Leslie Wilson Kitchen: – [Heath 1929–1935]
Leslie Kitchen was born in Halifax in 1916 and attended Heath Grammar School. He read history at Manchester University, graduating with a BA(Hons) in 1937 and an MA in 1938. He then attended Bishop’s College, Cheshunt, and was ordained Deacon in 1941 and Priest in 1942. Curate of St Matthew’s Church, Chapel Allerton, from 1941 to 1945, he became Priest-in-Charge of St Paul’s Barnsley.
During his period in Chapel Allerton, he married Kathleen on New Year’s Day, 1944. From 1950 to 1955 he was Vicar of Skelmanthorpe and from 1955 to 1960 served as Chaplain to Pinderfields and Stanley Royds Hospitals in Wakefield. Following twelve years as Rector of Garforth (1960–1972), he moved to East Anglia where he was the leader of the Hilborough Group of ten parishes in the Swaffham area of Norfolk before returning to Yorkshire in 1978.
From 1978 until retirement from active ministry in 1984 he was Vicar of Pool in Wharfedale and Arthington. Following his retirement he was very active in the Diocese of Ripon but suffered a stroke in 1991 while on holiday in Spain. He died in December 1998.
Kathleen Kitchen
We are most grateful to Kathleen, his widow, for this information and send — rather belatedly, for which we apologise — our condolences to her, their four children and ten grandchildren.
First appeared in the Newsletter dated .