WHEN the Revd Ewan Huffman was appointed chaplain to Hinkley Point C, in January 2020, he was the only salaried chaplain in the UK construction industry.
“The first nuclear generating station built in decades here in the UK,” Mr Huffman says, will provide seven per cent of the UK’s electricity when finished, generated by two reactors, the first of which is due to go live in 2029-30.
“It’s a huge construction site, with over 12,000 people. We’ve got our own medical centre here, called Hinkley Health. And we’ve trained over 800 mental-health first-aiders, of which I’m one. But they realised something was lacking, and one of the directors, and few others, said we need a chaplain.”
One section of the workforce is ex-military and is used to the ministry of a padre, Mr Huffman says. “So, they felt they needed somebody specifically with the task of spiritual and pastoral care.”
While its workers face the same life issues as those in any other sector, he says, “the construction industry is a demanding place to work. On top of that, people often work remotely and far from home.”
Mr Huffman is a Baptist minister seconded to the Church of England. He is employed by the diocese of Bath & Wells, but his salary is covered by EDF. As well as a line manager in EDF and the diocese, he has supervision with a psychologist, “somebody arranged by the diocese, paid for by Hinkley Point C”.
His remit covers spiritual and pastoral care; so “I’m different from mental-health first aiders. I stay with people longer in their care. So, I journey with people.
“We’ve got tremendous resources. We can signpost people to all kinds of help. Here, we pay a lot of money to care for people. So they’re putting their money where their mouth is, Hinkley Point C.”
The three main communities of faith represented in the workforce are Christian, Muslim, and Sikh. Mr Huffman now also oversees a team of six volunteer chaplains, including one Muslim. “We are impartial, we are non-judgmental, we are swift to respond, and we are all chaplains to all faiths and none,” Mr Huffman says.
A second salaried industrial chaplain, the Revd Paul Owen, an Anglican, was appointed at Hinkley Point C in July. And, in recognition of the pastoral need, at Sizewell C (the next nuclear power station, being built on the Suffolk coast), a third salaried chaplain has just been appointed “very early on in the process”, Mr Huffman says.
For about 60 per cent of the people whom Mr Huffman sees, faith never comes into their discussions, he says. “They want somebody to talk to. They want somebody to listen. And they might want to know how they can get help.
“I’ve got an armoury around my belt: tools that I take off and use to help people. For example, there’s the construction-industry helpline run by the Lighthouse Club charity. They can give legal advice, family advice, counselling, including trauma counselling, things like that.”
If it seems to him appropriate, he does bring faith into the conversation, he says. “But some specifically want to see me because of the faith emphasis.
“You can ask people, ‘Would you be happy for me to pray for you?’ . . . Sometimes, people like that, particularly if they’re distressed. Often, people love to receive a formal blessing, to be given peace — the peace of God which passes all understanding. . . To pray that over somebody who’s got anxiety is a wonderful, sacramental, powerful thing — even people who are not Christians.”
He thinks that Covid accelerated his acceptance among the workforce. “In 2019, before I joined, the common question, I’ve now discovered, was: ‘What would we want an effing religious bloke on site for?’ But, within two weeks, there was an incident off site that I was involved in and that really embedded me in people’s hearts.
“And then Covid hit, and it was like: ‘You’re our effing religious bloke.’ You’re a bit like a talisman. So the guy that walked past me before I came in here, a big, strapping guy, I remember him saying: ‘Thanks for making us feel safe, mate.’”
During Covid, he says “the faith and ceremonial emphasis was really important. I did loads of ceremonies on site. A typical conversation here would be: ‘Chaplain, I’m not religious, but Gran has died, can you do a religious ceremony for me?’ They needed ritual; they couldn’t get to the funeral.”
What also helps, he thinks, is that he used to be an engineer. “I get the people here. I relate to them quite well, and they do to me, which is a huge privilege, really.”
Now, Mr Huffman finds that he can barely walk around the site, if he’s got work to do. “I can’t walk from A to B because I’ll be stopped by people who just want to catch up on this or that.”
Besides having a remit for spiritual and pastoral care, he leads an area of work called Dignity and Respect on site. “I want every single person on site to be treated with respect, and they need to be listened to. You don’t have to agree with them, but people need to be treated with respect, particularly the women on site.
“I also have the privilege of being involved in some of the money that we give to charities, and, of course, due diligence has got to be done on that. But I drop everything if there’s somebody in need. I drop everything to be with them.”
He was pastor to four Baptist churches, before the Hinkley Point C chaplain post.
“Chaplaincy is an opportunity to be on the front line to care for people,” Mr Huffman says. “In the diocese of Bath & Wells, this is the wave of God at the moment. It’s a tremendous growth area. It’s a great opportunity to be alongside people on the front line in their circumstance of need, and to get to help them in their lives.
“It’s an opportunity to show that faith is still relevant today. So, particularly in the early days when I was here, a number of people returned to their faith. It’s like I reminded them that they once had a faith.”
In his four and a half years in post, he has run four Alpha courses. He says: “This is where Jesus would be. It is utterly missional. This is as tough as any mission field, and you can feel as lonely and as in need of prayer, and as fruitful, as any mission field. So, really, our churches need to pray for our chaplains.”
Now, Christian members of the workforce get together three times a week on site to pray. And Mr Huffman hosts a meeting on a Wednesday night, which is his equivalent of a church service.
“I believe that the local church should be the place that people gather, but because so many people aren’t local, I’ve had to do my own little form of church service.”