Father E. Golston.
Before I start this story, I have to tell you that I am an Atheist. I have tried to believe, but I have failed. I know it may be comforting to have a god and the hope of an afterlife that you can put your faith in, but I can’t. I wonder what I would do with my time for the next five billion years before the sun turns into a red giant and engulfs planet Earth if I one day wake up in heaven?
Alternatively, if I end up in hell, the devil might greet me with a smile and the words “Well Bernard, this must come as a bit of a shock”.
Never-the-less, I often find myself giving thanks to the vast unfathomable universe for my existence, for my family and friends, and my life in Mallorca. Still, no way do I believe that the universe cares one iota whether I exist or not. It seems it’s just human nature to create a deity of some sort to try to explain the great mystery of it all. I have no problem with people of faith, providing that they don’t try to force any of their various gods onto me. Having said all that, despite the reputation of the Catholic church regarding their treatment of children, abortion, contraception and other things. I can honestly say that my life has been better for once knowing a Catholic priest.
Farther Edmund Golston took up his position as the parish priest in Woburn Sands in February 1939, ten years before I was born. At that time services were held in an old 1914-18 army hut on the corner of Wood Street and Theydon Avenue. The hut had been donated by a parish in the diocese of St Albans after they bought a disused nonconformist chapel. I understand, before that services were held in the Club Room of the Fir Tree pub, at the bottom of Aspley Hill. The proprietor Brigadier Beresford was by chance a Catholic. I remember going to the hut with my parents and my sister Helen. It was closed in July 1956 when St Mary’s, the new church, was opened on the top of Aspley Hill. Half the money for the new church was donated by a Miss Christine Chichester from Portlaw, County Waterford, Ireland, after her death in May 1951. That in itself was coincidental as my father came from Waterford. To my knowledge, Father Golston never met Miss Chichester. He communicated with her by letter for some years, and she decided his desire to build a church was a cause worthy of her support.
Looking like a rural French pastor in a black cassock, black beret and black-rimmed spectacles, rain or shine, he would ride around his parish on a large-wheeled bicycle to care for his flock. Eventually, in the early sixties, the congregation secretly collected enough money to buy him a new Ford Anglia car and a course of driving lessons. Before this, he would peddle the three miles from Woburn Sands to the Marston Valley Brick Company housing estate of Brogborough. There he gave the Catholic children of imegrents instruction in the Catechism, classes in the basic principles of Christianity. However, Fr Golston’s ideas on religious education were a little unorthodox. He wanted us to understand the values rather than learn words like parrots. One day, I remember, he asked me what religion I was. This seemed a strange question to a boy from an Irish family.
“I’m a Catholic father” I replied confidently. He asked me the question again and got the same answer. After the third time and getting the same response, as if praying for guidance, he put the tips of his fingers together on his lips and closed his eyes. Following a pause for dramatic effect, he opened his eyes shook his head slightly and said.
“No, Bernard. First, you are a Christian”. This was a revolutionary concept to me in late 1950s England.
On another occasion, he presented me with a conundrum about morals.
“Bernard, imagine there is a tribe who live in a really harsh desert. These people have to travel constantly foraging to find enough food and water to survive, if they don’t, then they will all die. When members of the tribe become too sick or old to keep up with the tribe, they are left to die in the desert. What do you think about that?”
“They should look after the sick and old people Father, it’s terrible to abandon them” I replied.
He repeated the exact same facts and posed the same question once more. My response was the same. This time he never gave me the answer, he just let me think about it. It was years later that I realised that he was trying to get me to understand that I should not judge people by my own standards and to try to see things from their perspective.
The man taught me that despite the ‘conventional wisdom’ you should always follow your own conscience. He used the example of the Duke of Norfolk who showed Sir Thomas More a list of the noblemen who had agreed that Henry VIII’s marriage to Anne Boleyn was legitimate. Norfolk then asked More to do the same and ‘come along with them for fellowship’. More’s reply was:
“And when we die, and you are sent to heaven for doing your conscience, and I am sent to hell for not doing mine, will you come with me, for fellowship?”.
Mind you, I don’t believe I would follow my conscience if it meant, like More, having my head cut off.
When I was about eighteen, I became agnostic, I stopped going to church. When Sandy and I were married, and our daughter Tayrne came along, we discused whether we should have her christened. At that time, we lived in Flitwick, and I worked in Bletchley. There were several ways I could travel home from work and sometimes I would take a route through Woburn Sands. One evening while pondering the question of Tayrne’s christening on my way home, I stopped off at St Mary’s. The church was always unlocked so anyone could go in. I entered and sat in a pew, the place was bright and peaceful, and it brought back fond memories of my childhood. I decided then to walk up to the rectory. I knocked on the door. There stood Father Golston, now much older than I remembered him. He peered through his big black-rimmed spectacles for a moment, then took my hand in a firm grip.
“Bernard!” he said “It’s been such a long time. How are you? Come in”.
We went into his office and sat down. He asked what he could do for me. I told him I was now married, Sandy, my wife was Church of England, we had a baby girl, and I wanted to talk to him about having her baptised. He reached up and pulled down a large red ledger, opened it and took up a pen.
“When would you like it done?” he asked.
“That’s the problem, Father,” I said, “I’m not sure that I do want it done”.
He closed the book and put it away. When he looked back at me, his old eyes sparkled with a mischievous smile.
“This is wonderful.” he said “You’re the first person who has ever come in here and said that to me. Let’s talk about it”.
I stayed with him for over an hour. I can’t remember what he said to me, but when I got back into my car to drive home I thought ‘I must have my daughter Christened’.
Sometime later, Sandy and I returned, with Tayrne, to discuss the event. We all decided that Tayrne would be baptised a Christian. Father Golston asked if he could do the baptism the ‘old way’ by full immersion. He had always wanted to do that but, no one would ever let him. Sandy agreed, and he told her she was a wonderful Christian.
On the day in November, it was so cold that we had to warm the holy water. Unfortunately, the assistant poured a kettle of boiling water in first, cracking the empty font with a loud ‘click’. We had to find a large sheet of polythene to line the font and refill it first with cold and then hot water to bring it to a comfortable temperature for the baptism. Father Golston wrote to us later, thanking us and saying it was one of the happiest and loveliest baptisms he had ever done.
Father Edmund J Golston was the parish priest of St Mary’s Woburn Sands for 46 years. He retired in 1985 and is of course now dead. I am grateful and for sure a better person for having known him.