OTTERY’S new curate is hoping to offer people support in testing times.

Tim Treanor, pictured right, 48, took up the post on Remembrance Sunday – a fitting date given his military background.

The father-of-three served 23 years in the Royal Engineers, before realising his vocation. Once ordained, he was a curate for two years in Tavistock, and was asked to take up the Ottery post by Bishop Michael Langrish in September, following the departure of the Rev Jane Ollier.

Tim and wife Emma, a nurse, moved to West Hill this month. Charlotte, 22, Gerogina, 20 and William, 18, are all at university, so have only spent a weekend in their new home so far.

While in the army, Tim commanded a 215-man squadron of Gurkhas on operations in Bosnia, and was an intelligence analyst at Whitehall for two years.

“It was an extraordinary job, one moment I was on the front line in Bosnia, helping build bridges, the next I was in Whitehall,” he said. “That extreme contrast was the brilliant thing about a military career.

“Then from 1997 onwards, I got this increasingly strong sense of being called by God to do something else.”

Having always been a Christian, he decided to explore his faith further, and enrolled on a 10-week Alpha course at Holy Trinity Brompton, an Anglican church in London. “The course had a huge affect, it stirred something inside me,” he said. This led to theological college at Cuddesdon, Oxford.

With his Army postings taking him all over the world, including Germany and Hong Kong, Tim is now happy to be installed in the Ottery community. He hopes to make people aware of God’s presence in their everyday lives.

“God’s always up to interesting things, and we don’t necessarily notice them,” he said.

“It’s an interesting time to be here, with the church being reordered, and as the recession bites, I’m hoping to be of some service at what could be a difficult time in the town.”