Schools have opened again. Forty years ago I began an appointment as the school chaplain at St Mary’s College in Wallasey. I was there for three years and during that time made friends with people whose friendship I have valued ever since.
One of them was Tom Atkinson. He hoped to be a headteacher and I was one of the people he asked to write a reference for him, when he began to apply. Shortlisted and called to interview, he asked me to pray for him, but he failed to be appointed on a number of occasions. He went on applying, however, and persisted in using the reference I had written, until eventually he said that he realised where he had been going wrong. “The interview’s tomorrow,” he told me. “Don’t pray for me.” And he was appointed. For the next 18 years he was head of All Saints, Dukinfield. As things turned out, in 1990 I was appointed parish priest in neighbouring Hyde, so we became colleagues again, as well as friends. I sat on the board of governors and in fact was chairing it when Tom retired.
One of the privileges of ordained priesthood is the kind of relationships you sometimes form. Over the years I became a sort of unofficial chaplain to the Atkinson family. I officiated at the weddings of Tom’s three daughters, Rachel, Sarah, and Anna, and officiated also when his elder son, Paul, was married. Simon, the youngest, was the only one whose marriage I couldn’t attend. Then in December 2012 I said the mass in St Alban’s, Macclesfield, when Tom and Monica celebrated their golden wedding anniversary. It was another unforgettable family occasion.
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Tom died this year in May. He was 84. Paul invited me to celebrate the requiem Mass. In spite of living in Rome, I was in fact able to accept and, when I told Paul, he commented that his father would be looking down and smiling, because I would now have achieved the hit comedy title for the Atkinson family, “Four Weddings and a Funeral”. After laughing, that set me thinking.
The funeral in the film brought to popular attention Auden’s poem, Funeral Blues, that speaks of “stopping the clocks and cutting off the phone, packing up the moon and dismantling the sun”. It is a powerful and remarkable expression of grief, and while I wasn’t dreaming of using it, I realised instantly that it would have been entirely inappropriate for Tom’s funeral. In spite of our sorrow and sense of loss, Tom’s memory inspired laughter, not sadness. Paul’s comment had echoed his father’s humour. He loved to tell stories.
He once mentioned an evening when he’d been sitting at home and had glanced across at Monica. He found himself thinking how lucky he had been to marry her, what a fine mother she had been to their children and what tireless care she had taken of their home. And then, he said, he’d drifted off a bit and thought, “but I might have married someone else”,and wondered what that would have been like. Then he came to himself and realised, “No, it wouldn’t have been any different, because it would still have been me.” How often people imagine that if they could rearrange the pieces and players in their lives, all would become perfect, when it’s not the pieces and players they need to rearrange, but themselves. Tom knew himself well. And his love for his family shone through everything he did. It was integral to his faith.
This deep Christian faith was for him the bedrock. It was firm and unquestioning without being oppressive. It was also the inspiration for his commitment to education. He was painstakingly professional. Yet, during a school day, he often seemed to have plenty of time to chat. Somebody once remarked that they thought he was lazy, but a wiser colleague observed that he found the time to talk because he was so well prepared.
Friends like this are a power in our lives. And we give thanks for them. How appropriate that Tom should have been buried between the Ascension and Pentecost, when we celebrate sorrow being turned into joy.
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Monsignor Roderick Strange is the Rector of the Pontifical Beda College, Rome