Adrian Leak was inducted as Vicar of Badsey with Aldington and Wickhamford on 3rd April 1973.
Adrian was born in Cairo in 1938, spent some of his early childhood in Jerusalem and went to school within sight of the English Channel. After graduating, Adrian taught for some years before being ordained in 1966. His first post was as a curate in a parish in Coventry. It was there that he met his future wife, Christine, who was teaching in one of the schools which junior clergy had to visit as part of their post-ordination training.
From Coventry they moved in 1969 to Berinsfield, a new housing estate in the parish of Dorchester on Thame, Oxfordshire, where their son, Daniel, was born at the end of 1969. The move to Badsey in 1973 was Adrian’s first appointment as an Incumbent. In a letter to his future parishioners in the parish magazine of March 1973, he wrote:
The first glimpse we had of the two parishes was in 1971 on our way to holiday in Wales, and little did we realise then as we drove down the A44 skirting the edge of Wickhamford, that one day we would be living in such a beautiful part of the world as the Vale of Evesham. As you can probably guess, since last November my wife and I with our three-year-old son, Daniel, have penetrated further than the A44 into Wickhamford and Badsey. We have visited your two beautiful and well-kept churches … Daniel was so much taken with the gallery that we had the greatest difficulty in dislodging him. We have been able to look around the villages, and we have enjoyed the hospitality of Mr & Mrs Braby at the Vicarage.
Adrian Leak left the Vale at the beginning of 1980 to become Vicar of St Peter’s Church, Monkwearmouth, Sunderland. He then became Vicar Choral and Archivist at York Minster (1981-86). He was Canon Residentiary and Precentor at Guildford Cathedral (1986-1990) before moving on to Worpleston and then to Withyham in Sussex.