m very much at home here in Somerset. It’s a great place to live, but something of my heart has never left Plymouth. One indication of this is that it is where my ashes to be scattered, though hopefully not for some years yet!

One day my ashes will be scattered in Plymouth Sound, at sea just off the breakwater. On ships ranging from minesweepers to aircraft carriers, I have sailed out past the breakwater, often not returning for several months. We didn’t always return with the same number of crew that we left with. In the 1982 South Atlantic conflict it wasn’t even certain we would make it back, some of our ships didn’t. But whenever we did sail back in past the breakwater, it was always a coming home, with the joy of wives, loved ones, family and friends there to welcome us.

So, one day that is where my ashes will be scattered. On that day I will truly be at home, be safe and secure in the presence of God, and I will be more alive than I have ever been.

Meanwhile, there is this wonderful life to live here in Somerset.

Martin Kirkbride

Interim Rector Wellington Team Ministry

Chaplain HMS Coventry Association

Chaplain Plymouth Royal Naval Association