The Reverend ROGER HOLLOWAY, Preacher to the Honourable Society of Gray's Inn since 1997, was born in London in 1933.  After school in Eastbourne, he did his National Service in the army, was commissioned into The Buffs, and commanded troops in active conflict in Africa.  At Selwyn College, Cambridge, he read Theology, but then decided he wanted to do other things before ordination. 

He worked for the American pharmaceutical group Pfizer; for a London advertising agency on Players and Unilever accounts; and then, following his big move into the wines and spirits trade, he became managing director of Hedges & Butler International, the overseas wines and spirits management company of the Bass Charrington Group, president of BCV-USA in New York, and a director of many other companies including Bass's Bordeaux subsidiaries. 

It was during this time that he enrolled in the part-time but onerous Southwark Ordination Course, which prepared for ordination men and women still in full-time jobs.  He was ordained shortly before leaving for the Far East to run the wines and spirits interests of the Jardine Matheson Group, resident at various times in Hong Kong and Tokyo. 

While an Anglican priest, he was the managing director of Jardine Wines & Spirits International, responsible for companies importing into nine different Asian countries. He was an assistant priest at the Cathedral in Hong Kong and at the principal English-speaking Anglican Church in Tokyo, and chaplain to the Episcopalians of a US military base on the outskirts of Tokyo.

Returning to England in 1988, he kept his trade connections as a non-executive director of Hennessy-Fast East; was Appeals Director of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund; and later became National Director of the Industrial Christian Fellowship, an organization dedicated to bridging some of the misunderstandings between the Christian churches and the world of commerce.

From 1988 until 2002 he was a Priest-Vicar of Westminster Abbey, on many occasions acting as chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons.  He has published hardback military history; acted in the longest-running Japanese TV drama series; reviewed religious books in scholarly journals; and written the wine column for The Times.  While living in the Far East he led television and radio programmes on religion and on wine; and for eight years he wrote a restaurant column in an Asian glossy magazine.

Roger Holloway has lectured on American 19th century history to Americans, and now lectures on cruise ships on the origins of the great world religions and on the military campaigns in places visited.  He holds the OBE for his services to British exports; is married with four children; and has homes in London and in the Scottish Highlands.