Father Simon describes his life and the journey of faith that has led him to the Waveney Valley
Photo: Mary Kirk
“I was born on 10 August 1955 (at home) at 92, Whyteleafe Hill, Whyteleafe, Surrey, just opposite to the main gates to Kenley aerodrome, the third child of Roger and Peggy Blakesley who were originally from the Woodford Green area of Essex. They had moved ‘south of the river’ after my older brothers Paul (September 1948 and Stephen December 1952) had been born. I was baptised at the church of the Sacred Heart in Caterham and made my first confession, first Holy Communion there, was confirmed in and later said my first Mass in that wonderful church. I do know what it is to love one church as a spiritual home!
Steve, Simon and Paul
We grew up in Number 92 until we moved in 1960 to Colburn Avenue in Caterham where I attended St Francis Primary School. My father, who had been commissioned in the Royal Navy during the war, was in the paper manufacturing business (APM), the London sales rep for two specialist paper mills in Scotland. In 1963 1 started at Laleham Lea Preparatory School in Peaks Hill, Purley where we were successfully crammed with the requisite knowledge to pass the Eleven Plus and enter the John Fisher School, a diocesan-run grammar school for boys. Half of the staff were diocesan priests of the diocese of Southwark, so I had regular contact with some ordinary, and some indeed extraordinary diocesan priests. It was here that the germ of the idea of becoming a priest emerged, partly because whatever else I did in life I had promised myself that I would never commute on a passenger train between the London suburbs and the city — those carriages, in my daily Caterham to Purley journey, were filled with the antithesis of joy and I vowed to escape such drudgery!
Under the influence of some motivated and strongly principled priests I began to take an interest in theology and as my A levels were not particularly inspiring me (Geography, Economics and French) this led me towards applying to the diocese of Arundel and Brighton to study for the priesthood. I don’t recall all the details of the application process, but I was accepted at the age of 17 to study at the Venerable English College in Rome and arrived there in early September 1973, carried on a bright pink ‘Court Lines’ BACIII jet to Rome Ciampino. The English College was a heady mix of bright sparks and ordinary young lads such as myself, but the cultural and gastronomic richness of the city could not be doubted. I did reasonably well with the first years of philosophy, all taught in Italian, but as theological studies started I think that my relative immaturity began to show and in May 1977 1 agreed with the seminary staff that I should leave formation for a time, and, as one of my spiritual advisers at that time put it, ‘cut across country’…
So I arrived back in England around the time of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee and visited friends at university in Cambridge and tried to work out what to do. I was accepted to read philosophy at Edinburgh but found that I was no longer eligible for a mandatory grant as I had been in higher education for more than two years even though the course in Rome was not recognised or paid towards by Surrey County Council. I therefore found some work in a volunteer role with Sister Mary Garson’s nursing home at Cross in Hand in East Sussex. There was a lay community of volunteers called ‘Shalom’, and I worked there for eight months while making an application to train as a nurse. I was accepted at the Middlesex Hospital in Mortimer Street (London WI) and started my training there in Autumn 1978. General nursing in a well-respected London Teaching Hospital was a challenging experience but there are many great stories to tell, most of them nearly respectable. My idea had been not to give up on becoming a priest, but to do something that would lead to a solid qualification in three years and keep me independent of my parents and able to live my own life.
I qualified as an SRN in September 1981 and was the winner of the Fardon Bronze Medal for Nursing for that year, somebody had to come third! After staffing for eight months on a vascular surgical ward, I moved to a post-surgical ITU unit in Southampton. From there I went on to do a JBCNS Course in Accident & Emergency Nursing at St. Peter’s Hospital in Chertsey and, after a short spell doing night-duty back at the Middlesex, I found a staff nurse’s job at the A&E at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading. After a year there I was promoted to Charge Nurse (ie ‘Sister’ level), but I had been making tentative enquiries to return to a seminary.
My original diocese of was unwilling to take me back, so I touted myself around several bishops before arriving on a wet February afternoon at Archbishop’s House in Westminster to see Bishop Alan Clark who was at a hierarchy meeting there. We found a cramped photocopying room in the bowels of the offices and he agreed to send me, selection conference willing, to seminary for a trial year to see if I had grown up (in a nutshell!). So, in September 1986 1 arrived at Ushaw College, Durham and was put into Year Three which already contained 26 students, mainly from the North of England. I managed well, being recruited – unsurprisingly – as the infirmarian, and managed the theological studies much better than before and made steady progress.
In the Spring of 1989 as I was approaching ordination to the diaconate, I received a letter from Bishop Alan asking me to go to St Paul University in Ottawa to study for the two-year Licentiate in Canon Law. I remember being taken out for lunch in Cambridge by a very young Fr Eugene Harkness who told me what to expect in wintry Ontario. I found that I took well to the studies and again met some extraordinary priests who are sometimes quoted in my homilies. Sadly, however, both my parents were failing in their health as I was across the Pond and after my diaconate ordination in Ushaw in June 1989 they both started to require treatment for cancer (they had both been heavy smokers…).
On ordination to the Diaconate, with godfather Denis O’Riordan and mother Peggy (to the left) and father Roger and aunt Terry O’Riordan (to the right)
I finished the first year of studies at the end of April 1990 and returned to England to organise my ordination to the priesthood at Our Lady the English Martyrs for 2 June 1990. That was a really great day, but my mother was already showing signs of cerebral metastases and her sister was shocked to see just how ill she was. Dad was also suffering but was staying strong for mum. I was appointed to help out in Bury St. Edmund’s with Fr John Drury for the summer of 1990 but was often piling around the M25 back to Caterham to see mum. She died on 30 August, and on the day of her funeral I went with dad to see the GP who told him that he had widespread bony metastases. Not the best day of my life.
The first blessing of priesthood: brother Steve and sister-in-law
So, in fact, as I had returned to Canada to study later in September (the University faculty was superb in not docking me any credits…) after mum’s funeral but returned at Christmas to spend that with dad. He collapsed shortly before I had to return in January and was admitted to a care home, but I was called home at the end of January as he had been taken into hospital and he spent his last days in a Marie Curie Nursing Home just a few hundred yards from home in Caterham and he died on the 25 February 1991. So, the first two funerals I conducted as a priest were my mother’s and then my father’s. I don’t recommend it.
I managed to get back to Ottawa for March and April and complete my ‘comps’ – the Comprehensive Oral Examination at the end of the licentiate (equivalent to a Master’s degree) in Canon Law. I returned to the diocese in May 1991 and took over from one Fr Pat Cleary in Thetford as he went to South America to study Spanish so as to be able to work for the Missionary Society of St. James. Déjä vu! I was only there for the summer and went in October to St. George’s in Norwich to be second curate (yes, I do remember when some parishes had three priests!). I was there with Fr Philip Shryane and Fr Laurie Locke until 1995 when Bishop Peter Smith appointed me to St. Benet’s Beccles, a Benedictine parish that need a diocesan priest to care for it. After various uncertainties I stayed there until 2003 when I was moved to Diss in Norfolk.
In Diss I saw the opportunity to build a complete new church, essentially by selling the existing site for development and buying a plot of land on the outskirts of the town on what developers call an ‘exception site’. But progress was rather slow, and not helped by the vocal opposition of some parishioners who were loyal to my predecessor, who had retired next-door to the presbytery… We did finally get planning permission on 10 August 2007, the very day Northern Rock went down, heralding the financial crisis which changed the whole dynamic of our project considerably for the worse. We persevered, however, and in July 2012 1 moved into the new church of St Henry Morse in Diss.
In the Summer of 2013, after ten years of stress, even though it was successful stress, in Diss I asked Bishop Alan for a move and was happy to accept the parish of Newmarket and Kirtling. The theory was that while there I would build new accommodation for the priest, using my experience of the planning process and of building projects. However, when I arrived I saw the possibility of building more than just a house for the priest, but several units including NVO flats for retired priests, but I was never able to persuade Bishop Alan of the vision I had and we continued to disagree; for four years. Then Bishop Alan asked me to see him and explained that he wanted to offer Fr Pat at St Laurence’s Cambridge a smaller parish, and would I take over the reins in that larger parish? I was very happy to agree.
I should also explain about my extended role in the diocese as I have, with my canon law degree, been running the Marriage Tribunal since 1995 which involves one or two days a week at the offices in Poringland. I was also elected chairman of the Council of Priests and I am a member of the Cathedral Chapter. I have also been involved for more than 30 years with the Catholic Association Lourdes Pilgrimage of which East Anglia has always been a part, and in fact after the Diocesan Synod Together held at St Bede’s in 1987 1 was ‘dragged to Lourdes by the Balls’, Colin and Julie Ball of Great Shelford to be precise, to work as a nurse and fulfilled that role for three years before going as a deacon in 1989. I am now the Pilgrimage Director and am really keen to take as many parishioners of ALL AGES to Lourdes. I am also the chairman of trustees of the Diocesan Dependent Priests Fund and we manage a fund worth approximately £2,000K to help care for our priests in need. I am also a director of the Our Lady of Walsingham Catholic Multi-Academy Trust and so already have a strategic role in the future direction of St. Laurence’s Primary School. I am also currently a member of the Executive Committee of the Canon Law Society of Great Britain and Ireland and this involves some meetings away as well as the annual conference in May. I also have a deep interest in human development, and the impact of pre- and perinatal influences on the growing psychosomatic whole which is us!
So, what do I do if and when I get a chance to draw breath? I have my faithful Labrador, Bentley, who is 12 and though an elder statesman now still has the spirit of a puppy. I enjoy a pint (or two) of Adnam’s bitter (but not Greene King IPA) and do the cryptic crossword in the Telegraph. I also play bridge to a dubious standard, but haven’t done so socially for years. I like good food and wine, and if you are wondering what my favourites are I prefer white wine (but not Sauvignon Blanc) (is this man FUSSY or what?) and do not drink bottled beers as these are completely, almost ontologically, different to draught cask ales. In recent years my holidays have taken me on the Camino de Santiago and between 2015 and 2017 1 walked from Toulouse to Santiago (in three goes) which is about 1400 kilometres.
Of my remaining family, my oldest brother Paul, who lived in Melbourne Australia, has just died. My middle brother Steve is a retired teacher living with his wife and dog and two cats in Rhosesmor, North Wales and they have two grown-up children living.
It is with great pleasure that I accepted the request of Bishop Peter Collins to take up the appointment of parish priest. Many of you may remember me from my first appointment to the parish in Beccles by our first Bishop Peter from 1995 to 2003. I am fully aware of the many challenges that will face us as these communities move along the Synodal Pathway that has been laid down for us by our Holy Father Pope Francis to follow in the service of the Gospel and of the wider church in the world.
There is of course more to my journey in faith, and no doubt that will emerge as we get to know one another better.”