HE has battled rare male breast cancer, endured stresses of the finance industry and survived the grief of his brother’s suicide.

Yet Reverend Graham Sykes oozes an aura of calm as he sits in Sobell House Hospice, pouring freshly-plunged coffee and piling a plate with digestive biscuits.

The former banker spent more than a decade as a number-crunching credit analyst, but followed his calling 25 years ago to become a priest.

In February he joined the Headington hospice as chaplain, tasked with supporting terminally-ill patients and their loved ones.

Botley resident Rev Sykes said: “For many people who are dying, or families of loved ones who are dying, it [illness] raises all kinds of existential questions like ‘what is life about?’ or ‘is there life after death?’

“The role of a chaplain is not to convert anybody, but to travel that journey with them. I describe it as a bit like being a pilgrim, helping people with the stories of their lives. It can be very cathartic.

“Sometimes you have to help people reconcile a breakdown in relationship or there is something that needs forgiving, or something painful. It’s a very rewarding kind of ministry.”

Speaking to the Oxford Mail from the family room on the hospice’s ward, where loved ones can seek quiet refuge, he said he offers a ‘listening ear and a shoulder to cry on’ to people of all faiths and none.

The 57-year-old is based at Sobell but also works at hospitals within Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and carries a pager in case he is needed elsewhere.

He said: “The Trust is trying to bring all the learning in hospices, 50 years of experience, into end of life care. If we can give care like in a hospice, families accommodate bereavement quicker. That’s really crucial. It’s about humanity and love.”

Rev Sykes said he came to a ‘place of peace’ with death after his older brother committed suicide, when they were both young.

About 10 years ago life gave him another reminder of his mortality, when he was diagnosed with breast cancer.

The disease rarely affects men, and he is now in remission after having a mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

Rev Sykes, previously chaplain to the Bishop of Oxford, said: “I feel God granted me years to take that experience and do good with it.

“I’m not frightened of the consequences of death.

“Historically we’ve seen it as a medical event with spiritual implications, but I see it as a spiritual event with medical implications.”

Rev Sykes said a peaceful death can be ‘a beautiful thing’, and stressed that the hospice is not a glum place.

During his first few weeks as chaplain he led a marriage blessing ceremony at Sobell’s on-site chapel, after the partner of a young patient proposed to her shortly before she passed away.

Rev Sykes said: “[The ceremony] was a wonderful thing. From that moment she just radiated beauty.”

The father-of-two spent most of his ministry working in rural Herefordshire, where he worked closely with St Michael’s Hospice.

He said: “I promised myself I would return [to hospices] before turning up my toes.

“I see a hospice as a place that gives you back your life, for however short a time.

“What makes a hospice work is its values: you matter. Whether you are a tiny baby or a 99-year-old, you matter just as much for every minute of your life.”