It Might Not Be West London Forever for Martine Oborne
Popular local vicar ponders her next move after retirement
Revd. Martine Oborne with her new book
August 25, 2026
This October, after fifteen years in the job, The Revd Martine Oborne will be stepping down as Vicar of St. Michael’s Church on Elmwood Road.
Surprising as it might be to those familiar with her vivacity, she is approaching the Church of England’s mandatory retirement age, so she has no choice other than to start considering her next steps in life.
Despite being born in Bermondsey and having developed a deep attachment to her Chiswick congregation, she says she remains determinedly a north Londoner having spent most of her adult life in Highbury and still has a flat in the ground floor of a Georgian house the area. It was in St. Mary’s in Upper Street that she spent three years as a curate, coming to the priesthood relatively late in life, before arriving at St. Michael’s.
She describes her ministry in Chiswick as a very happy time and the role of vicar as a dream job.
Martine said, “I do feel fortunate to have had that experience. It's so nice is that you're officially given what's called the cure of souls. It's nothing about healing, but it's about the care of souls, really. So, you are really be paid to hang out with your parishioners, have cups of tea with them, be beside them through all the ups and downs of their lives, and support them, and pray for them, help them out.”
Although a more prosperous and less diverse church community than the one she had left behind in north London, it included some areas of deprivation and parishioners in real need. She pointed out that she was fortunate to be the vicar of just one church with a ‘lovely’ church hall which was an increasingly uncommon set-up for an Anglican priest as resources were increasingly short resulting in parishes being bundled together. She predicts it will be increasingly difficult for a relatively small parish like St. Michael’s to have its own vicar who can get to know the whole church community really well.
The St. Michael’s parish that she came into was already a strong and inclusive one and she met with a warm welcome. The hall was an important asset for community activities. Although St. Michael’s Players, the local amateur dramatic group, were no longer directly linked to the church, she felt it played an important role in bringing people together while at the same time it was putting on high-quality productions.
When asked about the things in Chiswick she most valued, Martine immediately selects the river and the variety of walks that are available along its banks. She is even prepared to admit that west London’s river is better than north London’s canal and that there is also nothing to match the grounds of Chiswick House with the surrounding wall giving it the feel of a secret garden something that the larger green spaces like Hampstead Heath and Victoria Park can’t match.
The vicarage comes with the job so that will need to be vacated in the autumn, but she retains a flat in Chiswick as well as the one in Islington. With the youngest of her five children aged 22 and still at university and her third grandchild recently born, the main consideration for living arrangement going forward will be simplicity, probably ruling out multiple locations. She suspects her husband, the journalist Peter Oborne prefers Chiswick but the pull of her roots remains strong plus, as an Arsenal season ticket holder, it seems unlikely to be west London forever. Wherever she ends up she does confess to being happy at no longer being in a job where you are always working at the weekend meaning breaks with her family become possible.
Protocol dictates that a departing vicar does not continue to worship at the church they served to avoid potentially stepping on the toes of their successor. Martine does not rule out attending services at any of the other local churches, but she has a long association with the parish of St. Martin’s-in-the-Field, which is the patronal church of St. Michael’s. The building of the Grove Park Church in 1909 was funded by the sale of its namesake on the Strand which is now the Strand Palace Hotel. Although no longer a vicar, Martine will still have permission to officiate and she thinks she may keep her hand in at the central London church where she feels theologically aligned with their progressive views.
Her options are narrowed due to the conservative tendency in the Diocese of Kensington, which contains a high proportion of evangelical churches. It is less their stance on women priests than on LGBT issues that serves as a barrier to any ongoing association with them.
That will not mean that her involvement in the church is going to diminish. She intends to stand for the General Synod which she describes as like a church parliament. Martine will also continue in her role with WATCH (Women in the Church) saying, “Everyone thinks like, oh, the Church of England treats women equally to men. Well, actually, it doesn't.” She is scathing about the diocesan bishops who won’t receive Communion from the Archbishop of Canterbury because she's female.
The issue of women in the priesthood is central to her new novel The Trials of Jessica Lovegood. This will be her fifth book but her ministry in Chiswick has meant that her output has slowed over the last decade. She plans to launch the book at the forthcoming Chiswick Book Festival. It concerns the female vicar of a parish in a northern mining town who is dealing both with the death of her husband and having to work with a ‘traditionalist’ male bishop when she discovers that she has the gift of healing. This does not turn out to be the blessing that you might assume it was and presents potentially insuperable challenges to the relationship she has with the church, her flock and her teenage daughter. The cast of characters includes the Archbishop of Canterbury, an evil dictator and agents of MI6. The book can be purchased for £10 on Amazon.
She will be talking, briefly, about The Trials of Jessica Lovegood at The Chiswick Book Festival’s Local Authors' Showcase on Wednesday 9 September at 7pm. Other than officiating at her handful of remaining services at St. Michael’s, this could be one of the last times she speaks publicly in Chiswick.
You can buy tickets for the event at the George IV here and tell her what a terrible mistake it would be to move away, proximity to the Emirates notwithstanding.
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