'Good, honest, tough, decent people' - why Paulsgrove's new priest chose this area of Portsmouth

Father Hugo Deadman, 55, joined St Michael’s and All Angels Church six weeks ago. Since being at the church a short amount of time, Fr Hugo has already faced problems.

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He said: ‘Six weeks being here has been a struggle, the building looks nice but it has a hole in the roof, the congregation is very small, and we have all kinds of money problems.

‘St Michael’s hasn’t had a very good few years, so my job is to turn the tank around and get things moving again.’

The church has recently held many different community events such as Fishcake Friday to help feed people with the cost of living prices, Good Neighbours on Wheels scheme for elderly people and plans to put a Mums and Toddlers Group in place.

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Fr Hugo described the people of Paulsgrove as ‘good, honest, tough, decent people’ and one of the reasons why he chose to come to Paulsgrove was because he grew up in a similar community.

Fr Hugo trained at St Luke’s Church and after three years he was made a priest in Milton during the pandemic.

Over the pandemic, Fr Hugo explained that churches have suffered ‘dreadfully’ with financial problems and believes that the church ‘needs the right amount of financial backing’ in order for it to be maintained.

Fr Hugo added: ‘Churches are still suffering to this day and the number of people attending church is still down since the pandemic, so my job is to try and encourage them to come back.’