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Hello, this is Carmen Manchin. It's the 12th of February, 2024, and I'm here in Thirsk. And can you tell me your name? Elizabeth Baxter. And your place of birth and your date of birth?

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I was born in Chingford, Essex, on the 23rd of August, 1949. And can you tell me a bit about what your parents did for work? Yes, my father ended up being quite high up in the Midland Bank from becoming a clerk, a tea boy really, when he was about 16, so he worked his way up.

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And my mother, once she was married, left work and became a house hospitality, you know, house carer, wonderful mother to her three children. And where are you in the order of the children? Right in the middle, between two boys.

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And can you tell me a bit about your education, your primary and secondary education? Yes, so I went to Church of England Primary School. I was a very naughty girl, but amazingly passed my 11+, which the family were not expecting. So I went to Walthamstow High School, grammar school, which is where my mother had been actually.

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But I struggled, and in those days you had the opportunity to go to technical colleges, and I wish I'd done that really. I would have been happier, and I was always the bottom of the class really. So I did go into the lower sixth, but was unhappy, it was all girls,

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I wasn't interested in all girls either, and we were treated very... I wanted to walk tall really, so I played up a lot. So I left, and then I went to Waltham Forest Technical College, where it was mixed, and adults, and I just flew.

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And I got more O-levels as we got then, and did well, and so on. And I did a pre-nursing course, knowing a sense of wanting to be alongside people. But anyway, that... Can you tell me a bit about how faith was lived in your family?

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Yes, so my parents, I would say because bankers then always went to work on Saturdays, so the only time my father had off really was a Sunday, and a bit of a Saturday afternoon. So they didn't go to church, because that was the day for the allotment, and cleaning the oven, and all those things, because there wasn't much time,

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and also banking exams, but they sent us to Sunday school. But it was genuine, they were both fairly religious, in their own way. I think it was genuine Times stuff, really. And then we went to Crusader Bible class, all three of us, where I played up again.

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It did become very rebellious, but I also had a deep sense of something, but I couldn't... I think I was frustrated because I couldn't name it. There were no role models of women. I couldn't work out what it was, and therefore I played up.

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I think that's what it was, and because I was stuck between two boys who were very bright, and it was assumed that they would go to university, and so on, and it was assumed from me that I wouldn't, really. So what did you do after you left technical college?

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Okay, so I actually married when I was 20, and between technical college and then I was care assistant in elderly people's home, which I absolutely loved, youth work and things like that, and then I started to train... well, no, sorry, I married,

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and then later I trained as a youth and community worker, because I was community-based, and young people, and so on. Sorry, I was going to go into nursing, got my uniform for the London hospital, and so on, but felt this isn't what I should be doing, and again, I didn't have any role models,

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but in the end I did what I think a lot of women did in my situation, I married a minister, and that is because it's the nearest you could get to what you felt was something you needed to be, not just to do, but to be. But fortunately it worked out well, and we had almost 50 years together.

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Yes, but I think quite a lot of women did that. So I married when I was 20, we worked together in all sorts of situations, and I trained and then developed my ministry. So how did you meet your husband?

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Well, I think it was during a time of searching for... I was quite an active... I sort of became quite an active Christian through, I suppose, a fairly typical evangelical conversion experience. But there was something there before that,

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but it was the only way I could sort of find my way through, and I met him at various things I went to, but was very impressed with things I heard him say, and I felt, oh, this is somebody I need to get to know.

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So yes, it's quite a long story. So you were attracted to his faith as much as... Oh yeah, no, yes, very definitely, yes, very definitely, yes. And was he of an evangelical fame?

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Well, in a way, but always open to change when you see things, and I was as well, and we kind of found ourselves on a journey moving from one thing to another to another to another. And yes, so quite interesting, but that's for another interview.

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Yes, yes, interesting. In terms of your own kind of feelings about vocation and ministry, how does that play out in your life? How did you begin that journey?

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Well, I think I would want to take it back to when I was about three. I was kind of very reflective. I had a godfather who was a Quaker. I discovered later he was a conscientious objector,

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but I felt he treated me, well, how I would understand it then, like a lady, even when I was small, because he'd bring me flowers when he came to stay. I think he was probably gay, in retrospect,

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and there was something about him which made me feel quite good about myself, and that linked with my spirituality, a bit of an embodiment thing. So he was very important, and I had a very good upbringing and happy upbringing.

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Parents who loved me, I've always experienced love, which is why I think I've stayed working in this particular house for 31 years with so many people who've never had love. Because I have, I can hold that pain, perhaps.

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So I was always seeking, longing, but it was also to do with the feminine, and I couldn't find that. I wasn't sure where to find that, you see. So I was always kind of on the lookout to feel something.

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So when I came into what I would perhaps refer to as a kind of living faith, where all my rebellion stuff went into this kind of new love, as it were, I then was very open to something,

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but of course I kept hitting brick walls, really. But not with the person who was going to be my husband. He was open and saw this in me, and always encouraged, so that was wonderful.

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And my parents always encouraged me, too, in their own way. Yes, so it was there, really. So it was something from the time you were three that you were searching for?

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Yes, without realising I was searching for it, but yes, I always, when I look back, and I think I feel the same things now. You know, I'm almost 75, and I think I still feel

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that kind of longing and yearning for that, which hopefully I've touched in on. But it's the mystery, really. And I wasn't prepared to be told,

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this is what I must believe. I was always looking, finding through, and always wanting to share it with other people along the way. And another thing that was interesting for me

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when I look back, because I'm writing a little bit about my life and my husband's life, I'm putting that together. It's very interesting, and even at school

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I used to get the girls together. I remember I had a Weeping Willow Tree Club, where the girls would gather at the Weeping Willow Tree, and I would kind of hold that space.

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And when I think back, I had quite a lot of those things through my life when I was a girl, growing up. And I don't know why that was,

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because I wasn't actually shy, but I never felt I was a leader at all. But there was that something, drawing people together in community,

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and women, girls, and then women later, and I'm still doing that today. So women in theology, women's groups, women's spirituality courses, you know, gathering women.

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Yes, because I think I just found the harshness of something outside of that not acceptable and wanted to try. But I mean, I didn't know how to word it,

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but I did do it, which is quite interesting, really, thinking about it. Without those models of how to do it. Yes, I didn't have any models,

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so I didn't know anything about nuns or communities or Hildegard of Bingen or Julian of Norwich. Nobody told me anything. Although at Crusader Bible Class,

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we did learn about people like Amy Carmichael and some of the missionaries, the missionary women, because they went out, of course, to the pagan people, didn't they?

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And particularly to little black children, all that sort of thing, that kind of teaching, very colonial stuff.

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But these women went out, and many of them were single. So that did, and we used to sometimes have plays about them, and I always wanted to take the lead role,

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which is interesting. Yes, that is. So from those beginnings, how does your ministry unfold?

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How does that sense of what you're meant to be doing, how does it become clearer? So I always worked, my husband and I, Stanley and I, always worked together.

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So he was a minister, free church minister at that stage, various different free church situations. That's another story. And I was always working.

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I was very full of love for God and wanting to share it. So I was sort of doing quite a lot. East End of London, I would go visiting all the flats on my own. I wasn't scared at all.

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I'd go visiting, visiting, telling people, you know, about God, I suppose, and that sort of thing. So there was a great fervour there. It got stronger and stronger.

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And yes, I was very careful not to tell people what to believe, but I was always very aware of that. So I wasn't an out-and-out fundamentalist at all, and I was learning as I went along.

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But from the age of 14 upwards, I was like that really. So I happened to meet my husband when I was about 15, 60, but obviously not in that way. He was older than me.

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And a group of us there at this particular church shared, if you like, what we understood as the gospel, but we were open to change and movement. So I was always busy doing that kind of thing.

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And then I got a job. When I decided not to be a nurse, I left home, not because I was unhappy at home, but I needed my independence, and I moved to London.

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And I went to live in the Baptist Union hostel in Stoke Newington against my parents' wishes. It must have been very painful for them. But they took me on.

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You're supposed to have your parents' permission, but they took the line, well, you're going to move here, I'll look after you here, rather than worry about you being in a certain way.

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But I stayed in a dormitory, because I couldn't afford anything really, in a dormitory of 12 other young women. I learnt a lot. They were from all different nationalities and so on.

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And I got a job in Hackney Old People's Welfare. It's one of those days when you'd knock on the door and say, are there any jobs? And you get one.

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Yes, so I got one straight away. I loved being with the older people. They were Jews, and very old, very poor, mainly women, living in horrific situations in the east end of London.

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And I loved working with them. After six months there, I got a job in the Overseas Missionary Fellowship at Newington Green, which used to be the China Inland Mission.

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And I worked there as a kind of clerk, really, and I met all the missionaries coming back on furlough. I had dinner with them. We sat round tables.

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I learnt about hospitality. My parents taught me a lot about hospitality as well. It was absolutely wonderful, and they accepted me. I was young, I loved clothes,

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and I think I brought a bit of spark to the place, to be honest. But I just loved it, and I learnt so much. And the China Inland Mission came about through Hudson Taylor, a great missionary to China,

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and it was a great love match with his wife Maria. There's a wonderful book called Hudson Taylor and Maria. And I suppose I kind of linked it a bit with Stanley and I, a bit, that there was a kind of a bit of mirroring of something,

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and you used to walk under the arch to go in, and it's still there today. I've got a photo of it in my own writing about this. It says on it,

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have faith in God, which was Hudson Taylor's phrase. And Gladys Aylward, the little woman, the small woman, little woman, Gladys Aylward had walked under that arch to say God was telling her to go to China, and they refused her.

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And then she raised the funds, and she went, and she did the foot binding, stopped the foot binding. So there was a lot of historic interest in women, and that drew me. And I met these wonderful women missionaries,

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and lots of men as well, wonderful, and I learnt a lot. And it was when I was there, living at the hostel, that Stanley and I got engaged. So then we decided we needed to leave London, start afresh.

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And strangely enough, a whole other story, we ended up in Bexhill-on-Sea. And anyway, we did get married in the end, and had our first son, you know, within a year,

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and worked on housing estates, and then I trained as a youth and community worker, and then I had my four children. I had my third baby while I was training.

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Broke all the kind of rules, you know, went for, you know, my interview. I think I was six months pregnant, and a whole row of men behind a big table,

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and they said, well, of course, you know, you'd be very good, Elizabeth, but of course we, you know, we can't, you know, you're having a baby. And so I said, well, I'll just bring the baby with me.

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So anyway, I did, they, in the end, they had to contact the principal, and I took the baby with me for, at Brunel University, and, you know,

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because I was feeding her. So, and then we worked in a big housing estate there, using, well, first of all, church in our house, while we were waiting for the community centre to be built,

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and then I became the warden of the community centre as well, and so that was a whole period of time. So that would have been early 70s? Yes, so we were married in 70.

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My son was born in 72. So when you say you were the warden of this centre, so what, who came to the centre? Well, this, so it's a very big housing estate,

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Pepsham Estate, still there, between Bexhill and Hastings, where lots of people from London were being sent from the council estates. You know, a very difficult one, really.

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And I loved it, and I was running the youth club there, and because I was then trained, they paid me for running what I was doing, and, you know, all the parents and toddlers groups

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and all that stuff, and running all that stuff, and so on, loving it. But we set up church there, called Grace, well, at that stage, it's quite a long story,

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but at that stage, we were in the Lutheran church. So it was called Grace Lutheran Church, on the estate, and in the community centre, and of course, because I used to visit,

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I believed a lot in visiting, I still do, visiting people in their homes, and, you know, the church just grew, and my daughter, first daughter,

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was baptised there on that estate. Yeah, so when they, you know, we were always needing money, we never had any money, but it was a faith project, but when they needed a warden, I applied.

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Unfortunately, I told one of my youth workers in Bexhill Youth Club, not my own, but I was still paid to work there, that I was applying, so he applied,

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and of course, he got it, there was just the two of us, well, that was a gender thing. He wasn't working on the estate, didn't know anything about it, but he got the job, but then it only lasted

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about two, three months, so they called me back in and gave the job to me, so I carried on, until we left Bexhill. So when you're on this estate,

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are there lots of people with faith on the estate? Is that something that you nourished, or something that wasn't there and became part of people's lives? Yes, so I would say, well, there are a lot of older people

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in bungalows, and some of those went to church, I suppose, but yeah, the people from London, in the main, there was nothing really, and I loved meeting people where they were.

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I think I'd always had a kind of love for people, and wanted it to be okay for them, so I have to use these terms very carefully, because they can be misunderstood, I think,

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but I suppose I was a bit of an evangelist, not trying to convert people, but being alongside and creating a sense of presence, where people were awakened, really,

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and would come along, and just, I do think, from the very early stages in my life, I was accepting, I was kind of breaking prejudices, really, without realising, but also having to break it within myself.

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I was converted, I had this conversion experience in the Brethren, lovely people, but of course, you know, well, women can't speak at the Brethren, and this and that and the other,

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so I had to work with all that, and shift all that, and it was actually through discovering the movement for the ordination of women that enabled me to shift it, and that's another part of the story that I can share,

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but I think I was working at that, and of course I had a husband who would encourage me and enable me to, who didn't have that kind of stuff, so I was very fortunate, yes.

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So what is the next move after the community centre? Well, basically, we just couldn't afford to do it anymore, we had to, so we're in this Grace Lutheran Church, but then the English Lutheran Synod,

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which my husband had connected for all kinds of reasons, they're theological, it's about a theological journey, through all sorts of things, very interesting, but he wasn't prepared to go in the Church of England,

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the established church, he was an East End boy, and the establishment and all Torahs and prayer stuff, he just would not go there, so we're trying to find a way where he could be involved in a sort of liturgical church

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of some sort, and I think the Martin Luther, have faith in God, faith not works, all that sort of thing drew him, so anyway, he became a minister in the English Lutheran Church,

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so I followed on, I was busy having children and running all sorts of things, and just followed on really, wasn't particularly interested either way, as long as we can keep our faith thing and work going, ministry,

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and so we were given the opportunity to go to a church where he would have actually a regular salary, it wasn't very much, but it gave a little bit more, didn't want to leave, I have to say,

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we had a wonderful little, a mini villa, sort of two up, one down, in quite a lot of land in the middle of this estate, so we used the land for all sorts of things,

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I mean it was absolutely wonderful, it was magical, it's only just come down that little villa, about seven years ago, six years ago, anyway, so we moved to this place,

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and it was in Corby New Town, Steel Town, so we went from Sussex, fairly near the sea, although we didn't have a car, didn't get to the sea very much

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once we were at Pebsham Housing Estate, but then to Corby, it was horrible, Steel Town, anyway I had another baby, we decided to have another child, it was almost new house, new baby,

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so I had my fourth child there, wonderful, Rebecca, but the steel dust was affecting our second son, with terrible allergies, and I threw myself into it, you know,

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running this and that, and visiting the sick, and doing all this sort of thing, but it was while we were there, that we had an experience,

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again that's a story, I can't go on to it now really, but where we both decided at the same time we have to go in the Church of England, so it was sort of,

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I knew that I need to be in ministry, but I didn't have again any role models, I didn't know anything about Deaconesses, I didn't know anything about priests,

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but Stanley did, and he knew about Deaconesses, so he thought, well, you know the Deaconess, because he knew that it was a life thing for me, I didn't want to just be a parish worker,

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it needed to be a life, it was a vocation, a deep vocation, so I made my first phone call about that, but anyway, we moved from there,

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so, when I write my book, which I've written a lot of now, I think it will be very interesting to people actually, it's amazing really, anyway,

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Did you need a map of all the places you've been? Yes, we went there to, we just had about nine months in West Sussex, where I became a music teacher,

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don't ask me how, but I did, and that's another story, because I'm not a trained teacher, but it brought in a bit of money, and while I was there,

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I was doing things in the community, but it was nice, I baked our bread, I made clothes, I did all that kind of homey stuff as well, and just put out the feelers and did my phone calls,

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and then from there, we went to Leeds, where Stanley became a curate in Leeds, this was 1980 then, so ten years after we married, and took our family there,

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and I had my first conversation about being a deaconess, but to become a deaconess, so I was going to go on the North East Ordination thing, so I applied, and Hugh Malinski was the principal,

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and I met him, and he offered me a place, he was so affirming, but at the interview, he said to me, Elizabeth, you seem to like children,

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and I said, yes I do, yes I like children, he said, well, you just need to make sure you don't have any more, and three years later, just as our commendation day was coming up,

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so I went to make sure I sat next to him at dinner, I said, Hugh, I just want to share something you said to me three years ago, and he said, I'd never say a thing like that, he had so changed,

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and there were six women and sixty men that year, anyway, so I got in and everything, and I passed my ACIM, I think it was then, but, I was thinking I was going in September,

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and I don't know what he was, whether he was an archdeacon, I can't remember, this man asked to come and see me from the diocese or something, and we'd only just moved there,

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and we had a very interesting conversation, and then he was just about to go out, and he turned around and said, Elizabeth, I'm going to recommend you wait for a year,

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because you need to support your husband in his new role, I could have thrown a chair at him, it was just typical of the time, so I was so stunned,

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so that night, I couldn't sleep, so I decided I need to use this, I can't do anything about it, I couldn't do anything about it,

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it was no appeal or anything like that, it was dumb, that I would learn to drive, because once I was training I wouldn't have time to learn to drive, Stanley didn't drive, one of us needed to drive,

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so I made that decision, we didn't have any money, but one of us had to learn to drive somehow, so I made that decision, and I made the decision to contact Hugh Malinski,

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to say please send me all the papers and the essays and I'll do them, I need to do them and get myself into it, so that's what I did for a year, plus all the other things in the church of course and so on,

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and then I started a year later, I passed my driving test first thing, because that was determined, a week before I started my training as a deaconess,

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with the North East Ordination Course, so that I did for three years. So what did you learn on the course, and who were the others on the course with you?

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As I say there were six women. And were you all training to be deaconesses? Well yes, we couldn't be anything else you see. So there were no parish workers?

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Not that I know of, not that I know of, so the men were training to be deacons, and then they'd be priests the year after, we were training as deaconesses,

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but it was also ecumenical, which was good, so we had some people training as Methodist ministers as well, men, men, the women were all training as Church of England deaconesses.

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Well, so it was part-time, and three years because, was I under 30? Anyway it was three years, no three years because it was part-time,

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I think, I'm sorry. So how old was I, 21 or 32 or something like that? And so we'd have nine weekends away a year, and every Wednesday in the Mirfield Centre in Leeds,

00:33:06.720 - 00:33:18.620

and I loved it, it was wonderful, wonderful to go away. We used to go away, and the women, so we'd sit there in Martin, you know, in Luther King House in Manchester,

00:33:21.340 - 00:33:32.120

and have meals made for us and things, and there was us women saying, oh, isn't this lovely, oh this pie, how lovely, and the men were just eating it like this,

00:33:33.000 - 00:33:45.300

and we were going, oh, how wonderful, you know, it was completely different, feeling about going away like that and having everything cooked for us was just wonderful.

00:33:45.640 - 00:33:51.780

I mean, I was fortunate because my husband did loads of stuff like that, but it was still lovely to get away from the children, get away from everything,

00:33:52.300 - 00:34:07.460

and do something and stretch our brains, it was wonderful. So the first term, I remember we did Old Testament in one term,

00:34:09.560 - 00:34:20.140

the second term, I remember we did New Testament, I know that, and the third term, we would do practical things like placements and things like that,

00:34:20.420 - 00:34:27.100

and then the second year, I can't remember quite, you know, how it worked, but I always remember the first term, and I just thought, because I knew my Bible,

00:34:27.240 - 00:34:37.060

I'd been a crusader, I was converted in the Brethren, I knew my Bible really well, and I just thought, well, you can't do the Old Testament, and these are short terms, really,

00:34:37.680 - 00:34:48.420

and as for New Testament, I mean, we weren't even scratching the surface. But anyway, I loved doing it, I was very proud of myself,

00:34:48.620 - 00:35:02.900

because I hadn't quite got to inclusive language at that point about God, so I was still referring to God in male terms then, that soon went later, but I was still doing that,

00:35:03.660 - 00:35:19.240

and I remember wanting to write my doctrine essay on the doctrine of man, I remember. Anyway, David Jenkins, who became the Bishop of Durham, he was a friend of ours later,

00:35:19.380 - 00:35:34.080

because we lived near him, he and Molly, before he went to Durham, but yes, he marked my paper, and I've got it at home, it says something,

00:35:34.600 - 00:35:43.560

you know, I was really chuffed, he said something that was really good, really thoughtful and very good, and I thought, right, that's quite good.

00:35:43.760 - 00:35:54.120

So I was quite proud of myself, really, because I'd left school, and I hadn't been to university or anything like that, and other people were sailing through

00:35:54.120 - 00:36:07.720

with academic background, and I hadn't got that. But I loved it, because I loved learning, I still love learning. If I could go to university now and do my doctorate,

00:36:07.780 - 00:36:21.720

I'd love to do it. But anyway. Was it a very theologically infused education? I would say it was more than what they've got at the moment now.

00:36:23.680 - 00:36:33.920

I would say, from what I gather, because I worked with a lot of ordinands, and I can't, I don't get it, what they... I just don't know.

00:36:34.380 - 00:36:44.580

And there are many ordinands today, and women, I would say, people I work with, or even priests I work with, they just don't know the stories. It's interesting.

00:36:45.120 - 00:36:56.320

Yeah, so sometimes, because I do spiritual direction and so on, and sometimes I might say, well, from what you're saying, it sounds a little bit like, you know,

00:36:56.440 - 00:37:05.780

the story Jesus told about, you know, the woman and the yeast, or something like that. And they say, oh, where's that from then? And they have no idea.

00:37:06.260 - 00:37:18.480

And I think there's a difference between... I'd been brought up with, because of my age, been brought up with Christian assemblies at school, Sunday school. I knew the story, and then I was converted in the Brethren,

00:37:18.660 - 00:37:29.900

where you just read your Bible, loved it, devoured it, you know. And yet a lot of people are kind of, they come into so-called faith at a Christian union at university. They haven't got that background.

00:37:30.240 - 00:37:39.860

Somebody says, oh, you'll make a lovely vicar. You know, really? You know. And it's security, isn't it? With a bit of luck, they'll have a house and a salary, you know.

00:37:40.260 - 00:37:51.600

And they just don't know the story. And they go to college, and if they're over 30, it's only two years. You know, and after a short curiosity, off they go. They become vicar of some, and then they collapse and come here.

00:37:52.640 - 00:38:04.200

And I don't think they've got the rigor. They don't seem to have it. Whereas it was, you know, we were kept at it, I would say. Really.

00:38:06.120 - 00:38:24.180

Challenged. We were challenged. Amongst the women you were with, I mean, was, did they sense their vocation was to be a deaconess? Or did they wonder if there was something more?

00:38:26.020 - 00:38:48.300

I think there was always this thing that, as women, in our psyche, there was a sense that we were less. But we all kind of knew that wasn't quite right. But we couldn't.

00:38:49.600 - 00:39:04.300

And many of us who had come into the church, we weren't cradle, a lot of us weren't cradle Anglicans. Good night. Good night.

00:39:09.080 - 00:39:25.700

Yes, when I think about it, you see, there wasn't a lot of talk then about being priests. But we were aware that the men were going to be deacons and then have the next step.

00:39:31.380 - 00:39:43.040

I suppose we counted, it's the usual thing that women were counted, so fortunate we got as far as that. That was kind of how it was. And that approach kept us down.

00:39:44.820 - 00:39:58.500

And I remember when we'd get a cassock the first time and put it on. It was extraordinary. And I remember the commendation service we had, and we were going to wear surpluses.

00:40:00.420 - 00:40:11.580

And I went up, because we were staying overnight, you see, at Luther King House. And I happened to go up to the kitchen, and there were these women, two or three of the women,

00:40:11.700 - 00:40:21.380

there were only six of us anyway, ironing the men's surpluses for them. And I remember just saying, what are you doing? Put the iron down.

00:40:21.540 - 00:40:27.420

So where I got that from, I don't know, but I just thought, this is ridiculous. I said, they must do their own. Why are you doing it?

00:40:28.240 - 00:40:37.460

You see, there's still that kind of thing around. But I knew that wasn't right. I mean, I wouldn't do it for anything. And I got rid of ironing at home.

00:40:37.680 - 00:40:50.440

Everyone ironed their own stuff. Do you know what I mean? So I used to think I'd write a book on the theology of ironing. But that went right out of our house very early on.

00:40:51.280 - 00:41:11.940

So there was still that vestige stuff. And that's, I would say now, and I think I began to pick it up then, and I certainly began to pick it up more when I picked up MOW. As long as God is male and everyone's bowing down to a male God,

00:41:12.820 - 00:41:29.660

worshipping him, they'll iron the men's surpluses, won't they? I think it's all to do with patriarchy and misogyny. And I was picking it up. I used to pick it up when I was much younger.

00:41:30.220 - 00:41:41.440

I used to always feel, but I didn't have any words to say it. That was the thing, really. So where do you get those words? Where did you end up finding the words?

00:41:44.380 - 00:42:08.080

Okay, so when I was made a deaconess, we were in Leeds again, but working in a city at a church called St Margaret's. And we wonderfully had a lovely old vicarage in the middle of Back to Backs, which was opened up to the community.

00:42:13.940 - 00:42:42.240

So I think what happened for me was, it was during the time when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister, it was during the time when you had the AIDS crisis. My very first funeral was of a young man who died of AIDS-related illnesses.

00:42:44.520 - 00:43:01.200

And I was aware then of stuff around prejudice, because the funeral people came wearing gloves, which they wouldn't normally. And I said, I'm not even going in this church with this coffin

00:43:01.200 - 00:43:13.620

until you take those gloves off. I remember saying that. I was aware of this prejudice, and to do with the body. There was all that.

00:43:13.620 - 00:43:34.560

There was Clause 28 that Margaret Thatcher brought in. I was a chaplain of a Church of England high school. This is a kind of answer to what you're saying, really. I remember when Freddie Mercury died from Queen,

00:43:35.760 - 00:43:58.760

and I was responsible for all the assemblies for eight years, of all ages, right through into upper sixth, as it was called then. I'd get other people in, obviously, but I had to do a lot of them myself. And so I knew that there would be people who were absolutely bashed up about this.

00:43:59.260 - 00:44:12.820

So I did something, I played We Are The Champions and all that sort of thing, and I mentioned the word queer community. No, no, not queer community. I mentioned the word gay community, and the head stood up and walked out.

00:44:14.000 - 00:44:36.200

Because of Clause 28, I'd mentioned the word gay. So, you know, there was the hyper alert about whole loads of stuff about sexuality. And at the same time, I was running Women in Theology, because wit, as it was known, was all over the place.

00:44:36.340 - 00:44:51.860

So I'd set up a Women in Theology group, and then one day came home after taking the children to school, and somebody had, I don't know where I'd got it from, somebody had given me an MOW leaflet, and I'd had it hanging around the kitchen.

00:44:52.440 - 00:45:11.320

And I sat down and had a coffee, and I got it out and had a look at it, and I still didn't quite understand about what priests were. You see, because I hadn't, that's not, that hadn't been my background, I hadn't had anything like, what are priests? I don't know, I don't understand it.

00:45:11.780 - 00:45:31.440

So, but I kind of knew I had to join it. So what happened for me, and I think this happened, this helped my voice come through. Because I was working with all this utter poverty, girls, terribly abused, the sexual abuse stuff and the scandals of that time were all around our parish,

00:45:31.740 - 00:45:45.020

and I was working with all that social work or something. And I signed my name. I sat there, I was on my own, I signed this form, and when I signed my name, Carmen,

00:45:45.960 - 00:45:57.240

it was like this big weight of this patriarchal lie dropped off me, and I've never looked back since. And I found my voice. That's fabulous.

00:45:57.260 - 00:46:10.980

Really, really. And so I became a great advocate for women's priesthood, and I was very involved with, I used to go around to all the villages around the north here, where I am now, and all sorts of places,

00:46:11.320 - 00:46:27.480

because you used to have to speak, you used to have to go to villages, you know, really conservative places, and you would go, there was me, early thirties, you had to learn, you don't wear long drop earrings,

00:46:27.680 - 00:46:40.660

you do not look like a feminist, you look like a Mother's Union person, you're very careful what you wear, and so you used to go and you used to have a man go who was against,

00:46:41.300 - 00:46:57.060

who was usually like an archdeacon with lots of buttons on his cassock, and I remember one time, one man who came, so it was me, quite a young woman, new to it all, and this chap who was older, very experienced,

00:46:57.360 - 00:47:10.020

and had the power, as it were, and I remember him bringing in a set of scales, and saying how it would, you know, if women were priests, it would go, ooh, ooh, everything would fall, I remember this,

00:47:10.320 - 00:47:32.240

and I also remember one of these men saying in front of, you know, 200 people, to me, well Elizabeth, if women were allowed to be priests, you would make a wonderful priest, but then of course once a month you might drop the chalice,

00:47:32.500 - 00:47:50.160

I remember him saying that to me, in front of all these people, so we had that kind of thing that we contended with, right, and I found my voice, I had to find my voice, because somebody had to find their voice,

00:47:50.360 - 00:48:02.060

and a lot of women weren't, because a lot of women were saying to me, ooh, don't say that Elizabeth, do be feminine, oh no, I shouldn't, you might upset the men, women were always saying that, and they still say it today,

00:48:03.020 - 00:48:14.720

they're still saying it today, even women who are bishops are saying that today, no, we mustn't, you know, we mustn't use inclusive language, because, you know, it's our tradition and people will be upset,

00:48:15.020 - 00:48:27.060

so we're still worshipping what we don't hear, but worshipping some male god that doesn't exist, and that's a lie, and I feel very strongly about it, so I feel very passionate about voice and words.

00:48:28.580 - 00:48:42.320

But did you meet other women that were involved with Mo? I mean, how do you, so you sign that piece of paper, but how do you learn? So, I'm trying to think what happened,

00:48:44.520 - 00:49:06.400

so I linked up, Margaret Webster, right, Margaret Webster is a key woman of this, she wrote the first book about, which needs to be in the archive, about the history of MoW,

00:49:06.400 - 00:49:24.140

and she was married to, what's her name, Alan Webster, who was the Dean of St Paul's Cathedral, Alan Webster was well known, but Margaret became well known, she was a real voice, all during MoW,

00:49:24.260 - 00:49:36.720

and she's written a book about it, so she's, I'm not sure whether she's alive now, I was wondering the other day, because she lived in Norwich, in Ply, near Blakeney,

00:49:36.980 - 00:49:47.560

in Norfolk, and we used to go and see them quite often, but Margaret Webster was a key person, I somehow linked up with her, and somehow she reminded me a bit of my mother,

00:49:47.880 - 00:50:03.560

which is really nice, she was just a lovely woman, and then there was another woman, Margaret McCluskey, I think it was, but Margaret Webster was key, and I made a link somehow with her,

00:50:04.220 - 00:50:18.000

and then I went to one or two things, and then I became the coordinator for the Leeds whole area, and then I came on the National Committee, I used to go to London, I used to love it,

00:50:18.480 - 00:50:30.460

go to London and be on there, and so I was very involved at the heart really, so it was gradual, but in a way, but actually in point of time it was quite quick,

00:50:30.460 - 00:50:44.100

because I caught it, and I became passionate about it, and I realised it was a justice issue, and it linked with all the other justice issues, about sexuality at the time, poverty,

00:50:46.380 - 00:50:57.440

we were often out on the streets in Leeds with banners, and arm in arm with all sorts of people, who would never go to church perhaps, absolutely wonderful, I remember my husband saying,

00:50:57.440 - 00:51:12.080

we just need one banner that says shame, and we'll take the same banner out all the time, so then I organised a lot of things, so there was a lot of different things,

00:51:12.260 - 00:51:24.440

I could perhaps tell you tomorrow, all sorts of events that I organised, because I thought, we need to organise and have events, where it goes into the papers, you get the papers involved,

00:51:24.440 - 00:51:33.680

and we do big things, we go big, we think outside the box, so I did a lot of that, and I can talk to you about those things,

00:51:33.920 - 00:51:52.560

and I've got lots of archive around them. Timing wise, so Mo doesn't exist till 1984, is it just...

00:51:54.580 - 00:52:11.100

I went to train as a deaconess, sorry, no, I became a deaconess in 1984, so I'd been training before that, so there wasn't something to get hold of,

00:52:11.420 - 00:52:23.960

and that's why, so in 1984, I was made a deaconess, and the bishop allowed me to stay in the parish, so my husband who's the incumbent,

00:52:24.680 - 00:52:35.220

he was my training incumbent, because the bishop believed in us as a couple. Now another thing that was very interesting in those days, it makes us laugh really,

00:52:36.000 - 00:52:43.220

there was a lot of talk, because some couples were coming along, women, that was very threatening to things,

00:52:43.540 - 00:52:51.740

very threatening to clergy wives, ever so threatening, because I'd been a clergy wife, but it was very threatening,

00:52:52.280 - 00:53:01.240

and there was this thing that was called pillow talk, have you heard anyone talk about that? So people would say, couples can't work together,

00:53:02.240 - 00:53:09.920

because of pillow talk, and we used to say, oh well there's much more interesting things to do when you go to bed than pillow talk,

00:53:10.860 - 00:53:23.720

so we always used to have a laugh about it, but there was all this talk at one point, and in our diocese, I don't know who made the decision,

00:53:23.840 - 00:53:29.820

it certainly wasn't our bishop, that we can't do that, but it wasn't just our diocese, right across,

00:53:30.140 - 00:53:37.680

because of pillow talk, but our bishop, David Young, who was then the Bishop of Ripon,

00:53:38.120 - 00:53:48.580

absolutely wonderful man, he made an exception, I've got a letter from him, talking about this exception he's making in our case,

00:53:48.960 - 00:53:56.940

because he believes that we are both called to work together, which we were, that's why we married, it was very much a vocational marriage,

00:53:57.240 - 00:54:05.040

absolutely definitely, love marriage, but very vocational, vocational first I would say,

00:54:07.120 - 00:54:14.200

and anyway, so we broke that silly thing, that pillow talk, and we worked together,

00:54:14.920 - 00:54:30.840

and then my son came home from this school, and said to me, Mum, it's a great job you could do, they want a chaplain,

00:54:31.260 - 00:54:37.520

there was some sort of scandal, so anyway, they need to get a chaplain, why don't you apply,

00:54:37.780 - 00:54:47.500

and I looked into it, and I wrote to the bishop, and said look I think I could do this, and he gave me a third of a salary,

00:54:48.060 - 00:54:57.040

to be chaplain in this very conservative school, conservative governors, a lot of people who were anti-ordination women, of course at that stage,

00:54:57.120 - 00:55:03.400

I was deaconess, but he backed me up, and I was there for eight years, until I came here,

00:55:03.400 - 00:55:13.360

and he backed me up against all the odds, did my bishop, and I worked there, and I became a deacon in 1987,

00:55:14.020 - 00:55:23.540

I was never a priest when I was there, so I had to get a priest in for the Eucharist, I used to bring a lot of men in, who were against the ordination of women,

00:55:25.680 - 00:55:38.920

but I was the chaplain, so I was in charge, and I used to bring in all sorts of interesting people, perhaps bishops who were at Leeds University,

00:55:39.260 - 00:55:52.780

from Uganda or something, because there were only a few black girls and boys there, no black teachers, no one,

00:55:52.900 - 00:56:00.680

and they'd play up, and so I used to bring in all sorts of black brothers and sisters, people I knew, bring them in,

00:56:00.940 - 00:56:09.600

wear a mitre, walk tall, and it made a difference, so I think my voice there was something about breaking that kind of stuff as well,

00:56:10.800 - 00:56:24.360

for people, and I put all the liturgy in inclusive language, and I always remember, you know the television programme Neighbours?

00:56:24.580 - 00:56:35.300

Yes. So I changed it all, to say about the sins against you and your fellow men, so I changed it,

00:56:35.340 - 00:56:48.620

before it was ever changed properly, to you and your neighbour, and it just was completely spontaneous, when we came to it,

00:56:48.780 - 00:56:55.920

there was this 600 young people, went Neighbours, everybody needs to Neighbours, and they'd never seen this thing before,

00:56:55.960 - 00:57:01.780

it was just spontaneous, and it was so funny, but working, trying to find my voice,

00:57:02.600 - 00:57:11.160

to help bring something else out, get away from language, which is just patriarchal, and makes people ill,

00:57:11.840 - 00:57:17.860

I run a healing centre here, makes people ill, and it's still doing so, and the church is still doing it of course,

00:57:21.020 - 00:57:30.600

and yes, so I think one of the first conferences I ever went to, which was absolutely wonderful, it was in Canterbury,

00:57:32.180 - 00:57:42.280

and I still have the, it's part of the archive, something wonderful thing we did there, but it's the first time I'd ever seen women in a dog collar,

00:57:42.640 - 00:57:49.260

and these were the women from America, and they wore these big dog collars, right round, you know the high ones,

00:57:49.440 - 00:57:56.100

all the way round, and I was a Deaconess, blue cassock, and a little cross,

00:57:57.000 - 00:58:02.800

and we were in procession with women in dog collars, I couldn't believe it, I'd never seen anything like it, very empowering,

00:58:04.340 - 00:58:10.220

and at that time, have you come across Susan, Suzanne Freshall, do you know her part in MOW,

00:58:11.920 - 00:58:19.100

really important, so Suzanne, American priest, Anglican priest,

00:58:19.960 - 00:58:29.240

so at this time, same time, I was in the Vicarage getting dinner, and there was a phone call,

00:58:29.340 - 00:58:32.700

because she didn't have mobiles, we didn't, she did, I didn't know this,

00:58:33.100 - 00:58:41.820

didn't know people could have mobiles, American, and I went to the phone, and there was this voice,

00:58:42.400 - 00:58:48.120

hi there, my name's Suzanne, I've been told to come to you, oh hello Suzanne,

00:58:48.320 - 00:58:53.680

I'm Elizabeth, sorry what do you mean, well I'm an American priest, oh my goodness,

00:58:53.780 - 00:58:59.280

how wonderful, American priest, and so and so told me to, let's go to the Baxter's,

00:59:00.220 - 00:59:04.640

and I said, well it's wonderful, I'm in Leeds, so I said,

00:59:04.680 - 00:59:10.260

well where are you living, I ain't got anywhere to live, so I said, well you better come and live with us then,

00:59:10.760 - 00:59:18.100

so I went back into the kitchen, there she was outside the back door, on a mobile, so she lived with us for three months,

00:59:18.740 - 00:59:24.080

Suzanne Fraserall, now she's still around, I see her Facebook, just occasionally get in touch,

00:59:24.760 - 00:59:32.400

so she lived with us, and she became part of our staff, known, you know,

00:59:32.500 - 00:59:36.580

and she'd wear her dark collar, a bit like then, not now, she's quite slim now,

00:59:36.820 - 00:59:49.940

she's like a sumo wrestler, used to come in, and so our church was becoming very radical, and I have a photo in my archive,

00:59:50.020 - 00:59:54.800

a picture of her, and myself as a deaconess, her as a priest, and my husband,

00:59:58.400 - 01:00:06.920

at Ripon Racecourse, I think it was, when there was a kind of joint celebration of the Eucharist, all the priests were there,

01:00:08.640 - 01:00:16.000

and she was there, and Sterney quite rightly said to her, you break the bread and hold up the wine, right,

01:00:16.380 - 01:00:27.660

now this was an anathema, so she did, and there was a photo of us there in the paper, and you've come across a man called Ray Gaston,

01:00:28.560 - 01:00:37.440

he's a priest in Wolverhampton, and anyway, he saw this photograph, and he was coordinator of Leeds Aids Advice,

01:00:37.480 - 01:00:44.660

and he found his way to our church, and that was the start of his, well not the start, because these things start long before,

01:00:44.760 - 01:00:53.240

don't they, but he came into Living Faith, and he's a priest in Wolverhampton, and he worked with,

01:00:53.580 - 01:00:57.380

whenever we did mow things, he was involved, of course, and so on and so forth,

01:00:57.620 - 01:01:06.460

but yes, so Suzanne was an interesting influence, because of course, she used female terms for God,

01:01:06.900 - 01:01:13.540

just as a natural thing, but I'd never heard, I mean, I heard it,

01:01:13.600 - 01:01:22.200

and I did use it a bit, but I'd never heard anyone else use it as a natural thing, and yeah, so that was great,

01:01:22.300 - 01:01:30.120

so that also helped me along on my, and my kids loved her, because she had studs in her nose, and stuff like that,

01:01:30.120 - 01:01:38.760

so they thought she was wonderful, which she was. Were you aware of other women priests, other Church of England,

01:01:38.840 - 01:01:44.540

particularly Church of England women priests, because of course there would have been, but there weren't any then, not in the UK,

01:01:44.780 - 01:01:47.820

you mean Anglican, yeah, Anglican women priests, not Church women,

01:01:48.240 - 01:01:50.960

yeah, no, I mean, I knew,

01:01:51.400 - 01:01:58.500

well, I think I was getting to realise that there were some, but it was when I went to Canterbury, and saw these women in dog collars,

01:01:58.500 - 01:02:09.620

that the penny dropped, and then the New Zealand prayer book came out, I'm trying to think what date it is, I've got my copy here somewhere,

01:02:09.860 - 01:02:17.000

I'll have to look, but when the New Zealand prayer book came out, with inclusive language, I bought my own copy immediately,

01:02:17.720 - 01:02:31.680

so got interested in the New Zealand thing, and then when we were all linking up in different ways, particularly at the Lambeth Conference, when Anglicans came together,

01:02:32.220 - 01:02:43.640

and my husband and I went to each one every ten years, and we had a store, when we came to Holyrood House, we had a store at Holyrood House there,

01:02:44.140 - 01:02:51.840

and so on, and there were other MOW people there, I remember a Lambeth Conference, one of those we went to,

01:02:52.780 - 01:03:06.000

we had a special, I think it must have been in Canterbury, we had a special big room for ourselves, and one of the women from America,

01:03:06.320 - 01:03:14.760

a priest, was going to celebrate the Eucharist for us, we were so excited, it was all going to be in inclusive language,

01:03:15.680 - 01:03:29.640

and so on, and it was all secret obviously, and then somebody had obviously let the cat out of the bag, and some prelate, male prelate,

01:03:30.180 - 01:03:40.960

sent down an edict to us, and you know all the women were frightened, I didn't get it, I thought why are we frightened of that,

01:03:41.720 - 01:03:49.040

what are we frightened for, that they were frightened, there was real fear, and so it didn't happen,

01:03:49.140 - 01:03:55.020

what happened was, we had the service, I thought it was horrible, we had the service,

01:03:55.800 - 01:04:03.080

and it was truncated, so when it came to the consecration of bread and wine, that bit was missed out, then we just passed the bread around to each other,

01:04:03.200 - 01:04:11.860

I mean it was just awful, but suddenly this man, terrible really, and another thing I went to,

01:04:12.180 - 01:04:22.000

there was the Decade for Solidarity of Women, a decade of evangelism for the solidarity of women, I think it was called, anyway I've got that in the archive as well,

01:04:22.600 - 01:04:30.640

and I went along to that, have you come across the name Jim Cotter, he was a priest in Sheffield, he was a gay man,

01:04:31.580 - 01:04:40.600

gay partnered man, so he was not allowed to serve, but the Bishop of Sheffield gave him a vicarage, which was called Key Habitat,

01:04:41.040 - 01:04:47.860

and it became a community, anyway Jim was always supportive of everything we did, and so on, we supported him,

01:04:47.880 - 01:04:59.180

I went to his 70th birthday when he was dying of cancer, in Wales, good man, and anyway Jim was there at this thing,

01:05:00.640 - 01:05:11.600

and he and I decided to walk out of it, because there was supposed to be solidarity of women, so the Roman Catholics were there, and there was immediate split,

01:05:11.600 - 01:05:23.320

because we couldn't eat, drink and share bread together, and we just thought we're not going to collude with this, why are we colluding with this,

01:05:23.400 - 01:05:33.800

what are we afraid of, why can't we just do it, as Jesus says, there was all this fear and tension,

01:05:34.440 - 01:05:46.620

so we decided the two of us to walk out of it, to show that we shouldn't collude, and that was all part of MOW really, or trying to find the voice,

01:05:47.780 - 01:05:58.860

but it was good that Jim was trying to find that voice, and coming with me on that really. I think it's been about an hour now, so we can start up again tomorrow,

01:05:59.380 - 01:06:04.140

kind of fresh with Mo. Yeah, that's it. Thank you very much. Thanks.