Prison chaplain Rev Jill Clancy is Moderator Designate of the Church of Scotland
A minister who works in Scotland’s biggest jail has become the first prison chaplain to be nominated as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.
Rev Jill Clancy, the only full-time Facilitating Chaplain at HMP Barlinnie, Glasgow, will become the Kirk’s ambassador at home and abroad next May, succeeding current Moderator, Rt Rev Gordon Kennedy.
The 56-year-old will take up the year-long role after nine years working in Barlinnie and serving as a parish minister in Gourock, Glasgow and Ayrshire.
She is the first non-military chaplain to be nominated for the role and only the seventh female Moderator in the Church’s 466-year history.
Asked how she felt about the nomination, Jill said: “I have the same questions now about becoming Moderator as I did at the time of my calling to ministry; I’m too young, not intellectual enough, I’ve got a strong Ayrshire accent.
“I know I will not be to everyone’s taste, but I am who I am, and God has a reason and a purpose for me to be called into this role at this particular juncture in the life of the Church.
“I want to thank not only the Church for not forgetting about me; they haven’t put me behind the walls of the prison and flung away the keys, but also the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) for letting me take a secondment for the year, to represent them as well as the Church.”
Shock
Jill, who grew up on a council estate in Ayrshire, said she had never considered becoming Moderator and recalls her shock when two colleagues got in touch to say they had nominated her.
She said: “I was lying on a sunbed in Benidorm and got texts on the same day from two different people.
“One was somebody who had been my student, and one was a prison chaplain, and both of them said they wanted to nominate me as Moderator.
“I said that is crazy, absolutely crazy. I later met with them both separately and asked them why. For the prison chaplain, it was, ‘Well, Barlinnie’s going through a transition (the jail will close in 2028 when a new purpose-built prison nearby is due to open) and the Church is going through a transition. You’ll be able to deal with that.
“My former student said I’d be a breath of fresh air, and this is what the Church needs. It took me six to eight weeks to agree and to write my application, but I thought, well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.”
The Moderator chairs the General Assembly, which involves commissioners – ministers, elders, and deacons – examining the work and laws of the Church and making decisions that affect its future.
In the 12 months from May, they act as the Church’s ambassador, meeting with ecumenical partners and faith leaders, visiting presbyteries and projects and representing the Church at home and abroad.
Jill said the theme of her year as Moderator would be love, adding: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbour as you love yourself’ is my motto. It’s what I live by and if you can’t love yourself, who can you love?
“A lot of healing has happened in my life. There’s been a lot of things I’ve had to go through, and I go through with the people I work with. I help them to do the same thing, to love themselves, to love other people, to have respect for others, to see that life is important.
“The umbrella over all of that is my relationship with God, and being able to share that relationship.”
Walking with the chaplain through the jail’s maze of corridors and stairs, we come across the occasional prison officer who will nod and refer to her as Ma’am, but to the vast majority – and certainly to the prisoners, or “my boys” – she is, simply, Jill.
And during the first Covid lockdown in 2020, she became DJ Jolly Jilly after taking over the in-house radio station Barbed Wireless to ensure it continued to function, with the men who usually ran it not allowed out of their cells for fear of catching and spreading the virus.
For her efforts in recording, editing and broadcasting an hour-long programme twice a week, she was presented with a Meritorious Award by the SPS and continues to be held in high esteem by the service.
SPS Chaplaincy Advisor Rev Graham Bell said: “We are absolutely delighted to hear of Jill’s nomination. It is a tremendous honour and one that is richly deserved.
“Jill has made an outstanding contribution to prison chaplaincy over many years. Through her ministry, she has provided compassionate support to those in our care and to staff, bringing energy, warmth and dedication to everything she does.
“We are immensely proud Jill is set to become the first prison chaplain to serve as Moderator of the General Assembly. While she will be greatly missed during her time in this role, we have no doubt she will bring her passion for people, her understanding of prison ministry and her commitment to faith and service to this prestigious office.”
Jill grew up in Kilwinning, North Ayrshire, where dad Derek was a salesman for the gas board, and her mum ran her own business, Pam’s Hair Stylists. Long retired and in her 80s, Pam still does the occasional hairdo, including Jill’s, though the chaplain’s main hairdresser now is older sister Lynne, who has her own salon.
Life at home was volatile, and Jill’s parents split up when she was 17. She was estranged from her dad, and he moved to London. Years later, he fell ill and returned to Scotland, where he stayed in a care home until his death. There was a reconciliation of sorts between him and Jill, and she conducted his funeral eight years ago.
She had attended Kilwinning Abbey Church as a child but recalls: “I didn’t like church. I didn’t understand it. I would sometimes take my money for the plate and go down to the wee corner shop and get cola cubes and a wee single cigarette, and go and hide for an hour, and then go back and meet my mum as if I was a wee angel.”
Jill left school at 17 with one Higher and worked part-time in a pub, as a YTS clerk with the local council, in a transport firm and in a paper mill. She gained two more Highers at night school and went on to study marketing at Glasgow College of Commerce.
She has always enjoyed music and joined Irvine Amateur Operatic Society. When one of her friends there invited her on a night out to Glasgow, in June 1991, to see a “big choir,” it proved to be a turning point in Jill’s life as a Christian.
She said: “We travelled up to Celtic Park on a double-decker bus and some of the young people were singing songs I knew were about God, but it was only when we got there that I realised it was a Billy Graham rally.
“To this day I couldn’t tell you what he said, but before I knew it, I was on my feet. There was a lump in my throat, and my pal said, “Are you going to go forward?
Tears
“All my crying during all that we’d gone through growing up had been done under the covers. And here I am in the middle of this football stadium, with tears trickling down my face. I went forward and, after praying with one of the helpers, was given an information pack. I was sent away for a New Testament Bible, which I’ve still got in my handbag today.”
Soon after the rally Jill was contacted by Rev Neil Urquhart, minister at what was then Fullarton Parish Church in Irvine, who invited her to his church and arranged a lift for her with a family from the congregation.
Jill said: “The young mother who picked me up had a brother, Frank, who sat at the end of the pew that first Sunday and 10 years later he and I got married. So, not only did I feel part of the family of the Church but, literally, I became part of their family.”
Jill then decided to train as a nurse and work as a missionary in Africa. Before her training, she took a year out to do a Training in Evangelism course with the Church of Scotland and was encouraged by many to test a calling into ministry.
Her calling was sustained by the Church, and she studied at the University of Aberdeen and spent 18 months as a probationary minister at the former Castlemilk East Parish in Glasgow, working with The Very Rev John Miller, before taking her first charge at St John’s Church in Gourock, Inverclyde, in 2000.
Jill stayed there for eight years before moving to Tron St Mary’s in Balornock, Glasgow, where her duties included working with asylum seekers in the nearby Red Road flats, until becoming minister at Annbank linked with Tarbolton in South Ayrshire in 2013.
She initially started doing part-time chaplaincy work at Kilmarnock Prison before beginning to work full time at Barlinnie in 2017.
Jill said: “I’d shared at various prison fellowship groups and always had a wee inkling that I could connect with the prisoners with the story of my tougher years while growing up.
“It’s a privilege to work in Barlinnie. The boys here inspire me; they make my faith stronger. One of them said to me this morning, ‘You’re like the wee mammy, everybody just tells you all their woes,’ and I get that.
“Of course I have empathy with victims, and I can’t forget the people I look after have hurt other people, but I’m trying to get them to understand what they’ve done.”
Jill’s working day starts at 7 am and – as the only full-time prison chaplain alongside part-time colleagues who include Catholic priests and an imam – the first two hours are usually taken up with organising rotas and other admin.
This includes “enemy checks” on those taking part in courses run by the chaplains to ensure rival individuals and groups are kept apart. She and colleagues then visit the jail’s Victorian halls to follow up on referrals and speak to any inmates who have requested time with a chaplain.
Jill is also there for staff in the jail and has conducted their weddings and funerals, and has an open-door policy to her office, so they can come and talk to her at any time.
Outside of work, she runs an inter-generational community choir in Ayrshire, called Songs For All, which once saw her go skydiving to raise money so members could attend an event in New York.
A personal fitness regime which saw Jill lose eight-and-a-half stone is maintained by gym sessions and taking part in Hyrox fitness challenges.
She and her husband Frank, a retired residential care worker and her rock, also enjoy weekly ballroom dancing, and away from Barlinnie, there’s a daily reminder of Jill’s current role.
The couple’s black Labrador Freddie has recently been joined in the family by yellow Lab Mairi, a retired prison sniffer dog.
Top of page picture: Rev Jill Clancy outside the accommodation blocks at HMP Barlinnie.