Greg and Sylvia, who attend St Thomas More, are active in the service of God and the Church. Sylvia is a parish safeguarding rep, offers Children’s Liturgy and much more, and is a CAFOD volunteer. Greg, formerly parish treasurer, provides music for the chapel together with his daughter Jo.
Sylvia – I was born in Ipswich on 29 September 1959 into a working-class background. My Dad was at that time a welder, one of several different jobs he held throughout his lifetime.
I am the oldest of four, I have two brothers and one sister. We were brought up as regular Church goers at the local Anglican church. I passed the Eleven Plus and attended Northgate Grammar School for Girls staying on to do A levels in the sixth form which is where I met Greg.
Greg – By birth I am a Cornishman being born in Redruth on 1 January 1960. However, as my Dad was a photographer in the RAF we moved around to different bases including one in Gibraltar. After injuring his back unloading large cameras from aeroplanes he left the service and joined Dixons Photographic. It was moving with this company that brought us finally to roost in Ipswich in 1968. My Mum was from a Liverpudlian Catholic family. She was determined that her children should not be put through a Catholic education, having herself spent several years boarding in a convent following the premature death of her own mother. Dad was originally Anglican and joined the Catholic Church en masse with his mother and brother as a child.
We attended St Mark’s Church in Ipswich which was run by Franciscans of whom we have very fond memories. The most exciting thing that happened at church when I was a child was when my fellow altar server’s cotta caught alight and his mother rushed onto the altar to extinguish the flames rising up his back!
Having passed the Eleven Plus I too went to Northgate Grammar School although the two schools were very separate entities. God forbid that the girls and boys should fraternise!
After reasonable O level results I too joined the sixth form which became co-ed that year. That was when I met Sylvia and we started ‘going out’.
A level results were not spectacular for either of us, and so a university education did not beckon. Sylvia joined the civil service, the Department of Health and Social Security. it was meant to be a temporary measure. She planned a career in the Probation Service but college training and admission could only be started in your twenties. Life experience was important then. Greg joined the Nat West Bank.
In 1981 we decided to get engaged to be married in April of 1982. This prompted Sylvia to start the process of converting to Catholicism. Whilst her moral compass was fully in line with the Church, being of an argumentative nature much of the liturgical aspects had to be debated at length. This eventually led to Fr Patrick Lonsdale reducing the number of weeks being instructed on the official documentation!
We found a house in Ipswich, for Greg to be told to put plans on hold as the bank intended to move him. It took them up until six weeks prior to our wedding date to decide upon Norwich. Amazingly, we were able to find a house and get completion the week after our wedding. Cutting short our honeymoon, we spent the first night camping in our new house on the floor.
We have three children. Timothy, our eldest, has the claim to fame that the church bells in Long Stratton were rung for his baptism, believed to be the first time for a Catholic since the Reformation.
Joanna arrived next, the week after the end of the last really bad winter snow in 1987. Had she arrived earlier Sylvia would have had to be airlifted to hospital as Hempnall was cut off!
In late 1988 we moved from attending Church in Long Stratton to Wortwell as it was decided that Timothy would attend St Edmund’s School. Sylvia especially felt that receiving an education with a Catholic ethos was important and therefore committed herself to twice daily journeys to Bungay.
Last, but by no means least, Rachael arrived in 1991.
The 1990s went by with the children attending school, Greg becoming a bank manager and Sylvia fitting part time jobs in local schools around transporting the children to and from school. Just a normal everyday family life.
At the turn of the millennium Greg took redundancy from NatWest. The bank was going through a process of “downgrading” the local branches and centralising management functions. The choice was to move to another part of the country, with no certainty that the same thing would not happen again, or go. Rather than disrupt the family, the decision was taken to leave.
So what to do next? We decided to use the redundancy money to buy into the Cash Generator franchise and open a shop in Great Yarmouth. 25 years later it is still there and we have a member of staff who has been with us since day one! We expanded our “empire” to another shop in Thetford in 2010, but this we closed during lockdown in 2020.
In the early 2000s Sylvia was persuaded by the late Bob Goodyear to join a HCPT group to Lourdes. From the first visit she became more and more involved, becoming the deputy leader of the Cambridge group. Several of our fellow parishioners benefited from joining these pilgrimages both as helpers and the helped.
At Lourdes, with some much-missed parishioners
HCPT is a registered charity offering pilgrimage holidays for disabled and disadvantaged people. Every Easter around 1000 children enjoy a fun and safe week in Lourdes staying in hotels with their volunteer helpers. In summer more than 1500 people, many with disabilities or life-limiting conditions, enjoy a week at HCPT’s Hosanna House in Bartrès.
Sylvia says, “This was one of the biggest things in my life, what I am most proud of. I had to take responsibility for the care of these lovely people. It was wonderful – the camaraderie. I looked after a couple with profound disabilities who came on the pilgrimages over the eight years I was involved. We went to Rome as well and were presented to the Pope.
As I am a ‘Martha’ and not a ‘Mary’ this type of service suited me; I haven’t much time for deep and meaningful – your faith is shown through actions – not ‘bells and smells’ I just hope the Lord agrees when it is time! For this reason, St Thomas More serves us admirably. For me it’s all about the community and looking after each other, It’s how the spirit works, we are his mouthpiece.”
And so to now – We are lucky to have a good manager running the day to day aspects of the shop, leaving us semi-retired, just looking after the financials and admin.
More and more time is now devoted to looking after our grand children, so their parents can work. Add to this the recent arrival of Greg’s parents to Norwich who need caring for and there is not too much time to do much else.
One of the great joys, though, is seeing our daughters and their children attending St Thomas More helping to keep the spark of life glowing in our church.
