00:00:02.580 - 00:00:15.840

Now that's recording so I'm going to put it next to you. Yes. So, I'm Mandy Barry and thank you so much for giving me your time this afternoon. The interviews tend to take about an hour and a half.

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That's fine, yeah. And what I'd like to do is just ask, I've got a lot of questions to ask you, but obviously this is your interview and you know, you tell me things if I'm not asking you things you want to tell me.

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If we can start, I should have said the date as well, it's the 18th of July 2024 and I'm sitting in your lovely garden in Blackheath. Thank you very much. So, we've got it all on the record.

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Could you tell me your name and where you were born, Jennifer? My name is Jennifer Spandage and I was born in Liverpool. Ah, and did you go to school in Liverpool? No, we moved to Birkenhead and I went to Birkenhead GPDSD, G-E-D-S-D school.

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I know, yeah. And can I, I'd also like to ask you a little bit about your parents, just to get at the point a little bit. Was your mum from Liverpool or where was she from?

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Yeah, she was from Lancashire. They were all from Lancashire, mum and dad. And thinking about your mum's education, where did she go to school? Well, she went to Bright Helmston in Southport and then she went to Cheltenham Ladies College

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because grandad really wanted her to be educated. And then she tried for Girton, but she had very poor eyesight and she had to take a Latin exam which messed her eyes up like nothing on earth and she had to have another operation. And she, when the mistress of Girton interviewed her, she said, now I see you, I understand

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why your papers are so immature. Do come back next year and try again. And by that time, mum, the optician had said Nancy can't use her eyes at all for the next year at least.

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So, she never got to Girton. She did well to get the interview. She did. So, when I got to Girton, she was thrilled to bits.

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I can imagine she would be. Absolutely. Did you have brothers and sisters? Yeah, I've got a sister.

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One sister who's younger than me. And your father, what was his education? He was a lawyer. He was a solicitor and he went to the same school as one of the archbishops of Canterbury.

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He went to Great Crosby, Merchant Taylor's Great Crosby. So, both parents, despite your mum's unfortunate... Well, what she did after that was she went to the R.A.M. And she did a diploma, an L.R.A.M., in elocution and drama and public speaking and everything.

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And then she wanted to go on the stage. And she went on the stage. She was part of the Liverpool Rep for a while. And then the war came.

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And her grandad didn't want her really to go on the stage. He wanted her to do a teaching diploma and become a teacher. So, and did she do that? Yes.

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Well, no, she did the teaching diploma. And then she got on the stage for a little while. And then the war came. And she did lots of war things that people did.

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And then she met dad in the war. And they got married in 1942. And then I was born in 43. And that really paid to any kind of career for a woman like me.

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Because if she tried to get a job, it looked bad on dad. Because as a solicitor, his wife's going out to work. And she tried to do further education classes, take them in the evening and things. But dad was never back to babysit or anything.

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So, she was a frustrated woman at home. And that's why she was so pleased when I got into Girton and sort of fulfilled what she might have done. Wonderful. Wonderful. Can I ask you, because obviously I wanted to get onto your interest in, not your interest, in your connection with religion.

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Growing up, were your family church attenders? Yeah, this is really a funny story. When mum married dad, she was a great staunch Anglican with her mother. And granddad was the Doctor of Darwin.

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And they were very fussy about the chalice. They always had to get there first before somebody polluted it. So, they were always the first there. Because granddad had had a funny thing with the vicar.

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They were very good friends. This is a silly long story. And granddad noticed that the lady just next to him that way had a communicable disease. And he took the wafer and then he got up and went away.

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And his friend the vicar challenged him on the end of the service. And granddad said, I'm sorry, I just wasn't going to risk it, I'm a doctor. And the vicar, they had a big squabble about it. I don't know if they ever made it up.

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Because the vicar said, no, God would have saved you. And granddad said, I'm not taking any chances. And so after that, granny and my mum were the first at the altar rail. And I think granny was more in for religion than granddad.

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Then, when mum married dad, dad was of a congregational family in Liverpool, in Great Crosby. And when mum discovered that she couldn't take communion with my father, she was outraged. She said, well, I'm not going to stay in this stupid Anglican church, I'm going to leave. And when they moved away to Birkenhead, when Sue and me were born,

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and they were on their own path rather than in Great Crosby with the rest of the family, they went to the Presbyterian church, Trinity Presbyterian Church, Claughton. And that was fine. And dad rose to become the session clerk, which is like the lay chair of the PCC.

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So we got to do cutting the slices off the bread and making them into little squares and putting them on a doily. And we helped mum with the dishwasher, which had all these individual gases in it. So that's what we did. But we children, we only had communion four times a year.

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And we had to go up in the gallery and watch this solemn thing. And it always struck me as being the most baleful, doleful, memorial service. With all the sessions in black robes, like black birds, sitting in the choir stalls, because we all got thrown out of the choir stalls.

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I just found the whole thing really, really dreary. And by that stage I was playing the organ and finding out all about hymns and stuff. And also going to Liverpool Cathedral to sit with Noel Rawson, the cathedral organist, up in the organ loft for Evensong. And so I really wanted to join the Anglican church.

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And I said to dad when I was about 16, I suppose, look, can I stop going to Trinity Presbyterian Church and go along to our local parish church? And my father said, no, while you're under my roof, you will go to the Presbyterian church. And we were married at the Presbyterian church.

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What were his reasons for that? I don't know. Maybe he didn't like the Anglican church either. Because he would have had to have got confirmed in order to take communion with mum. He had an amazing faith and he kept on doing wonderful making up services and getting Christmas things together.

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He was terribly creative with liturgy. I learnt all that from him. So I didn't mind staying at the Presbyterian church. But then when I went to university, as soon as I got to Girton,

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the first thing I did was to go to the chapel and say I want to be confirmed. So I was confirmed. But Sister Sue had another funny ride too, because she was a staunch Presbyterian. But her husband, aged 49, suddenly decided he was going to train for the ministry.

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And she went with him to St John's Nottingham. As a family, they had two little boys then. And Sue's never been confirmed in the Anglican church. But she said, I've received communion from so many bishops, I'm not going to go there.

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And she was quite cross with me for going through the confirmation. Because she said, why? If you've received it from a bishop and you've been going enough, and everybody knows your heart's in it, why put you through all those hoops?

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Actually, I was looking forward to my confirmation classes, because I was looking forward to having theological discussions about everything. But it was a complete disaster. Our chaplain then, he was new.

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I missed the Franciscan friar who was our chaplain. And I got this young curate at Girton Village who had a family with a screaming baby. And I used to go to his place. And I knew the last thing he wanted to do was to go into his study with me

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and go through this confirmation thing. And so I just went through the motions. I didn't want to bother him. He was very sort of funny and shy.

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And I knew what I wanted to do. And so I think I ticked all the boxes with him. And I was confirmed in Corpus Christi Chapel in the following March. So that was just in order to put myself straight with God

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that I wanted to be in Anglia and nothing was going to stop me. Can I just take us back for a moment? You were saying that you went to, we missed out a bit before you got to Girton. So what was your education in Birkenhead?

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Well, I went to the same school from age 5 until age 17. And when we got to the sixth form, I was all set for A-levels to do maths, physics and chemistry because I wanted to be a scientist and biochemist and stuff like that.

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But when I went back after that September when we first started the lower sixth thing, I had this funny thing in the back of my head that this was all wrong. And with my organ teacher, I talked it through. And he said, you know, Jen, you could make a go of music, I think, as an organist.

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And so I sort of went along with that and went to school to the teachers there and said, I want to do music A-level. And we had a wonderful head. And she said, well, look, we've never ever had anybody do music A-level.

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So we'll get a teacher in, and you can have this teacher. But we can't. I wanted to drop the maths and the physics because I couldn't do the maths to go with the physics. But she said, we'll leave you with the chemistry because I really wanted to do that.

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And she said, and we'll add biology. So I did biology, chemistry and music with my A-levels. And then when it came to Girton entrance, you had to do a language. And my French teacher found that I could do the French for scientists,

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which wasn't so difficult as the French for people doing arts. Of course, for music, I should have done German. And so I had interviews at first for Oxford. At that time, you took entrance papers for Oxford, entrance papers for Cambridge.

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So I did the Oxford entrance papers. And they were horrible at Oxford. They didn't like them at all. It was St. Hilda's College.

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And when I was interviewed by the headmistress or whoever it was, she said, well, it's wonderful that you're an organist, but they wouldn't hear me play anywhere. And it'd be wonderful if you got the college chapel choir going.

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And if you got the college music going as a music scholar and all this. I knew I was going to get in. And they offered me a scholarship, of course. And the music faculty itself, they wouldn't listen to me play the organ.

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They made me play the viola, which I'd only taken up six months earlier. I mean, they did the violin until, you know, all the grades and everything. And I just couldn't. I got a full stop on the violin and went to viola and was really enjoying it.

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And I kept on saying, look, I'm an organist. And this is my second instrument, which I barely can do. Anyway, I got through all the interviews. And then I went back home and said, well, I'm not going there.

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Not for love of money am I going there. And then the telegram came to say... Because they didn't give you a chance. They didn't give me a chance.

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And the telegram came, of course, a scholarship to St Hilda's. And that granddad was on his deathbed in the hospital. And mum got through to him about the last thing that he knew. Jen's got a scholarship to Oxford.

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But James came, no, I'm not going there. I'm not going there. I'm going to do the Cambridge entrance after Christmas. And so everywhere I went in Cambridge they said,

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well, we know where you're going if you're not coming here. And I smiled and thought, Durham, Durham, Durham, Durham. Because that's where I was going to go if I didn't get into Cambridge. And I wasn't the organ scholar, but they had an organ there.

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And so I went in with Susan. Susan was the organ scholar. She was a far better organist than me. She went to Christ's Hospital where they have an organ built into the building.

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And she'd been playing the organ longer than me. And she could do all the fancy pieces. So she was the organ scholar, but I was another back-up organist. And chapel choir and everything.

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And then Cambridge all opens up and everything. So that's how I got to Cambridge. Wonderful. And so you got to Girton.

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And you just mentioned to me you were disappointed with this communion process. But you wanted to do it because you wanted to put yourself before God. Tell me a little bit, if you wouldn't mind, about your faith. We've spoken a lot about how important it was.

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When did you first start thinking, how can you articulate your faith? Well, it's always been there. I had a kind of moment when I realised it was God talking to me. I was in the garden, and it was sunny.

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Dad's garden. And there was a particular hymn that we had in the Presbyterian hymn book, which isn't in any of the hymn books at all. Summer suns are glowing.

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And it's a Trinity one. It's got God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. But it's all in a funny language. And when I wanted to have this, because it wasn't in the hymn books,

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one of our reptors said, oh, you don't want that stupid deist hymn. And I didn't realise it was even deist at that point. It's music, actually. Music and God. That's the whole thing.

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I find God through music. And what age were you when you had this experience? Probably about seven. Very young.

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Yeah. It was just a lovely moment. God's here with me in the garden. No, it must have been longer, because we moved house when I was nine.

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It must have been nine, because it's the other garden. It's nine, yeah. Still very young. But I had to go to Trinity Presbyterian Church.

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I sang in the choir. I did Sunday school. And then I got into the choir when it was choir time. And then we had Bible study classes on a Sunday afternoon.

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And I had to go to those. So I went to the morning service. I went to the Bible class. And then we had an evening service.

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And the one thing I didn't really... It was so boring, the minister. Because he did these free-flowing prayers. And we in the choir, you see, count how many times he said heavenly.

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You know, playing sort of sermon cricket across the thing. And he just burbled, burbled, burbled. And I thought, well, he's talking to God. But I don't think anybody's listening.

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I don't think God can be listening to this, because it's so boring. And so what age were you then? Oh, then, that's in my teens, 12, 11, 12, 13, 14. Starting being critical of the minister.

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But then the thing that really wiped me, when I realised that nothing was really happening in church, you know, the sort of feelings that I wanted at church, was when I got received into the Presbyterian Church when I was 13.

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I remember the dress I was wearing. It was like confirmation, because all my friends were being confirmed. And also I had a very good friend who was a Roman Catholic. We talked a lot about faith.

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I said, what do you say when you go to confession? And I even went to the Roman Catholic Church with her, because I was interested to see what went on, and all the incense and changing their clothes and their hats and stuff.

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I was, what a pageant, what's this, you see? So I'd been always interested in what went on in other churches. And Dad was incredibly ecumenical. Mum and Dad went to Taizé in 1956 or something.

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So I've always had an ecumenical sort of take on it. But we'd been received into the church. We all sort of walked along. No, the session came along, the whole session,

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the minister, and they gave us the right hand of friendship. And when Dad came to me, he gave me the right hand of friendship. I said, hello, Dad. He didn't kiss me or anything.

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I was his daughter, and he just formally shook hands with me to receive me into the Presbyterian Church. And I thought, what sort of church is this? Very Scottish, very sort of cold and Calvinistic, I realise,

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and Presbyterian, and just put me off any kind of warmth in the church. And the whole of the communion service, there was no joy there at all. Fascinating. So despite all your disappointing experiences with the actual church,

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this faith was so strong that... I wouldn't have thought that I had a strong faith. It's just always there. How do you differentiate between a strong faith and always there?

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I don't know. Well, I have huge doubts. Some of the hymns we sing, and the things they say, I don't know, I can't believe that.

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And also, in the liturgy, saying various things, I lead services because I'm a reader and stuff like that. I have to say things that I'm not quite sure that I could do. And if I wasn't in a position of leadership,

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I would have just let everybody else say it. Because I met our rector at St Margaret's when I joined there in 1985, and he was the most amazing man. He taught me more than anything about religion.

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It was like going to a theological college, just being with him. And he was part of the Sea of Faith organisation, and we had Don Cupid come and give a lecture at St Margaret's. Hang on, let me just make sure that I keep it...

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I'm sorry, I'm not doing it historically. No, that doesn't matter, whatever comes to mind. Just finishing with your early life, were your family interested in politics at all?

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Oh yes, they were liberals. We were supposed to be... One of the church members had a parliamentary seat way back before Frank Field got in there.

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We were Birkenhead, and we all canvassed for the Liberal Party. They had socials, and we paid up members of the Liberal Party and went to dues and stuff. So what newspapers were read at night?

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The Manchester Guardian, The Guardian, and nothing but The Guardian. And we do hear that we're Guardian. Simon gets The Guardian weekly. Well, we get The Guardian weekly,

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because as soon as we got married, we went to Holland, and one of the best presents my uncle, Harry, gave us was a subscription to The Weekly Guardian. Then we went to America after that,

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and we used to wait for the post for the paper to come. Oh, no, The Guardian readers. So you got to Girton, you were involved with music,

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and you heard God through music in your life. What happened? Anything else to tell me about Girton, and your time there and your faith?

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With my faith? I had a bad patch where I didn't really believe in anything, and it was a sort of depression. I don't know how it came on,

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but I visited more or less every chapel and church, sort of looking for God. It was Lent, and it was the year after I'd been confirmed, and I was very mixed up.

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I don't know why, but I got through it, and I didn't talk to anybody about it. I just kept it private. When? What year would this have been?

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Well, I went in 1961. I thought we were about there. And I got confirmed in 62. This is 63.

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This is Lent 63. I went through questioning everything about it, and it was just the time when Harry, he was the Trinity chaplain.

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Harry, he wrote these books, True Resurrection, and In the Wilderness, and what's his other name? He hadn't written the books,

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but it was just the same time that he was going through all this soul-searching too. I thought, that's funny. That's my bleak period.

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How did you come through it? Well, it sort of went away, but then I met Simon. Right.

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And I think it was that. And then, so, after Girton, what did you do then? Well, I got, the year 64, I took finals.

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I had the 21st birthday party in the Honeysuckle Walk at Girton. I got married in the middle of August. I took a typing course for six weeks in Liverpool.

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Got married on the 15th of August. And then... You're 60 years this year. Yes, we're having a party here in the Gardiner.

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And we went off to Holland, and I arrived in Holland with this lovely music degree, and I didn't speak a word of Dutch. I did try a little language course before.

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And Simon was a member of the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra. And we lived in an attic. And how long were you there? Three years.

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And were you able to continue with your work? Yeah, we went to the United Reformed Church in the Wackenhof, a beautiful little church. And I got to play the organ there,

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and even give a recital with somebody else in the church. And I didn't go every week. It wasn't terribly... But it didn't work,

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because the orchestra was going on tour in different places, and I could go with them in a coach and stuff like that. And so... And all sorts of people arrived, too, from England.

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And a King's chap who came, too, and I went to church and couldn't believe it. There was he. I said, well, you've got to come back for lunch with us.

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I mean, it was... In English, everything was in English. But there were a lot of Dutch people who'd married English people.

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I didn't go to the Anglican Church at all in Holland, because I eventually got a job in the British Council, and I met the two ladies in the library. Well, the job was assistant librarian,

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but it was the girl who put the books away. And Miss Grascock, on the other side of the room, she went to the Anglican Church, and so I was quite sure I didn't want to go.

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She went. And I never actually set foot inside it, because I was quite happy with the Bekkenhof and the English Reformed Church, yes.

00:24:00.460 - 00:24:12.480

So how did you then become involved in the church and become a lay reader and so on? Well, one of my stupid ambitions was to be the first cathedral organist in the country.

00:24:13.060 - 00:24:23.640

But I wouldn't have been a good enough organist at all. And I thought, you know, because that was all a total male area, playing the organ, yeah, totally.

00:24:23.860 - 00:24:33.960

And going to organist dinners, you know, they tell lots of jokes at the end and everything. But my organ teacher was very good at jokes, and he was a very good speaker at the end of it all.

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And I went to those as sort of curiosity things. And my dad was in the Masons too, and I went to some of his... He showed me into the Masonic Temple

00:24:41.900 - 00:24:54.000

and told me all about it. But he wouldn't explain about the Mozart, the magic flute, what the significance of all the things were, which the Masons only know, and all this.

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So the organist, I just thought they were rather curious. And so when I got married and went off and left the organist, and now I'm sort of part of it, but only sort of part of it. But it's, you know, they put on organ recitals.

00:25:08.540 - 00:25:19.580

But I'm now a member of the Society of Women Organists, which has been started up by Anne Martin-Thomas at St Giles' Cripplegate. And we have something called the ABC,

00:25:20.180 - 00:25:30.840

which is the Adjustable Bench Campaign, because most organs have this set seat. And for a woman, you can't touch the pedals probably because it's too high,

00:25:30.960 - 00:25:43.460

and you can't reach the manuals over there. And so it's a very lively lot. I was on the committee, and COVID, I did a lot with them because we set up a big, we've got a website,

00:25:43.820 - 00:25:54.640

and we were looking up all the women composers who've been forgotten, especially those who play the organ. And we've been doing great stuff, and the Royal College of Organists has really taken this all on board,

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and it's become much more equal. Lots of young women becoming organists. But there's a difference between being a concert organist and being a parish church organist.

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I've only ever realised that it was parish church organists which is what I wanted to do. And so that's what I've done. So when we came back from America,

00:26:16.320 - 00:26:28.880

we went three years in Holland, and then we went to New York. For Simon, he was studying with Ivan Golamian, studying the violin for two years.

00:26:29.540 - 00:26:45.100

And I found the church down the way was All Angels at 80th Street. And we went there for a carol service when we first got there. I said, come on, we've got a carol service. And we were both in tears with them doing Dark in the Midwinter.

00:26:45.280 - 00:26:57.260

It was like going back home. So I introduced myself to the organist and said that, you know, could I practice there? And I took organ lessons at the Cathedral of St John the Divine

00:26:57.260 - 00:27:04.420

with Alec Whiten. So while he was practicing the violin in the apartment, I could go and practice the organ and have regular organ lessons.

00:27:05.100 - 00:27:15.340

That was one of the things I did. Because I only got a 20-hour-a-week work permit as a J visa thing. And so I could only take part-time work.

00:27:15.560 - 00:27:28.000

And I got lots of different jobs. Anyway, so I offered to help out with playing the organ and also just singing in the choir. And when I got into the choir, they were all operatic singers.

00:27:28.200 - 00:27:36.420

They only went on Sundays if they weren't doing something else. And most Sundays they aren't. And so they got paid a wage. And I was one of those people who just wasn't paid.

00:27:36.700 - 00:27:46.680

I mean, I never discovered this. But I could have a key to the church and got to know them all and everybody and could toddle down there and practice when I liked

00:27:46.680 - 00:27:55.600

and do a jolly lot. And after choir practice, you know, we were just a nice bunch of people. Very hospitable and, you know.

00:27:56.200 - 00:28:08.920

And what happened after the US? We came back to England and I had Tom in the November. And then... So where are we now? About 1969.

00:28:08.920 - 00:28:18.120

This is 1969. And it must have been about the beginning of December. I went to my local church, which is St James' Kidbrook. It was down the road.

00:28:18.200 - 00:28:32.600

I'd looked on the notice board to see what times the services were. And it was 9.30 Eucharist and 11.15 Matins. I thought, well, I'm not going to get to a 9.30 with a baby. So I pushed the pram into St James' Kidbrook

00:28:32.600 - 00:28:43.400

in December 1969 to be greeted by the father of one of my dear friends who looked at me and said, you've come to the wrong service.

00:28:44.520 - 00:28:49.640

So I said, oh, thank you very much. I understand it's Matins. Yes, he said. Well, I said, I'm just paying for Matins.

00:28:49.780 - 00:28:56.820

No, Matins. So I parked the pram. And the girl playing the organ, I went up to her afterwards and said I was an organist.

00:28:56.920 - 00:29:03.320

And she sort of fell on me like gold dust. You're what? You're what? An organist. Oh, amazing, because I'm just filling in for Roddy.

00:29:03.380 - 00:29:10.820

Because I was organist. And we're trying to find... Anyway, Roddy's the organist. And so, just to cut a long story short,

00:29:11.640 - 00:29:24.460

when I had Silas, which is the next boy, in 1971. In September 71, I became the organist of St James' Parish Church. Yes. And it was an all-boys choir.

00:29:24.680 - 00:29:37.420

Some women were allowed in the altos. It was an all-male choir. And I was a bit rubbish at keeping order with choir practice. And so one of the tenors, who was a policeman also,

00:29:37.780 - 00:29:47.340

sat in on the choir practices. So it was a sort of baptism by fire. But I was there for lots of happy years. 14 years I was there.

00:29:48.020 - 00:29:58.580

And with John Giles, who was the rector after the one when I got there, we put on Noise Flood. He wanted me to do it. And that was the time when God spoke to me.

00:29:58.800 - 00:30:06.100

I was driving the car up to see my mum. And I know the bit of the road. I was looking at the moon. And suddenly a voice almost said,

00:30:06.140 - 00:30:15.940

You've got to do Noise Flood next year, you know. And I came back and told John Giles this. And it took a year to prepare it. Because I got the Roman Catholic Primary School,

00:30:16.140 - 00:30:26.760

the Church of England School, everybody involved being animals. And we did three nights of it. And it was quite one of the most wonderful things at St James's Kimbrook.

00:30:27.700 - 00:30:36.100

Wonderful. And when was it that you, you said to me that you're a reader in the church. When did that happen?

00:30:36.100 - 00:30:53.200

That all happened because of the ordination of women. I started volunteering in the Moe office in 1986. Because Caroline Davis had a daughter who died of cancer. And she was having to take lots of time off.

00:30:54.540 - 00:31:06.260

And then her daughter did die. And so I worked in the office voluntarily for sort of Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. And did music teaching at home.

00:31:07.800 - 00:31:18.760

And, you know, after schools and everything. And then when Caroline, when her daughter died, we expected Caroline to sort of back up. But she didn't.

00:31:18.860 - 00:31:29.580

She carried on, carried on, carried on. Until Margaret Ordice was the other executive secretary. She suddenly decided when we were going to all these Synod meetings. We observed Synod the whole time.

00:31:29.720 - 00:31:41.440

It was non-Synod. And she thought we weren't radical enough. She was with Monica Furlong and that group. And the St. Hilda community that did sort of outdoor services in the dark.

00:31:41.800 - 00:31:49.560

Around all that business. I went to a couple of those. But I can't remember the details of that. So I knew about that.

00:31:51.560 - 00:32:06.360

And while I was all involved in it all, I'd moved to St. Margaret's in 1985. I moved to be the music director of St. Margaret's. And met Dick Butler, this see-your-faith man.

00:32:07.440 - 00:32:22.660

And he knew all about my involvement in this. And I went to our deanery Synod. I went and said to the rural dean, area dean, I want to do a talk on the ordination of women.

00:32:22.840 - 00:32:28.540

Oh, you can't do that. We've got lots of Anglo-Catholics. Well, I want to do it. I'm going to do it, you see.

00:32:28.540 - 00:32:40.000

I was terrified about doing it. And he said, well, we can't view you as the ordination of women. We'll just say you're talking about women's ministry. So the first thing I opened my mouth with was,

00:32:40.320 - 00:32:48.120

I'm not just talking about women's ministry. Well, I am. But I'm talking about the ordination of women. And this is why they should be ordained.

00:32:48.900 - 00:32:58.040

And Dick, my rector, was in. And he said, Jenny, you've got to do that from the pulpit of St. Margaret's Church. For the congregation. So I did.

00:32:58.900 - 00:33:06.740

Sorry to interrupt you. Can you tell me some of the things that you said during that speech? What were your messages? And were they to the men and the women?

00:33:07.420 - 00:33:19.320

Well, I had a musical analogy. It was like this. Doing the music thing, one of the things we sing is the Sanctus. The holy, holy, holy.

00:33:20.060 - 00:33:29.660

Which is in the middle of the prayer of consecration. And I used that. At that stage, I had a male assistant organist because the organ loft is way up. So I directed the choir.

00:33:29.820 - 00:33:45.260

But, you know, we took turns between it. So I said, what you're trying to do with forbidding women is, you know, I don't quite know how I phrased it. I must have it written down somewhere.

00:33:45.860 - 00:34:01.240

When I'm playing the organ for the service, does it mean that I can't play the Sanctus, the holy, holy, holy, because I'm a woman? And a man has to do that. Because I had a friend, Sylvia Speer, who was at St. Peter's,

00:34:01.440 - 00:34:16.560

and she got this aged old priest to sit there. And she did everything except the prayer of consecration. And she got him to stand up, consecrate the bread and the wine, and sat him down and then did the rest of the service.

00:34:16.560 - 00:34:29.800

And she was doing that all the time. I went to her to talk about what to say. And she thought that my analogy was pretty good, that it was just one's sex that stopped you from consecrating the bread and the wine.

00:34:30.360 - 00:34:43.280

Anyway, I said all this, and the chaps on the Anglo-Catholic lot, they all came in there black and sat like black crows in the front, and said, Jenny, you've got your theology all wrong. And I don't know where the words came from.

00:34:43.280 - 00:34:58.080

And one of them shouted, what authority have you got to stand up and tell us this? And it just came out of my mouth. I said, by the authority of my baptism. That was my main thing.

00:35:00.680 - 00:35:14.580

I know the dress I had on too, like the confirmation. It was a green pinafore dress. So I got round to doing that in various churches for other people, modified and everything, depending on the congregation.

00:35:16.040 - 00:35:28.520

And then the Archdeacon found out, and the Archdeacon said, either Jenny stops this preaching, or she gets herself a license. And so I said to Dick, what does that mean? He said, it means he wants you to train as a reader.

00:35:29.040 - 00:35:43.500

So I said, well, that sounds pretty interesting. I'll go and sort it out. So vacations thing at the Southwark Cathedral, and off I went, and I studied as a reader from 1989 to 1990.

00:35:45.540 - 00:36:07.160

No, 1990 to 1992, because it was right through the vote and everything. I had to keep a diary, a theological diary about my thoughts. Just the term before, that was in November, wasn't it? And I kept on writing angry things in it.

00:36:07.720 - 00:36:28.480

So angry was what was going on with all the worry and everything. And we had a novena that was done by Hannah Ward that was wonderful. And the night before the vote, I actually prayed in the church, St Stephen's Church, with all the anti-people there.

00:36:28.480 - 00:36:40.720

I went down there and put myself there to pray with them. Why did you do that? Because I got friendly with Geoffrey Kirk, who was the Secretary of Forwarding Faith,

00:36:40.880 - 00:36:53.600

and I was the Secretary of the Movement for the Ordination of Women. And he's written a book about our conversations. I started going to see him after the Bishop of Woolwich tried to get various people around the table, for and against,

00:36:53.680 - 00:37:09.740

to have a discussion from the different churches around here. And one of them was my friend Bernice, who was at St Luke's, and me and various others, and Geoffrey was on the thing too. And I was really waiting for an opportunity to get to know him as a person,

00:37:09.880 - 00:37:28.560

because the whole of Moe hated him. They thought he was awful and stuck-up, misogynist, Geoffrey Kirk. I'll go and get the book, if you like, in a minute, and you can see it. Because he's put in the preface that the book's written

00:37:28.560 - 00:37:39.700

because of the conversations we had. Fascinating. Anyway, that Saturday morning we got a telephone call all round saying it's off, the Bishop can't do it.

00:37:40.920 - 00:37:51.120

So I'd got Geoffrey's telephone number, so I rang him up and said, look, I really wanted to meet you. And he said, well, come and have a coffee. So I went down to his house and I left at about three o'clock in the afternoon,

00:37:51.120 - 00:38:02.140

as far as I remember, and we were the firmest of friends for 20 years. Fascinating. And we went through everything. I could ask him all those dumb questions like,

00:38:02.740 - 00:38:16.840

if somebody examined your stomach after you've taken the host, what will they find there? You can't say that it's... It was transubstantiation I was trying to get him.

00:38:16.920 - 00:38:26.520

I did all the difficult bits with him. And in the end he ended up saying, well, I'm an absolutist. It's really that it's like a vaccination. It won't take.

00:38:27.000 - 00:38:40.300

However, you know, no ordination over a woman. It's just not going to take. The Holy Spirit won't work there. Really interesting conversation to have.

00:38:40.760 - 00:38:47.340

Yeah, it was. But you ended up friends. Absolutely, all the way, yeah. We even went to the Holy Land all together.

00:38:47.340 - 00:38:59.540

When Dick, my rector, found out I was going to the Holy Land with Geoffrey Kirk and all the aunties from St. Mary's and St. Stephen's, I wanted to go and they're our friends. And I took my son Ben, he came with us too.

00:38:59.820 - 00:39:12.620

And Ben had wonderful conversations with Geoffrey, just walking around Jerusalem. Ben asked him, why did God not like Abel's gift near... No, Cain's gift.

00:39:12.620 - 00:39:31.000

And Geoffrey took him round through the whole of the Old Testament round Jerusalem with me, hanging on behind listening. So that was somebody who was very anti, but you built a rapport. Yeah, if I'd wanted to be ordained, it wouldn't have been the same.

00:39:31.760 - 00:39:43.140

If I got myself ordained, he wouldn't have had the friendship. It was that I was so strongly a lay person that I had no wish to be ordained whatsoever. Why?

00:39:43.500 - 00:39:56.900

I don't know. Two weeks, not last Sunday, the Sunday before, we were so desperate because we were in Interregnum, I found out the words you need for a lay person at the 8 o'clock

00:39:56.900 - 00:40:13.540

to go through the Book of Common Prayer without the prayer of consecration. There was a certain formula which in the Southwark Diocese is approved. So I did that. There were nine people there. And I said, I'm sorry, we're rock bottom on somebody to do the 8 o'clock,

00:40:13.640 - 00:40:23.800

so you've got me. Because I often go to the 8 o'clock and they all know me. So I said, I can't consecrate the bread and the wine. So Susan last week has consecrated a nice lot of wafers here for us.

00:40:24.280 - 00:40:40.800

And so at a certain point, when we get to where I would hand out, do the prayer of consecration, and I had a piece of paper for them, we're all going to say, as I take it out of the picks, I'm going to say, this is the body of Christ.

00:40:41.060 - 00:40:52.280

Then we all say the Agnus Dei, O Lamb of God. We all say it all together in English. And then at the end of it, I say that bit where, Lord, I am not worthy to receive you.

00:40:52.420 - 00:41:01.640

I would only say the word and I shall be healed. And we all did that. And then they all came up for communion. And this is the thing where I had not looked up what the proper words are for it.

00:41:01.680 - 00:41:09.520

And I'd done it with Dick so many times. It's much more complicated. And so I got sort of halfway there. And then I sort of improvised it.

00:41:09.720 - 00:41:16.860

This is the body of Christ. Take this and eat. And may you have everlasting life. And I just couldn't remember.

00:41:17.000 - 00:41:23.520

I still can't now. It went blank. And at the end of it, I sort of apologized. And one of them said, it was wonderful.

00:41:23.900 - 00:41:37.260

It was so amazing what you were doing. I sort of made it sort of a little bit of my own. And the Holy Spirit just wouldn't let me say the proper words. But I still didn't know what.

00:41:37.320 - 00:41:43.180

And I stood beside Susan and all my friends. And they're consecrating it. And they're doing it. And I think that's a good job.

00:41:43.260 - 00:41:48.820

And they've been ordained. And I'm just very happy to let them do it. Okay. That's good enough reason.

00:41:48.880 - 00:41:57.480

Yeah. Because Elsie Baker, one of the people we put up, she was dying to be a priest from the age of 20. And she was 80-something.

00:41:57.480 - 00:42:06.780

And she did get ordained priest, although she was far too old. But she used to do things like put Luke's Gospel up and then read about the Last Supper. No, Mark's Gospel, which is mainly.

00:42:07.240 - 00:42:14.480

And she'd just put it up there. And she'd have bread and wine. And this is an earth striker, Paul Earthstriker. Have you heard of him?

00:42:14.480 - 00:42:20.060

He's still alive. And he was at the Church of the Ascension. This is where she was doing it. And she'd just say to the congregation,

00:42:20.320 - 00:42:27.600

I'm only reading from the Bible. Yeah. Very good. Yeah.

00:42:30.440 - 00:42:38.540

So, tell me a little bit more about, the Archdeacon said to you, you've got to get a license. Or stop. Or stop.

00:42:38.800 - 00:42:48.600

Did he want you to stop, do you think? Or did he just want you to have some kind of officialdom? Oh, he was a very official person. And if I hadn't got a license, because Dick said,

00:42:48.940 - 00:43:00.820

you know, we can carry on, because Dick was very creative. You can do a one-off with various people. And we had various clever people who Dick wanted to preach. So, we had a chap from the Royal Observatory,

00:43:01.100 - 00:43:12.760

preaching on his idea of the universe. He had a strange sort of idea of God, but it wasn't correct. Anyway, he preached. And we also had a brain surgeon.

00:43:13.360 - 00:43:19.840

And he preached. And that was interesting. And, you know, he got various members of the congregation to preach a sermon.

00:43:20.380 - 00:43:26.480

Just as a taster. Yeah? Yeah. And so what was your, so you said that, yes, you do the training.

00:43:27.120 - 00:43:30.840

What was that like? It was very good. Very good indeed. I enjoyed it.

00:43:30.900 - 00:43:40.280

Every bit of it. What did you have to do? Well, the first year, we started off with Claire Amos. And we did Old Testament and New Testament and,

00:43:40.460 - 00:43:57.720

I don't know, I've got all the files upstairs. But we had to write essays. And the essay that we were set was, what evidence is there in the Old Testament of Jesus, you know,

00:43:58.040 - 00:44:09.660

being the Messiah? So all I did was I got the music of the Messiah. And the text of the words all the way through. And I wrote the sermon from that.

00:44:10.200 - 00:44:22.460

And I gave it to Claire Amos. And she said that was the most amazing sermon she had ever seen. And, of course, it answered the questions perfectly, because I'd used the libretto, which was written by Charles Jennings,

00:44:22.560 - 00:44:31.540

who was the most brilliant person. So. Fantastic. I used my music, as it were, all the way through.

00:44:32.200 - 00:44:45.040

And also I realised that preaching was a bit like music, because you prepared something and then you performed it. Yes. So preaching came to me sort of like an extension of music as well.

00:44:46.480 - 00:44:55.940

Moving to. We did doctrine and all that lot. And we did the world and the world. That's what we were doing during the November sessions of General Synod.

00:44:57.000 - 00:45:11.400

And the preaching one, which the hopeless chap, he just did it alphabetically and Grace Blythe to go first. And she was just put on the spot that day and given ten minutes to go outside and look at a text

00:45:11.400 - 00:45:21.740

and get up in front of all of us. He was hopeless. I never got to preach because my surname was S. He just did it alphabetically and he ran out of time

00:45:21.740 - 00:45:29.440

and he was not very clear. But anyway, you got what you needed out of it. Absolutely, yes. You got your licence.

00:45:29.720 - 00:45:39.860

Yes. The Archdeacon was one of the lecturers at it and he did New Testament studies. I had a bit of a ding-dong with him about an essay I wrote.

00:45:40.280 - 00:45:51.480

He told me to go back and redo bits of it. And I said, why? And he didn't like me even questioning it. I redid it the way he wanted it

00:45:51.480 - 00:46:08.080

and then he took it up from a B plus to a minus or something. But I just thought he was nitpicking. I disagreed with him. And then how did you use your new film licence?

00:46:08.420 - 00:46:27.480

Well, I stopped being the music director in 2005, which was in the middle of David Gatliff's time as rector. And Duncan Atkinson took over all the musical stuff. And so I then, David said, well I,

00:46:27.860 - 00:46:38.740

because David trained us, he did Doctrine at the reader course and he was my tutor in the last weeks and stuff. And he said, well now you're a deacon. When we were getting our licences,

00:46:38.960 - 00:46:52.360

he looked at all of us and said, you're all just deacons in the Church of England. No difference between a deacon and a priest. Well, you're just not allowed to do the communion service.

00:46:53.300 - 00:47:05.960

And as readers you can get licences extra to do funeral services. But I refused to do that because I'd rather play the organ. But I have done a funeral service or two as well, because without a licence, don't tell anybody,

00:47:06.540 - 00:47:27.980

because it was just, it sort of happened. So then I've been a reader ever since and preach once a month and just generally with the rectors as a reader, part of the staff. Let's go back to how you got involved in the movement for the ordination of women.

00:47:29.900 - 00:47:42.860

You ended up being a volunteer for quite some time. And then when Margaret left, they offered me a job. They wouldn't call me the executive secretary. They called me a secretary and Caroline was the executive secretary.

00:47:43.140 - 00:47:55.860

So I didn't do much except mop up lots of things and they paid me a wage. And my Ben was so pleased with me. He said, Mum, you've got a proper job. You go up to London every day except Wednesday.

00:47:55.860 - 00:48:08.840

I went Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. So tell me something about the campaign and your involvement in it. Well, that was amazing because what I liked doing was organising all the demos and the demo things.

00:48:09.580 - 00:48:24.180

And Margaret Webster had done this brilliant tea towel, you know, a woman's place is in the house of bishops. And I went to all the Lambeth conferences and the one in 1998, we had that thing made, the tea towel made into an apron.

00:48:24.180 - 00:48:39.460

Well, after that, some of the women said that's degrading. But the apron went down like hot cakes at Lambeth. And we got the bishops to put on aprons and ice biscuits. And I've got all sort of pictures of Lambeth and everything.

00:48:39.840 - 00:48:53.040

And they all iced mitres on the crosses. Fantastic. And tea towels that we had there. And we ran out of tea towels.

00:48:53.040 - 00:49:03.720

I remember standing on the field in Canterbury, ringing up the tea towel people and its endorser said, can you get some more printed and get them to me? No, no, sorry, they're all gone.

00:49:04.100 - 00:49:22.480

We could have resold them bucket loads. And we had badges and also banners. And for the Lambeth conference in 1988, I made a banner here in this garden. It was a huge length of deck chair canvas from John Lewis.

00:49:23.100 - 00:49:34.740

And it was because the American priests were coming over. And my banner said, where are our women priests? And it's all held. I've got the newspaper cuttings, if at all,

00:49:35.120 - 00:49:43.300

with people holding it around St. Paul's Cathedral. Yeah. And all that lost. And we got candles, we got umbrellas made.

00:49:43.440 - 00:49:55.600

I organised them all in T-shirts, sweatshirts. Merchandise. And also the leaflets, all the leaflets, rewriting them. That happens when we came watch.

00:49:56.100 - 00:50:08.460

Because we got these 10 wonderful pamphlets, the evangelical one, the one about headship. We got the Anglo-Catholic one, written by Caroline Davis's husband. We got the Jesus and gender one,

00:50:09.180 - 00:50:18.640

which Geoffrey said should have been called Jesus and sex, but we called it Jesus and gender. And I've got all the leaflets. They're all in the Mo Archive.

00:50:18.800 - 00:50:36.020

I put them all in there, but I've got my own private collection. And also the newspaper campaigning. And I was the one who opened the cheque from Florence Lee Timoy for £5,000 to give to the Ordination of Women.

00:50:36.840 - 00:50:43.120

Fantastic. So that's what I did in the office. Does that give you a picture of the campaign? Yes.

00:50:43.620 - 00:50:55.520

Oh, the placards saying waiting. You each hold a letter. And that's when people rude you going into Synod. I was going to say, you know, there's two sides of it.

00:50:55.800 - 00:51:04.960

You obviously got a lot of support. These aprons and everything sold. So tell me something about the supporters and tell me something about the antis.

00:51:05.400 - 00:51:16.020

What did you experience? Well, all our supporters were lay people because we only had women deacons then. And it really was a lay movement too.

00:51:16.620 - 00:51:25.340

And WATCH became more and more clerical. There were not so many lay people there. And we had men. There was men for the Ordination of Women as well.

00:51:25.960 - 00:51:39.360

And the anti people, one of them was at All Saints. And I used to go and have coffee with her and things and talk over things with her. Why are you against the Ordination of Women?

00:51:39.360 - 00:51:53.260

Just weird reasons as far as I could tell. She was just frightened by, you know, stepping out of line. But the most extraordinary person was somebody who was on General Synod.

00:51:56.740 - 00:52:07.040

And her husband was a vicar and very against it. And she was on General Synod and she'd been worked on by Susan Cole King. Have you heard of her?

00:52:07.640 - 00:52:24.200

A woman priest who was ordained in America. And she actually was at All Angels at 80th Street, the church where I was an organist 10 years earlier. And she worked on this person saying, you know,

00:52:24.860 - 00:52:37.740

why are you going to vote against? And when it came to the vote, she couldn't vote. She just sat in the chamber crying. And if she had voted for us, it would have been nice.

00:52:37.820 - 00:52:48.100

But if she had voted for the others, it might not have been the result we got. And she then went to Walsingham, you know, to the pilgrimage. And God spoke to her there and said,

00:52:48.260 - 00:52:57.380

you're going to be a woman priest. And she had to tell her husband, this is what she was going to do. And she did.

00:52:57.620 - 00:53:04.780

And I went and interviewed her afterwards. Tell me all about it. And she said, well, it was like a sort of blinding light and I didn't know what to do with it.

00:53:04.840 - 00:53:17.340

It was such a burning thing. I had to become a woman priest. And I went to interview her because I was so interested in how she got converted like that with the vote and everything.

00:53:17.600 - 00:53:25.820

And she was... Well, she wasn't really. She wasn't one of the vocal ones. The vocal one was somebody called Elizabeth.

00:53:26.340 - 00:53:37.240

I can't remember her other name. And she was very friendly with Geoffrey Kirk and used to, you know, go over and have supper with him. And I didn't go and meet her.

00:53:37.460 - 00:53:51.980

But I only met Geoffrey and his whole congregation didn't seem to understand that I was for the ordination of women and Geoffrey wasn't. And he had me preach there too, at his place.

00:53:52.300 - 00:54:01.720

And some of the women walked out when I got up into the pulpit. And he told them off severely after and said, How dare you walk out? That was really rude.

00:54:02.120 - 00:54:14.040

So that's how he treated the people who were supporting him and supporting me. Very interesting. So I met lots of anti people because I was really interested in them.

00:54:14.400 - 00:54:25.060

And the people who were for us, I mean, they're just lots of friends who did lots of stuff and came and supported. Were the antis mainly men or 50-50?

00:54:25.740 - 00:54:35.100

Mainly men and otherwise frightened women. Right. You know, frightened of rocking the boat and not being allowed to express what they really thought,

00:54:35.180 - 00:54:48.660

as far as I could tell, under the control of... And these were laywomen also that felt that they couldn't speak out. Well, it was only the laywomen that I went for because... Of course, it's what I'm talking about.

00:54:48.980 - 00:54:53.680

I meant not married to... Clergymen, no. To clergymen, yeah. Yeah.

00:54:55.080 - 00:55:02.900

So, yeah. Well, Mary, the one I used to... I found at All Saints, because I was the deanery synod secretary for 17 years,

00:55:03.260 - 00:55:14.240

because I went to a MOAGN in 1988, the year of the storm. And at it, Diana McClatchy got up and said, now, you realise the only way you can get anything going

00:55:14.240 - 00:55:24.080

is if you join your deanery synod, because there you will meet all the churches in your area. And there were sort of 19 churches in East Lewisham. And most of them were anti.

00:55:25.000 - 00:55:29.620

Were they? Yeah, they were, yes. Interesting. Well, with Geoffrey Kirk and...

00:55:29.620 - 00:55:40.740

Oh, yeah. Well, it was probably half and half, I suppose. And did you speak... So, were you able to speak across all the churches through that?

00:55:40.780 - 00:55:51.200

Well, no, they all knew who I was, and I was the secretary, and they, you know, just sort of laughed at me half the time, because we were doing deanery synod business, and we weren't talking about it all the time, but...

00:55:51.200 - 00:56:01.720

Yeah. When they were laughing, what were they saying? Well, the ones that said, you've got your theology all wrong, that sort of...

00:56:01.720 - 00:56:13.820

Oh, well, you would think that, Jenny, wouldn't you? That sort of thing. Because of the way you feel about women priests. I mean, it was all jokey, light-hearted, but, you know...

00:56:13.820 - 00:56:24.020

And did you come across... I didn't have anybody being nasty to me, actually. They were all very, you know, kind and indulgent, silly girls. She believes in the ordination of women,

00:56:24.460 - 00:56:33.780

but she doesn't want to be one herself. So you weren't so much of a threat? No, not at all, no. I was just a silly, campaigning woman,

00:56:34.220 - 00:56:46.580

a strident, silly woman, for something that was impossible, as far as they could tell. That was a subversive way of doing it. Oh, yeah, that's an idea.

00:56:48.600 - 00:56:57.420

And... So, you were involved in the... with Moe. Moe?

00:56:57.520 - 00:57:02.380

Moe. I know I mustn't say Moe. Because it rhymes with cow. Yes, I remember now.

00:57:02.700 - 00:57:12.060

You must have used the word dog collar, because otherwise you were a bitch. And I'm always telling people that, and they keep on... even women.

00:57:12.680 - 00:57:21.820

Oh, I haven't got my dog collar. Yeah! Clerical collar, if you must. Right.

00:57:23.600 - 00:57:32.320

And so, when the vote went the right way, tell me about that. Oh, that was... We couldn't believe it.

00:57:32.540 - 00:57:41.900

We were just stunned. Absolutely stunned. And Geoffrey was totally stunned, too. And the stunning sort of went on,

00:57:41.900 - 00:57:49.940

and then gradually began to feel... There was... Instead of a wobbly board, as it had been before, there was a solid plank underneath.

00:57:50.540 - 00:57:58.600

We got through the vote. It's real. We are going to have women priests. And the feeling sort of grew,

00:57:58.880 - 00:58:05.820

and I sort of worked on it, and gradually, you know, we got confidence in, yeah, we're going to make it work.

00:58:06.540 - 00:58:15.760

But there's been all these... You know, the... It was the first worst terrible thing, as well. I was right through all the synod meetings

00:58:15.760 - 00:58:23.240

up in the gallery, listening to it all, thinking, this is really wrong. And Christina Rees and her speech all about boats and things.

00:58:23.420 - 00:58:33.280

It was very pretty, but I don't think she should have said it. And now she's saying that it was all wrong, too, because of the new watch people.

00:58:33.920 - 00:58:40.380

They're trying to... Then we had the five guiding principles when we got the women bishops stuff through, and they're just not working.

00:58:41.000 - 00:58:47.860

Do you see Outlook? I haven't seen it, no. Well, I've only got one copy, but you should have a copy of it.

00:58:48.060 - 00:58:54.560

Yes, please. Well, it's very... Well, I could give it to you, if you want to, and I'll try and get another one.

00:58:54.980 - 00:59:01.920

And I could post it back to you, perhaps. Yeah, yeah. I'll do that, yeah. But it sort of depresses me, the way...

00:59:01.920 - 00:59:07.840

Well, the one thing is, there's no... They've got... It's once a year.

00:59:07.840 - 00:59:15.660

I could give you some backtracked ones. But I only get one copy. But no, I've got some more. I've got...

00:59:15.660 - 00:59:23.180

Yes. I've got the extra copy, so I'll go and get you one. The one that I've given to a couple of the...

00:59:23.180 - 00:59:30.140

We've got some two men seeking their vocation at church, and I wanted them to know what I had done in the campaign,

00:59:30.300 - 00:59:35.260

because now, all these people going for ordination, they have no clue what went on, the young ones.

00:59:35.260 - 00:59:41.540

And we've even got children now, when a man priest comes and says, what's that man doing? Why is...

00:59:41.540 - 00:59:46.600

Why have we got a man doing it, when we've got a vicar? I mean, a woman vicar. It's amazing.

00:59:46.940 - 00:59:55.240

Very interesting. So, also, the lay people have gone from watch. And in this latest one, there's an article by Helen King,

00:59:55.320 - 01:00:02.720

who's been on General Synod for years, as a lay person. And she... I haven't quite finished the article, actually.

01:00:02.800 - 01:00:11.480

I should have finished it off. And also the black ones, too, because they've got a double, triple family, being black, being a woman,

01:00:11.660 - 01:00:19.840

and being a priest. And there's these twins, Yvonne and... What's the other one?

01:00:20.260 - 01:00:30.560

The Thomas twins. And they're both priests. And it's Yvonne who's written this black one. I don't know.

01:00:30.680 - 01:00:40.500

It's all... Trying to find a way to live together in reconciliation. That's the huge difficulty,

01:00:40.740 - 01:00:49.660

because there's always been somewhere some woman being abused and everything. And that's what I wanted when we got women bishops

01:00:49.660 - 01:00:56.820

that watch wound up. Because we'd done everything on the tea towel. The woman's house is in the house of... The place is in the house of bishops.

01:00:57.460 - 01:01:03.720

Let's go away. Leave it all now. Because we're a mainstream church. Everybody has to sink and swim.

01:01:03.920 - 01:01:10.580

You can't have an organisation fighting for women's rights when you've got all the rights that you could get legally.

01:01:10.820 - 01:01:18.700

It's just not working out personally and one-to-one people in different places. But I don't know. I suppose...

01:01:18.700 - 01:01:25.780

So you felt the watch should come to an end. Yes. But they didn't. And it also...

01:01:25.780 - 01:01:40.300

Mo had 5,000 people paying money in. And I don't think watch has even got 1,000. It's a very small membership. So they haven't got enough money to do things.

01:01:40.660 - 01:01:48.020

I think you're concerned also with looking at the theology and interpreting the theology. How do you feel about that?

01:01:48.900 - 01:01:58.320

Well, I've just gone with reading very clever people like Judith Maltby. Because her brain is amazing. I think she's got an article

01:01:58.320 - 01:02:08.160

in this one, this latest one. Her theology is rock solid about why women should be priests. I found I couldn't really have

01:02:08.160 - 01:02:15.740

deep theological arguments with Geoffrey or anybody else like that because I don't quite understand what I'm talking about

01:02:15.740 - 01:02:29.720

in theological terms. And also, before... I'm trying to get the watch archive in. And when we started up in 1996,

01:02:30.640 - 01:02:37.740

there was somebody, a man, called Lynne Ferrerby. And whenever we got complaints about women being badly treated,

01:02:38.620 - 01:02:45.840

we asked them to write in to us. And there's a huge file like this. It's a yellow binding. I'm putting that into the archive.

01:02:45.840 - 01:02:54.260

And I can't bear to even open it and start saying what's in it. But it's lots of complaints from women about the bad treatment they've received.

01:02:55.020 - 01:03:06.640

And this is going to go into the archive. But who's going to do a research, a PhD on how badly women were treated between 1996 and 2000

01:03:07.340 - 01:03:15.240

as a dissertation? I'm wondering about whether it should go in. I think it definitely should go in. But I don't know how to archive it.

01:03:15.240 - 01:03:23.740

I'll just say what's in it, of course. But I just find reading it very painful. And I can barely archive it. In fact, I...

01:03:24.240 - 01:03:32.160

So tell me about this archive work that you've been doing. Oh, yes. Well, when we closed the office in 1994,

01:03:32.600 - 01:03:41.160

we got out of Napier Hall. And Caroline wasn't terribly well at all. And the final stuff, we decided what went into an archive.

01:03:41.420 - 01:03:51.360

And we packed it all up. And I took it to the Philippa Fawcett Society. And it then went into the London Guildhall University Library.

01:03:54.040 - 01:04:02.920

And it was sorted into boxes. But there was a flood in the Philippa Fawcett. And it all got put into black bags. And so it was a bit of a muddle.

01:04:03.780 - 01:04:12.920

And it landed up in the women... London Guildhall University Women's Library, a beautiful place in Whitechapel, with a purpose-built building

01:04:12.920 - 01:04:22.000

which had an exhibition place underneath. So they could do things like the suffragettes. They had an exhibition there. And all the archives were upstairs.

01:04:22.900 - 01:04:34.000

And I was called in by the head archivist, Elizabeth Taylor. Me and anybody else from WATCH. And she asked us

01:04:34.000 - 01:04:48.240

if we could raise 200,000 pounds for an archivist to archive these 124 boxes that they'd got downstairs. And we couldn't do it.

01:04:48.280 - 01:04:55.820

We went back to them and said, we can't do that, but can we help? Yes. So Caroline and I went into the library

01:04:55.820 - 01:05:03.760

once a week for two years. And we got out a box. And we archived it. And you went to a computer at the end of the day.

01:05:03.800 - 01:05:11.960

And you put in all your stuff. It's six mo and boxes. And that's what we did. And that's when I was in the room

01:05:11.960 - 01:05:22.480

when they'd got the little blanket out. Emily Davidson had a drop of her blood on it. And the shears from Greenham Common, they're in the archive, you see.

01:05:22.880 - 01:05:30.480

At the Women's Library at the LSE? Now, it's all gone there. Right. I'll come back to that at the end, if I may.

01:05:30.960 - 01:05:42.780

So we archived all the boxes. And then London Guildhall wanted to get rid of the Mo Library altogether. And it went up for grabs.

01:05:43.000 - 01:05:51.260

And it was either Birmingham University, York University, or LSE. And thank God LSE bought it and put it onto that fourth floor.

01:05:51.400 - 01:05:58.560

It's all part of that. So it was moved over there. And I wanted to make sure that what I'd already put in from WATCH, which was all the outlooks

01:05:58.560 - 01:06:07.760

that I'd edited and everything, and all the leaflets that we'd changed from Mo to WATCH, I got all those in right away.

01:06:08.120 - 01:06:18.600

Elizabeth Taylor said I could do that much at least. So that all went over to LSE and in touch lots of times with Anna Towson, who's the main archivist there,

01:06:19.260 - 01:06:32.000

to try and get all the rest that I want, all the minutes that have got to go in. I've only got the minutes from 2000 to 2010, I think. And that's part of my archive that's going to go in.

01:06:33.440 - 01:06:47.640

And so that's where we are with it. And then, when it was in LSE, they got one of their librarians to do the archive. And she was an Italian girl called Fabiana something-or-other.

01:06:47.960 - 01:06:54.400

And she hadn't a clue. She didn't know how the Church of England worked. She didn't know about General Synod. She didn't know anything.

01:06:55.220 - 01:07:04.840

And she eventually, she was supposed to be calling on me if there were things she wanted to know, but she only called on me once or twice. And that was something trivial.

01:07:05.760 - 01:07:15.020

And I kept on saying, how are you getting on? And then, at the end of it all, she announced that she'd done it and these were the boxes she wanted to throw away.

01:07:15.820 - 01:07:23.660

And so Hilary Cotton and one of the others, because I couldn't manage it, went to see if there was anything that they wanted to retain. Otherwise, LSE got rid of it

01:07:23.660 - 01:07:37.700

and put what Fabiana had archived into the Moe archive. And that's what you see, 6 Moe and all the stuff. And then she gave a lecture in St. Paul's Cathedral about it. And St. Paul's Cathedral got out a few sort of funny documents

01:07:37.700 - 01:07:45.740

about Alan Webster and Margaret Webster and their sort of archive. And somebody had left something. It wasn't really an archivy thing at all.

01:07:46.160 - 01:07:55.660

And Fabiana gave a lecture about the movement, the ordination of women and the archive. And she even got my name wrong. She called me Jane.

01:07:56.180 - 01:08:04.460

And I was sitting next to Sally Barnes and Sally said it was restraining me. I said, argh! So I was very...

01:08:04.460 - 01:08:12.720

And she did another lecture another time at LSE. And that was equally hopeless. She doesn't... Well, other people seemed to think it was all right,

01:08:12.800 - 01:08:23.260

but I knew what she'd missed out. I just knew... It wasn't what I would have expected, but still. And what happened to the stuff that was discarded?

01:08:24.260 - 01:08:34.200

Well, Hillary and people took stuff that they wanted and then LSE discarded it. Well, there is a ton. I mean, it's all listed there.

01:08:34.220 - 01:08:45.520

I've got the list. It looks rather like what Caroline and I did. And people are doing PhDs, aren't they? I mean, Grace.

01:08:46.420 - 01:08:56.440

Grace, yeah. Then we went to the Lambeth Palace Library just early. You know, in May, June, was it? And I went to help them with that.

01:08:56.660 - 01:09:05.640

And they couldn't really be helped because they could only use stuff that was in that library. And they really hurt me. They put our leaflet for joining Mo

01:09:05.640 - 01:09:17.120

right next to the leaflet for joining WOW, W-A-O, Women Against the Ordination of Women, in the same cabinet. I said, you don't need to break that up.

01:09:17.760 - 01:09:25.220

That's because it was in their library. It was one of the only things they had. It was pathetic. Anyway.

01:09:25.600 - 01:09:40.380

Oh, goodness. I've asked you lots. Let me just see what I haven't asked you about. So I've spoken a little bit about...

01:09:40.380 - 01:09:58.680

Oops. Just thinking to the future a bit. You know, you've had a lifetime of working within the church in different ways.

01:09:59.320 - 01:10:09.960

And you've seen lots of change. If you were to want to give some advice to younger women now wanting to enter the church in some way,

01:10:09.960 - 01:10:21.720

what might it be? Golly, I'd have to think about that. Do you think they've got an altogether easier time than you had?

01:10:22.760 - 01:10:30.700

Well, I didn't have a bad time. I was just secure in what I wanted to do. Yes. In my campaigning.

01:10:30.840 - 01:10:39.360

And I had my job as a church organist and music teacher and everything. But they're in a precarious position because it's their livelihood.

01:10:41.340 - 01:10:47.820

I often think of various things I've done. I thought, well, I wouldn't have been able to do that if I'd been ordained and stuff like that. Like what?

01:10:47.980 - 01:11:04.740

Well, I can't think at the moment. It was obviously the right decision for you. Yes. Oh, I should say, be prepared for anything.

01:11:05.740 - 01:11:17.700

And stick to your guns. I mean, really, stick to what you believe in. And don't let people try and push you off or belittle you.

01:11:19.160 - 01:11:38.700

What do you think are the big issues confronting the church as we are in 2024? Well, the sort of missing generation in most churches of the sort of 30s, 40s, 50s,

01:11:39.060 - 01:11:53.120

we're an ageing congregation and very young congregation, that's what we are. And you can't get people to commit to doing jobs and things. Especially now, everything's got super complicated.

01:11:55.480 - 01:12:05.180

We had a church treasurer who did it voluntarily and she worked her socks off. She wasn't terribly good. And then when she was replaced,

01:12:05.820 - 01:12:21.920

the powers that be decided we'd have a paid one. And she was devastated. And also, there's somebody else at church who doesn't think we should be paying the treasurer,

01:12:22.900 - 01:12:31.800

as we are. And we also, we've got a paid administrator. Now, that always has been a paid job. It's like a vicar's PA, a secretary thing.

01:12:33.220 - 01:12:45.560

And we've also got a facilities manager for all the other stuff. And we've got a new rector coming on the 15th of September and she's Manuela Schmucki.

01:12:46.020 - 01:12:55.360

She's Swiss. And I didn't like the advertisement for the rector, but I was told that this is what everybody does. But when I look in the church times, it isn't.

01:12:55.860 - 01:13:06.200

But one of the first things that she's got to be is the line manager for all these building projects and all the projects to do with, you know, the roof dropping to pieces and all that.

01:13:06.320 - 01:13:17.320

That she's got to line manage that, which is what our facilities manager did, but had to always get permission from the rector. So they said this was the way, you know, going round it,

01:13:17.380 - 01:13:27.880

that the rector's going to be responsible for it. But not so much, you know, about the spiritual growth of the parish at all, but it was the material part of the job

01:13:27.880 - 01:13:38.840

that she's more like a... It's more like a sort of... Keeping the church from dropping to pieces. I can see the difficulty there.

01:13:39.080 - 01:13:44.180

Yeah. Two very different skill sets. Yeah. So also, when I read the thing, I said,

01:13:44.220 - 01:13:50.960

well, are you looking for somebody who was an architect and then got called to the priesthood, because I think that's what you're looking for. LAUGHTER

01:13:53.080 - 01:14:04.960

Hmm. Good luck with that one. So we've... You know, you've made it very clear

01:14:04.960 - 01:14:19.820

that you think that, you know, watch has done its job. I'm not putting words into your mouth, and I'm phrasing this badly, but do you feel that now women do have

01:14:20.380 - 01:14:32.380

the same level of equality as men within the church? It's now up to them? Or do you still see gender differences in the way they're treated?

01:14:32.840 - 01:14:40.380

No, no. Those who are ordained. Yes, they are, and they've all got to be wary of it and call a man up who's, you know, said,

01:14:40.840 - 01:14:46.660

say, you know, don't you treat me like that, and how dare you say that to me? They've really got to... Have you seen evidence of that happening?

01:14:46.660 - 01:14:53.440

No, no, I haven't. But I've heard of it, yes. Yeah. Yeah, several people have said that to me, yeah.

01:14:56.140 - 01:15:06.280

Well, I think that I've pretty much gotten to the end of my question list, and I'm so very grateful. But I must ask you, what haven't I asked you about?

01:15:06.380 - 01:15:16.040

Are there other things that I should have... that you would like to tell me? I think you've covered most of it. What have I missed out?

01:15:16.080 - 01:15:25.000

Well, I can't think at the moment. I think you've covered almost everything. I feel I've talked too much about myself personally, rather than...

01:15:25.000 - 01:15:31.400

That's the whole point. Oh, right. That's absolutely what I wanted, yeah. Your role in all of this,

01:15:31.440 - 01:15:41.380

and what motivated you to do all the amazing things that you've done, so no, you're spot on there. If anything does occur to you, you've got my email address.

01:15:42.720 - 01:15:49.520

Please let me know. This doesn't have to be the last word, although I'm extremely grateful for all the time you have given me.

01:15:50.780 - 01:16:00.360

Well, I'll let you have a sight of Geoffrey's book, and you can have a look at it, and I'll go and get a couple of outlooks. Lovely. I'll stop this now, then.

01:16:00.600 - 01:16:02.460

There's an outlook I can give you, and you can have a look at it.