High-profile minister Lorna Hood will rub shoulders with royalty in her new job as a chaplain to the Queen.

Mrs Hood was delighted to take up the out-of-the-blue offer, which comes with its own distinctive red cassock.

The new job makes the popular Renfrew North Parish Church minister an official member of Her Majesty’s Ecclesiastical Household.

This means one of Mrs Hood’s duties will be to preach before the monarch at Crathie Kirk, where the Queen worships when she is staying at Balmoral Castle, and on other royal occasions in Scotland.

A minister of the Church of Scotland, Mrs Hood, 55, said her new honour was totally unexpected, although it won’t interfere with her job at Renfrew North.

• Full story at the Paisley Daily Express.

• Filed under Church of Scotland, Glasgow, West + Ayrshire, Scottish Christian News Monitor.