District Minister of Holy Cross Bilbrook, in the Parish of Codsall 1978-84

I’d never had anything to do with Holy Cross, but until about 1958, Bilbrook had been part of Tettenhall parish and served by Tettenhall clergy. Further housing development and a re-organisation of local boundaries made it sense for the transfer to take place and allowed Codsall to have a second clergy post. The Vicar of Codsall was Gilbert Smith, who had become Vicar in 1958 when I was still a pupil in the St Nicholas’ School. There were three church buildings – the parish church of St Nicholas, Holy Cross in Bilbrook and a mission church of St Peter in Codsall Wood with fortnightly services. Bilbrook had a succession of ‘second curacy’ priests who lived in the adjoining house, two of whom became Diocesan Bishops (Christopher Hill at Guildford and Nicholas Reade at Blackburn). But none of them stayed very long. The shortest period was three months and the longest just three years. The second of them was Arthur Williams, who came back to be Vicar of Codsall in 1983. The Bilbrook building had been doubled in size in the 1960s and had a population around it of about 5000. The Diocese was looking for more stability and there were proposals for Bilbrook to become a ‘District Church’, allowing it more independence within its parent parish to order its own affairs and allowing for a priest of incumbent status (and stipend). I was paid about £1300 for the first two years and then went onto the Incumbent’s scale – about £1750 plus fees. I recall thinking that it took me ten years to be earning about the same amount as I was paid when I left Wisbech Grammar School.

I was licensed in June 1978 and warmly welcomed. Most of my work was to be at the Bilbrook end of the parish, though after about twelve months, I assumed responsibility for Codsall Wood when a retired priest who had lived there, moved (Aidan Dixon, who had prepared Willie Whitelaw – Deputy Prime Minister under Margaret Thatcher, as an adult for Confirmation). The service times at St Nicholas’ and St Peter’s clashed, so Gilbert was rarely available to go and rarely wanted to swap with me and come to Bilbrook. In fact we settled into a routine and although we met each week for ‘staff meeting’, we rarely were present together at worship or prayed together. There was a daily Mass at Bilbrook (apart from Saturdays, my day off), and offices morning and evening with lay people (one or two), so there wasn’t much scope, though maybe it would have been healthier if we could have come to some sort of accommodation on this. Gilbert was coming towards retiring age, was tired and had had a tough time in Codsall when he first arrived in 1958, with Choir walkouts, resignation of Organists and fuss over Stewardship Campaigns. He carried the bruises still, though had been there long enough to have outlived most of the opposition. Gilbert was a ‘Prayer Book Catholic’, with little natural ease or warmth of relationship with people and who preached solemn scholarly sermons (usually with his eyes shut) and who, so far as I could see, had tired of the pastoral potential of being among the people. The weight of domestic life and caring for his wife and child-hood sweetheart Muriel overwhelmed him. They kept a dachshund that was particularly vicious – always an encouraging way of being met at a Vicarage door! But he was sharp and methodical in his own way. People respected him, even if he made it quite hard for them to like him on occasions. He was also Rural Dean of Penkridge, a Prebendary and Chair of Governors of the Church Schools (St Nicholas’ First and Bilbrook Middle School). He stayed in Codsall until he was 70 and then in retirement, became p/t Priest-in-charge of Blymhill and Weston where he was quite popular. Perhaps he would have been happier if he had moved from Codsall much earlier.

I moved into Church House as a bachelor and Viv and I married in Truro on 21 October 1978. A considerable amount of work was scheduled for the house and this began after Christmas at the start of 1979. We spent the next three months (of ice and snow) living with my Mother at Beechwood Drive, with Viv having to drive to Lichfield to school each day, and I going backwards and forwards to Bilbrook. It wasn’t as we’d envisaged the first few months of married life, but Mum was generous (if feeling ‘taken over’ occasionally). We’d had to store everything in the (damp) Church Hall, but came back into a newly renovated, centrally heated house that had a good sized kitchen / dining area, a utility room, living room, study, downstairs loo and three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. There was an enclosed small back-garden and garage. We felt well provided for.

Catherine Mary was born in October 1980 (one elderly lady said on hearing that Viv was pregnant ‘You’ve proved yourself a man now’) and Clare Elizabeth in September 1982. The congregation were unfailingly generous in every way. They liked having children in Church House.

Nicholas Reade (whom I followed) had enjoyed a lively, energetic and forceful ministry in Bilbrook. He, together with his modern catholically minded predecessors, had shaped a congregation who took worship very seriously and knew that they were expected to be there! He had been caring pastorally and the church had a good reputation locally. There were quite a number of men in the congregation who responded well to his heartiness, as well as women of all ages and a smallish number of teenagers and children. An average number of worshippers on Sundays would be 90 – 100, and some of these would also come during the week and especially to major festivals that fell on weekdays. There were a considerable number of elderly people, many of them widowed and some single among this number and a considerable proportion of them died during my time there. Happily the overall numbers didn’t change a great deal, as others came to take their place and brought fresh insights, experience and energy. There were one or two fairly powerful people in the congregation who were inclined to think that any changes would be a betrayal of the ‘catholic faith delivered to the saints’, but the vast majority seemed happy with an emphasis on how our worship and living needs to be an integrated whole and with an understanding that the church is there to witness and serve our own local community. This was (and still is) the dominant element in my own theology and ecclesiology. Perhaps my two greatest contributions were to explore the learning work of the Church for all ages and to extend the process of networking with our local community at deeper levels.

At one stage, Sunday School became Sunday Club and with additional leadership took on new energy and grew. We had a group of youngsters (Bilbrook and Codsall together), though as often happens, with an exodus to university the heart goes out of things for a while. One residential weekend at Dovedale had to be postponed because of Dovedale being marooned in snow, and so were Viv and I in Cornwall! We later managed several weekends at Shepherds Buildings in Burnhill Green. We adopted Michael Newman’s

material for pre and post confirmation work for teenagers and with a number of adult leaders, developed that quite a lot (making friends with the recently opened Children’s Residential Unit in Bilbrook Road at the same time). We also ran House Groups and had two residential weekends at Shallowford that felt like highlights in parish life to me and certainly welded a number of significant ‘later players’ into the church family. The Bishop’s Certificate Course in the Diocese was also launched at this time and people were able to plug into the group run by Bob Cheadle at Penkridge – much to their enjoyment and edification.

We tried to relate with our community in various ways. The children of the area went to a number of First Schools – ours were Lane Green and Birches (whose head was initially Lil Thompson who I had known well for about 15 years). I never got into Lane Green School but took assemblies occasionally at The Birches and I think once at St Nicholas’. Bilbrook Middle Cof E School was my main stamping ground and took assemblies regularly and taught the older classes and some of them would come to a weekday mass from time to time. One member of the congregation was Geoff Bate, Head of Codsall High School and he encouraged contact and helped me to make links with various members of staff and to be involved in things that were going on there, including the Codsall Arts Festival. Codsall Middle School were also welcoming, not having had much contact with local clergy for a bit.

The Codsall Churches worked together over a number of limited things and friendships were good during my time between the clergy. The elderly Roman priest (who used to lend us his monstrance)

grew poorly and died and was replaced by Father (?) whose memory was not good! Bob Morris came as Methodist Minister and we had links with lay people too, who made ecumenical house groups possible. Robert Cotterill (whom I’d known since childhood and who like his father, died tragically young) and Alain and Nicole Anderton, who became life-long friends, worked hard with others at this.

There was a residential home for the elderly in Bilbrook called Bilbrook House. It drew people from across South Staffordshire and at the time I arrived, its residents were people who primarily needed practical care. As the years went on things changed, and more of those coming in already had dementia or alzheimer problems, changing the feel of things. The tradition had been for a fortnightly early Sunday evening service and a weekday Communion service once a month. Hilda Edwards helped and supported the mass (as with many other things). We carried on this pattern, but it seemed less rewarding as time went on. Holy Cross also became the place where Wrottesley Parish Council held its Civic Sundays. My father had been a member of it in earlier years and Colin Bennett was still Clerk. The one year Stan ? from Perton, father of teenage friends…David and ……was Chairman. This was always followed by a ‘reception’ in the Village Hall at Joey’s Lane.

Because Bilbrook had been considerably expanded in the 1930s when Bolton Paul moved to Pendeford from Norwich, many of the people who moved with them or came for work were now in their 70s and 80s. There were also old people’s bungalows etc as part of the 1950s council expansion. There had been a thriving ‘Friendship Club’ meeting in the Church Hall for some years, and part of the priest’s role was to go in each week to say prayers at the start of the meeting and to do a circuit. My brother John’s erstwhile parents in law, Jack and Nancy Ormond were involved in this. The Church Hall also hosted a Rifle Club and Dog Training, and we also started a Friday Luncheon Club. This was a fairly simple soup, bread and cheese affair after the Friday midday Mass, but was an important social contact time for the 20 or so that used to come regularly. There had been a Church Lads Brigade, but that had disappeared by my time. Guides and Scouts met at the Scout Centre in Bilbrook Road and they didn’t seek much contact with the Church. Viv and Dennis Sunley started a small open youth group that lasted for a time.

In my last year in Bilbrook, we initiated an Easter Festival, elements of which have continued ever since. We had the usual procession through the streets on Palm Sunday and then on Easter Day itself, had a service on the Green with a Baptism and Flower Festival in Church and then on the Easter Monday, closed off Church Road and held a Market in the street with Art Competition display in the Church Hall. It didn’t make a lot of money but it certainly put Bilbrook on the map and in 2009 they held their 25th Easter Monday Market – though I’m told that they felt that the same people had been organising and doing much of the work throughout that period.

The regular pattern of pastoral work exposed me to a whole variety of experiences, some of which seemed quite scary at the time. There were people who had long term psychiatric problems who needed love and time; people whose marriages were on the rocks and those who felt that they could start again. One couple were in a violent relationship with each other – the wife once spent a night with us because there was nowhere else, and we had to hide the sharp knives because of threats of self-harm. We couldn't persuade her to stay away from him. The manager of the Children’s Unit was prosecuted for child abuse and a member of the congregation lived with us for nine months after being sacked from his (residential) job after a charge for which no evidence was presented in court. Two church couples had babies who didn’t live for very long and people were widowed and bereaved. The other side of it was that people came to faith or to a newness of faith and found that it could be expressed through the life and ministry of the church in the area. We were well blessed in this respect.

We had Ena Lawrence as a member of the congregation. Ena, in her 70s then, was a Deaconness ordained in Lahore who on her return (with some sort of breakdown) came to live with her former Guide leader Dorothy Westwood in Bilbrook, and supervised cleaners at New Cross Hospital until

she retired. Her ministry locally hadn’t, I think, been encouraged very much and although preaching wasn’t her thing, I encouraged her to do so occasionally and she had a wonderful pastoral ministry to individuals backed up with deep intercessory prayer. I couldn’t have coped without the service cover offered by Frs George Parker and John Gear. A teacher called John Wheeler came to Bilbrook Middle who was a Reader and lived at Perton. But his attendance at worship was spasmodic. Before I left, both Robin Whitehouse and Phil Bryett had been trained and licensed as Readers and thankfully, the Bishop would now licence lay people to take Communion to the housebound. We had as many as 16 -18 home communicants which meant that when having to do it all myself, two or three mornings of every week seemed to be monopolised by this. We’d provided a placement for John Hipkins who was training for priesthood at Queen’s Birmingham. Their family had worshipped at Codsall and after some fallout with Gilbert had moved to Tettenhall. John was deaconed and went off to a Newcastle under Lyme parish, but then fell out with his Vicar and they came back to their Codsall house and turned up on the doorstep asking for ‘refuge’. I got into trouble with Gilbert (rightly) for not having consulted him about it, but Bishop Kenneth licensed him for a limited period to Bilbrook under my direction and eventually he went off to start again in Derby diocese. His daughter Jenny got married at Holy Cross, wearing Viv’s wedding dress. Their son James later lodged midweek at Boley Close whilst working in Lichfield.

There were some very significant members of the congregation in my time whose memory I value. One of the absolute giants was Hilda Edwards. She was totally prayerful and had a remarkable ministry to the tiny tots (whom she happily cared for on a carpet at the back of Church throughout the main service), in her attendance at daily offices and mass and perhaps most especially in her care and charge of her totally feckless neighbours (let's call them) May, April and ‘little’ April Head. She managed their finances and shopping, kept them clean and cared for and provided the wherewithal for them to have social interaction with others. May was April's mother-in-law (her son had hung himself); April had been terribly scarred in some accident and later married an equally inadequate man, twenty years younger than herself. ‘Little’ April, who had learning needs, met and got pregnant and married (or the other way round, I forget now) and had a baby who was certainly on the ‘care’ register, and had to spend quite a lot of time in Penn Hospital. At some point May died, the only time in my ministry I’ve said the words of commendation and the person has then drawn their last breath and expired. The other person who initially was most regular through the week was 'Teresa' who had become unwittingly addicted to valium before they realised the dangers and who then decided that she would take herself straight off them, with disastrous results. From that point on, she was never to be seen. The two wardens when I was appointed, Graham Johns and Peter Bowen were excellent and so was the Organist Brian Bishop who accompanied hymns more sensitively than I’ve ever known any one else doing. Brian’s wife Pat was really generous at the time our girls were born, in providing ready cooked food etc. The Sacristan for my first few years was Stephen Ashpole, who was exploring whether he had a vocation to priesthood and seeing Geoffrey Wynne (the DDO). He had a real struggle whilst working full-time, in gathering first ‘O’ and then ‘A’ levels and I’ve never known anyone have more persistence. Mike and Rosemary Fox and their two children arrived within our first year and they brought dimensions that Bilbrook hadn’t experienced before, of Iona and other influences. They played a major role in children’s, teenage and then adult educational work. I was amazed that at the next Annual Meeting, they nominated and elected Mike as a Warden when so new to the congregation.

Mike Spragg was widowed and he, Rebecca and Richard had to adjust in all sorts of ways, but with Jill (whom he married in 1985) and their daughter Kathryn, have continued to play a truly significant part in the church’s work ever since. Mike is godfather to our daughter Catherine and Viv, godmother to Kathryn. The Whitehouses and the Neales, Ray Schofield and Sybil Johnston, the Bryetts, Rosemary Smith, in earlier years Ted Hill and his family, and a group of teachers from Birchfield School, especially Clive Russell, together with many others, produced a vibrant and energetic multi-talented group. In later years, both Dennis Sunley and Mike Fox were trained for ordination and priested.

Towards the end of our time there, it was decided that work had to be done on the Church Hall if it was to continue to be of use to us and to others. Not quite everyone agreed with this, but some of the work (especially re-flooring) was done ‘in house’ and the toilet and kitchen end of the building was knocked down, rebuilt and re-equipped.

All Sundays I took three services and twice a month I took four, because of going to St Peter’s Codsall Wood. They had been a bit neglected for a long time and so for them, having the same person regularly who would also visit and chivvy them a bit and get them to feel involved, was stimulus that they welcomed. There were about 20 of them, most elderly (though one with teenage sons and another with children in 20s and 30s) and they were educated and well to do. Among them was a Brewery Chairman, a retired solicitor, a land-owner/farmer/squire, a retired County Council Chief Exec., several business men and one of my own former teachers. They formed a social circle as well as worshipping together and some happy times were had by all! They were very generous when we left!

Gilbert Smith retired in 1983 and I worked across the parish during the twelve months of the interregnum. It was very good experience for me, to work more closely with Wardens and to help to inform the PCC’s thinking about the parish’s future. There were those at St Nicholas’ who were alert to the Bilbrook developments and growth and wanted to share in similar things. I tried to give occasional offices there a slightly more personal feel and there were moving experiences like the dying and funeral of Robbie McGookin, a 16 year old who had struggled with leukaemia for some years. There was also the nightmare inducing experience of referring to one person throughout her funeral by her sister in law’s Christian name rather than her own, that made me realise that more attention to detail was vital! The interregnum ended with the appointment of Arthur Williams, and everyone was pleased about that.

Bilbrook provided me with my first experience of congregational leadership and responsibility for its management. I didn’t come to it without previous experience, but now I was living it. The Diocese was helpful in providing in-service training opportunities and at this time I was included in a new venture, a course sponsored by Lichfield, Birmingham and Coventry called ‘Ministry, Management and Administration’, run by the present Bishop of Exeter (Michael Langrish), a former army officer and head of personnel at Austin-Rover and Ian Bennett, who was eventually to be my predecessor but one in Newcastle. At Bilbrook, we had a newly established District Church Council that needed good chairing, secretarial accuracy and inciveness and eventually, a move towards committee working, so that smaller groups of people were empowered to determine what should be done and be able to get on and do it, within the overall policy direction of the DCC. This has been a pattern that I have repeated in subsequent parishes.

But key to all of this was discerning people’s gifts, developing confidence and allowing people to give of their best in whichever area of mission suited them. From me, it required a capacity to enable the sharing of vision, good admin skills, support, mentoring and trust. All of these were put to use here, in Wood Green and Tettenhall Wood and formed the basis of expertise which allowed me to apply for the Newcastle Continuing Ministerial Development Adviser’s job.

One of the harder lessons to learn is this sort of approach occasionally produces a backlash, especially from those whose vision is different and/or who have become used to exercising a power and a form of influence of their own. Ideally we want a ‘win-win’ situation in such circumstances, but there has to be a willingness on all sides for that to be possible, and that isn’t always present. Then something has to give, and it would be wrong and inappropriate for any parish priest (who has, after all, been entrusted with the leadership) after proper consultation and agreement with wardens etc, to allow determined divisiveness to continue. I have with regret, to acknowledge that in most of my parishes, there have been one or two people who have decided ultimately to worship elsewhere (or not at all).

On my arrival at Bilbrook, I was involved with the Diocesan Youth Committee in mounting an all night event in the Cathedral called ‘Dragonfly’, and later we had a more local Deanery event at Brewood. It became the time for big events and I was involved in organising two Diocesan days at Stafford County Showground. Other involvements included leading groups at the Clergy Conference and becoming the Conference’s sacristan, which I did I think, three times. Denis Rutt was my spiritual director at this time and I was learning more from him about attentive prayer and had discovered the joys of staying at Ty Mawr with the Society of the Sacred Cross. I took a small group there on one occasion from Bilbrook.

At the time and in fact since, our time at Holy Cross and in the parish of Codsall seems to have been one of the most fruitful times in my ministry. It seemed non-stop work, and yet family life meshed with it in very satisfying ways. Before Viv finished teaching, we had invested what capital we had in buying 4 Boley Close, Lichfield. Maintaining two homes financially was undoubtedly a strain (and Viv’s Dad helped us with a contribution that was equivalent to the gas bill each quarter until the time he died) but it gave us space and time and quiet and the possibility of a bit of uninterrupted family life each week. We aimed to decamp there on Friday afternoons and came back early on Saturday evenings. It helped to make a great deal of the rest of it realisable, and this was for us, a time of deep blessing.

I can recall a deep sense of loss on my last Sunday at Holy Cross, when distributing Communion to a group of people whom I loved and had tried to serve. Saying ‘goodbye’ and moving on was harder there than perhaps in later posts – I thought that we had travelled a long way together.

This photograph (by Mike Spragg) was taken on Easter Day 2014, after spending Holy Week a Holy Cross