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Ministering to Parliament

The Reverend Rose Hudson-Wilkin grew up in a fractured family in Montego Bay, Jamaica. She was still a baby when her mother went to work in England and she stayed behind with her father.

Faith has always been important to Rose, and she gave her first sermon at the age of fourteen. She trained as an evangelist with the Church Army, and went to England to study at its college. She became a priest as soon as the Anglican Church began to ordain women in 1994.

Today she is a vicar in Hackney, one of London's poorest boroughs. She is also one of the Queen's Chaplains and has just been chosen as Chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons. She's the first black woman to hold the post. She's also seen as a leading contender to become one of the Anglican Church's first women bishops.

Rose Hudson-Wilkin talks to Matthew Bannister about her early life in Jamaica, and the challenges of her ministry in Hackney and her new role at Westminster.