AROUND TOWN MEETS
Image: Real Rotherham
Eve Rose Keenan
Hear ye, hear ye. As the peal of Rotherham Minster’s twelve bells rings out across the town, a new mayor is sworn in at the Town Hall ready to celebrate the unity of the town she now calls home.
meets
After just two years as a councillor and an exciting year as deputy to Cllr Lyndsay Pitchley, Eve Rose Keenan has stepped into the mayoral robe and chain of office ready to start a year of civic, ceremonial, community and church duties. Along with being the third consecutive female mayor for Rotherham, following in the footsteps of Lyndsay and her predecessor Maggi Clark, Eve is also shattering those stained glass ceilings as the first female ordained mayor in the country – having been a Reverend since 2001.
about the fellowship her work in both communities brings, offering her a chance to be a voice of reason and a voice of the people.
Born in Kent in 1963, Eve spent her early years in Rainham before the family travelled over the River Medway to Strood when she was ten where she first became a Christian - although she’s not entirely sure why.
“My family has never been religious, but my grandparents gave me a bible and one day I just decided I wanted to go to church, so I did,” she says.
‘It was one of the happiest times of my life and the perfect setting for me. I lived in a council house and was literally at the heart of the community’
Eve Rose Keenan at Unison Event Eve Rose Keenan
While she consecrates her pledge for the town in the next year, Eve’s baptism as mayor in May also means she’ll now be juggling her duties with working as a hospital chaplain in Hull at the Humber Mental Health Teaching NHS Trust where she has worked for over 13 years.
You may be thinking how politics and religion combine for Eve, but for her it is all
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aroundtownmagazine.co.uk
By age 14, her political views also opposed her stepfather’s, joining the Labour Party Youth Socialists which stemmed off a life-long activist involvement. “My dad has always been a diehard Labour supporter who instilled a passion for justice in me from a young age. I’ve always been very political but joining the LPYS didn’t go down very well with my mother and step-father who were
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