Being a Disciple Today

When Bishop Christopher presented me with the Lancelot Andrewes Medal, I gave thanks to God for the many things he has given me in my life, and for guiding me along the way. Throughout, I have sought to continue the work that Jesus entrusted to his first disciples: that of bringing God’s kingdom into the world through my personal life as a scientist, a Christian and a priest.

That I had the curiosity to be a scientist was evident very early on in my childhood when (beware for a shock) I took my mother’s nail scissors and cut open a snail in its shell to discover where it kept its legs! I was then unaware that our ingenious creator God has devised many different ways of locomotion for the myriad of creatures he has made. I went to a church primary school, and attended St Mary’s, Twickenham each Sunday with my grandfather, who was a bell ringer and PCC member. In my early teens, my family moved to Kent, and I became part of the family of St Mary’s, Gillingham. I took up bellringing, and was confirmed at the age of 14 by Bishop Christopher Chavasse.

I went to university in London, during which my church life waned. I studied Zoology specialising in marine biology. I learned to walk along a rocky beach and name the many creatures in rockpools and buried in the sand, all so superbly adapted to their habitat, through evolution, mutation and natural selection – God’s way of doing things.

When I graduated, I hoped to get a job, like some of my male colleagues, working on whaling ships on the South Atlantic, but in 1961, that was not open to women. Instead, I was offered a position counting plankton in Lowestoft, but that did not appeal. However, by the end of the summer, I was still unemployed, so decided I must stop being picky and take the first job I was offered. This was a research studentship at Guy’s Hospital, in what was to become the genetics department. I remained there for 54 years, during which time, Guy’s Medical School was incorporated into King’s College London.

My research centred on the cause and prevention of malformations that children are born with, especially spina bifida. I was part of the team that discovered that spina bifida can be prevented, if women are given folic acid in the first trimester of pregnancy. I was also involved in developing the then, biochemical method of detecting spina bifida during pregnancy (now done by scanning) to give the possibility of terminating an affected fetus. This confronted me with ethical dilemmas, and I developed an interest in medical ethics.

My church life resumed, and I was still ringing bells and serving on the PCC at St Mary’s, Gillingham. I studied to become a Reader. Then in 1975, I took on a mortgage, but did not know where where I would live. So I drove around the countryside to find a place that seemed pleasant that was also was on a good rail line to London Bridge. I ended up at somewhere I had never heard of: Hurst Green, Surrey, in the Diocese of Southwark. St John’s, Hurst Green has been central to my life ever since.

Once I had established myself as a credible scientist, the world opened up for me, and I travelled the world to attend meetings, to present my research findings and to teach. Amongst many places, I went to India, Nepal and Sri Lanka, to Canada and North America, to north and south Brazil and Europe. I gave a lecture in Jerusalem. Everything about that day seemed odd. It was on a Sunday, a normal working day there. It was the holy city, so special in my mind, and I simply caught an ordinary bus from my hotel to the university. I spent a month at the marine biological station in Bermuda, snorkelling to collect specimens for research. It was there that I learned that not all frogs live in ponds. Would you believe it, some have their homes in trees? There is no end to God’s ingenuity!

At home, I contributed to Government Committees and Advisory Boards. As in vitro fertilisation developed for treating humans, I became an Inspector for the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority visiting laboratories all over the UK. I did a certain amount of TV and radio work, participating in a number of BBC television scientific documentaries, and ethical programmes. I featured in Woman’s Hour a number of times, gave interviews on World at One, and other BBC Radio 4 programmes. I shall never forget being an expert witness on ‘The Moral Maze’. I was overwhelmed by being in the presence of Michael Buerk, who I had always admired, and I was turned into mincemeat by panellist Janet Daly’s inquisition!

At the same time, the Church of England was finding things for me to do. I served for 20 years on the General Synod’s Board for Social Responsibility. For ten years, I was one of the C of E’s representatives on the Church and Society Committee of the World Council of Churches. This again took me abroad, often to places I would not have visited. Bishop Hugh Montefiore and I went to Moscow, and Nigeria. How amazing it was to see the vibrant, red soil, rich in iron and aluminium oxides that characterises the African continent. I also did a solo trip to East Berlin when to Wall was still in place to link up with East German Christians. As I travelled in the train from the west to east, I took some photographs of the Wall, and was told off, and I was scared I was going to be arrested.

I had long felt the call to be a priest, but did not offer myself to be a deacon (women could not be priests then) as, enabled by our then Vicar, the Revd George Russell, I was having a rich ministry as a Reader, and felt that being a deacon would not provide much more. I was amongst the crowd of women standing outside Church House, in Dean’s Yard, Westminster, while the Synod voted to allow women to be ordained to the priesthood. I trained on the Southwark Ordination Course, and was ordained deacon in 1991. But unlike our male contemporaries, we women still had to wait another three years before we were allowed to become priests. I could not bring myself to accept Bishop Wilfred’s invitation to be his chaplain while he priested our male colleagues after only one year. I hope he understood the pain we women still felt. Finally, in 1994, I became a priest, and the Southwark made our ordination very special.

I remained at Guy’s as Dean of Graduate Students on a part time basis until I was almost 75. As I said goodbye to the Principal, she enquired what I would now be doing. I replied that the one thing I would not be doing, was funerals. And what have I been doing ever since? A lot of funerals!! One is never too old to learn. Funerals had never been part of my ministry, and I thought they were very specialised. I now know what a joy it is to be able to help to the bereaved in their painful task of saying farewell to their loved ones. Funerals are also a unique opportunity to meet non-church people who, otherwise, you would never encounter. I don’t have a ‘bog-standard’ funeral, I tailor-make the service for each family. So, if a family want to start Grandpa’s funeral with ‘I’m forever blowing bubbles’ because Grandpa always sang it to his grandchildren, then that is what we do. When they later tell me that they thought the church would never allow it, I am so pleased to have shown them that the church is not as stuffy as they imagined. I love funerals! I learn all about local history, and the courageous lives of ‘so called’ ordinary people. God sometimes gives me astonishing experiences. After the funeral in church of a local farmer and countryman, I followed the hearse to the crematorium across country, and a buzzard swooped down low over the hearse, as if to say goodbye to a dear friend.

As both a scientist and a priest, I have never found a clash between the two disciplines. To me, each enlightens and enhances the other. As a scientist, I have seen so much of the complexity of God’s creation, and I marvel and wonder, and I have spent my days in the company of a loving God. I have rarely planned anything. I learned that God continually dropped new opportunities in my path, and that I needed need to snap each one up, and use it. Forgive me, Lord, when I have failed to use your gifts as you hoped.