Credit: Will Horne
I first thought about this for a meeting of the Bishop’s Senior Staff just before I was due to retire and it happened to fall on the ninth anniversary of the London Bridge attacks. That is one of my most vivid memories of working for the Diocese. The image in my head is of Bishop Christopher and the then Dean of Southwark, Andrew Nunn, on Southwark Street talking to the press. It was the morning after the attacks and it was very early. The traffic around there was all halted and there were ranks and ranks of photographers and camera men filming interviews. As I recall it we had come for one interview with, I think, the BBC and had literally walked the line of cameras as the Dean and the Bishop were asked by National TV companies from country after country to talk about what had happened.
This reminds me how different comms were when I started in the Diocese. (My first Diocesan mobile phone was the size of a house brick!) It makes me think how much and how quickly the world has changed. The Diocese of Southwark has always sought to be on the forefront of keeping up with media changes and seeking to get the work of the Diocese and God’s Good News shared as widely as possible.
My next image is of Andrew Lane, the Deputy Diocesan Secretary ,with his ginger hair and lanky frame standing in the doorway to my office. Remarkably, he ran the Diocesan website then and it did not come into Comms for a number of years. He would come and stand and talk to me about the next steps for the website. I am not sure how he came to run it but Southwark seemed to be far more advanced in their website communications than many other Dioceses at the time. It was a good beginning which continues to be built upon and to grow and change. Thanks Andrew, for all your work on this.
Then I have a picture in my head of my first day in the Diocese and of my ‘new’ desk. (I was rather old and wooden and ruined my tights within minutes!) I’d come from USPG where our offices were very modern. I arrived just a month after the Diocese had moved from Lambeth Road. There the former vicarage had made an atmospheric and impractical office. I visited it briefly once and my picture there is of stairs winding their way to the top of the house filled with boxes as you went up!
As I remember it, there were very few, if any women in the leadership team then. We still have a ways to go but we do now have some Global Majority Heritage people on the BIshop’s Senior Staff Team (indeed, our acting Bishop of Southwark is GMH) and a good number of women. Our last two Diocesan Secretaries have been women. Both from professional backgrounds: working in the city or the civil service. This leads me to reflect how much more professional and intentional the Diocesan Administrative structure is now at all levels. We were proud then that our word processor were networked and could speak to each other.
Another picture or perhaps, this time, a collage of pictures, that I carry is of the various Diocese Pilgrimages that I have been privileged to be a part of and of our Diocesan links. This reminds me of two things: the link between the Diocese and the Cathedral (the pilgrimages were always led by the Dean and Bishop and this continues). These Pilgrimages have been very important in my own ministry but more than that they speak of the way in which the Diocese has worked. And our Diocesan Links have encouraged great awareness of the richness of the Anglican Communion.
I have worked with three Bishops and three Deans and in each case they have worked closely together and that harmony between the Diocese and the Cathedral has been an important part of making Southwark Diocese the place that it is. A place of commitment to the marginalised and those who feel neglected by the community and by the church. We have – it seems to me – always tried to stand in solidarity with those who have less and who feel less valued. For example, Bishop Roy Williamson, the first Bishop of Southwark with whom I worked, found himself in public difficulty, when the 20 anniversary of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement took place in the Cathedral. He was asked to stand down from his role at CPAS as a consequence.
I will never forget my picture of me standing in the gardens of Wells Cathedral, as I listened to the next Bishop of Southwark, Tom Butler, shout down the phone at me in incandescent rage because the Archbishop of Canterbury was insisting that the then Canon Chancellor of the Diocese should stand down as the Bishop (Designate) of Reading. This prefigures for me the more recent Living in Love and Faith struggles that the Diocese and the church has had. it paints a picture of the Church of England trying to straddle too many different views and ending up at risk of pleasing no one.
One final image to conclude: a full Williamson Room in Trinity House one afternoon in July, just before Bishop Christopher retired. Bishop Christopher Commissioned another Five Lay Vocations Champions. We reflected upon the work that has been happening in the Diocese as part of our priorities to ensure that the vocations and work of our lay people is properly valued. It was a joyful occasion and a measure of the enthusiasm with which this work has been received the number of those coming forward for lay ministry continues to increase and this is a great joy for us all and of enormous benefit to the parishes.
So, I’ll stop, save to say it’s been a privilege and as I move on to a different stage of life and ministry, I know I will miss it all very much.
The Revd Canon Wendy Robins
