About Kevin and Ellen

In 1994 Kev & Ellen Grimley left their family and home in search of a way for living where God was at the centre of their lives. They arrived at  Nether Springs the mother house of the Northumbria Community where they had been invited to come for one year to test out their vocation and to ‘learn what it would be like to have a house big enough for people to come and stay for whatever reason.

Prior to this, their own home back down in Leciesterhsire had become an open house for many visitors for a few years and was becoming ‘outgrown’, but the couple dared to believe that this type of hospitality was the key to finding their own vocations. They tell the story of arriving at the the Nether Springs only to find there was no room for them that night and would have to sleep on the floor in the library in front of the fire. ‘It was our first big lesson in humility’ Ellen said, and they gladly spent their first night on the floor it was about being ‘there’ that counted. Two days later they were given a room in the big house that would become their bedsit for the next year. They presented themselves to their spiritual director and said to him, ‘just tell us what to do and we will be fine’, he looked at them and said ‘I want you to go away and be yourselves.’ Kevin and Ellen, scary with being told to be themselves, both questioned it with, ‘what does he mean?’

After a few days they started to understand a little, they had been asked to come for who they were and not what we can do. Kevin was happy to be in the background he would take himself off to his workshop and work with his wood in the quiet. Ellen would be up front loved people coming and would spend hours chatting and listening. They would complement each other in dealing with hospitality. The year went by and at the end the couple knew both their individual ‘callings’ within a joint vocation to hospitality, alone and together.

Arriving back to Leicestershire they waited fourteen years for God’s plan to become incarnate, fourteen years of; listening, waiting, drawing closer to Him, growing in faith, and learning until Christmas 2008, Ant (their eldest son) found the ‘house’. By this time, they had been joined by other family members who shared in the same vocation meaning that four generations moved to this new home. Prior to the move, they had explained to their son Ant, would had joined them with his family that it had ‘passed them by…we were too old now it’s up to you and Monos to tell the story of a ‘way of life’ ‘that brings life as an adventure the journey home.’ Eventually Ant and his wife Carey encouraged them, and they all landed at St. Joseph’s a huge house with plenty of rooms for people to stay. And so, the adventure continues …

Back to The Team