Three anchors in Tamworth recall Colin Grazier’s role in breaking the Enigma code

The Anchor sculpture in Tamworth commemorating Colin Grazier from Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

Three anchors seem, at first, an unusual collection of objects for a sculpture in the middle of Tamworth. After all, this is one of the most inland towns in the Midlands, and about as far from the coast and sea as one can get.

This striking sculpture in the middle of Tamworth dominates the public square facing the south side of Saint Editha’s Collegiate Church, the town’s parish church.

The sculpture by the Polish sculptor Walenty Pytel commemorates Colin Grazier from Tamworth, whose bravery helped to break the Enigma codes and hasten the end of World War II, and two of his colleagues, Tony Fasson and Tommy Brown.

Able Seaman Colin Grazier (22) from Tamworth and First Lieutenant Tony Fasson (29) from Scotland drowned on 30 October 1942 while they were seizing vital Enigma codebooks from a German U-boat.

The men served on HMS Petard, a Royal Navy destroyer that had attacked the U-559. They swam to the stricken submarine after its crew surrendered. Colin Grazier had married his childhood sweetheart Olive just two days before joining his ship, HMS Petard.

Grazier and Fasson died when the U-boat sank, but not before passing the Enigma documents to NAAFI canteen assistant Tommy Brown (16), who had also boarded the vessel. He survived, but died two years later in a house fire.

The captured material enabled the codebreakers at Bletchley Park to crack the German Naval Enigma cipher, allowing essential supply ships to avoid U-boat attacks.

Colin Grazier and Tony Fasson were later recommended for posthumous awards of the Victoria Cross. However, the Admiralty wasconcerned this might draw unwanted attention from German Intelligence, and instead ordered posthumous awards of the George Cross, the highest civilian award for bravery. Tommy Brown was awarded the George Medal.

Due to the Official Secrets Act, their mission remained a secret for 30 years. Colin Grazier and his two comrades helped save hundreds of thousands of tons of shipping from torpedoing and of course no-one can estimate the countless lives their actions saved. Their deeds that day paved the way for the build-up of forces for the Normandy Invasions.

Bletchley Park was arguably the most successful intelligence operation in history, the secret workplace of the remarkable people who cracked Germany’s Enigma Code. Almost to the end of the war, the Germans had firm faith in the Enigma ciphering machine. But, in fact, the codebreakers were deciphering almost 4,000 German transmissions daily by 1942.

It is now recognised that Grazier, Fasson and Brown heroic actions shortened World War II by at least 12 months.

The anchor memorial created by Walenty Pytel was unveiled in 2002 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

The journalist and author Phil Shanahan led an award-winning campaign by the Tamworth Herald to bring attention to Tamworth-born Colin Grazier, his two colleagues and their heroic efforts of 30 October 1942. The campaign won the Campaign of the Year Award in 2000 and funds were raised to provide a permanent memorial.

The anchor memorial created by Walenty Pytel was unveiled in October 2002, on the 60th anniversary of the action against U-559.A Portsmouth shipyard donated the chain which links the anchors representing the three heroes.

The text on the memorial reads:

Colin Grazier
1920-1942

This memorial is dedicated to Able Seaman Colin Grazier of Two Gates Tamworth, who gave his life recovering vital Enigma codes from a sinking German U-boat.

His extraordinary bravery together with that of Lt Tony Fasson and Tommy Brown (all of HMS Petard) changed the course of WWII, saving countless lives worldwide.

While undoubtedly one of the world’s greatest war heroes, Grazier was also one of the least known. Details of his actions remained secret for decades, depriving him of the true recognition he so richly deserved. This tribute was erected in the Year 2007 following a campaign in the Tamworth Herald which attracted worldwide interest. It was made possible with the support of local ex-service and civic organisations.

Erected in memory of all Tamworth people who died for their country.

The Polish-born sculptor Walenty Pytel is a contemporary artist based in the United Kingdom and is recognised as a leading metal sculptor of birds and beasts. He was born in 1941 in German-occupied Poland during World War II. Because of his blond features the Nazis kidnapped him from his mother Jadwiga Pytel and had him adopted by a Gestapo officer and his childless wife. However his mother, who had escaped from a prison camp, snatched him from outside the couple’s home and fled Poland with him to Italy.

Pytel came to England at the age of five and later studied graphic design at Hereford College of Arts. He opened two studios in Hereford in 1963, initially focusing on paper sculptures for window displays but turned to metal two years later.

His creations are often inspired by nature and his work includes the Jubilee Fountain in New Palace Yard, Westminster, ‘Take Off’ at Birmingham Airport, and one of Europe’s largest metalwork sculptures, ‘The Fossor’ (1979), at the headquarters of JCB in Rocester, Staffordshire.

The museum at Bletchley Park has a section dedicated to Colin Grazier and Tamworth has an avenue, an office block and an hotel named after him.

The Colin Grazier Hotel on Church Street is beside the Colin Grazier sculpture and Saint Editha’s Church and is a Grade II listed building dating from the early 18th century, with later additions.

Over time, it has been a house, a police station, an office, and a hotel., it is in brick with stone dressings, a cornice over the ground floor, a top modillioned cornice, and a tile roof with coped gables. It is in early Georgian style, and has two storeys, seven bays, and a rear gabled wing with an attic. There are two doorways with architraves, friezes and cornices. The windows are sashes with keystones, and in the windows in the upper floor have rounded heads.

The rear gabled wing has a single-storey extension that includes a late 19th century cell block.

The Colin Grazier Hotel on Church Street is beside the Colin Grazier sculpture and Saint Editha’s Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Six tower blocks dominate Tamworth’s skyline, but also recall historical figures

Weymouth House bathed in the last night’s sunset … the six tower blocks have dominated Tamworth’s skyline since the mid-1960s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

I was honoured to be invited to say grace at Sunday’s lunch celebrating the work of the Tamworth and District Civic Society.

The lunch in the Castle Hotel, Tamworth, celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Tamworth Civic Society in 1973, and the guests included Founder Chairman of Tamworth Civic Society, Dr FGA Noon, and the Mayor of Tamworth, Councillor Moira Greatorex, who proposed the Loyal Toast.

The guest speaker, Professor David Evans of Chester, is a Trustee and Board Member of Civic Voice, and Councillor John Harper, Deputy Mayor of Tamworth a local historian and former journalist at the Tamworth Herald, spoke of the important work of the society the post-war era, when Tamworth was in danger of losing much of its built heritage.

Before Sunday’s lunch, I visited the Comberford Chapel in Saint Editha's Church and had some short time to walk along the banks of the River Anker, between Lady Bridge and the Moat House, the former Comberford family home on Lichfield Street.

The Moat House House has been dwarfed by the six tower blocks that dominate Tamworth’s skyline since the mid-1960s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Towering above the Moat House and the river bank for almost 60 years are six 15-sorey modern tower blocks off Lichfield Street. They dominate the skyline of Tamworth, and have become more visible landmarks of Tamworth than, say, Tamworth Castle, Saint Editha’s Church, the Town Hall, Guy’s Almshouse, or the Moat House which is dwarfed by their size and scale.

As John Harper said yesterday, without the work of the society, Tamworth might have lost more of its historical heritage in the post-war era decades to developers whose vision was to transform Tamworth into another Coventry or Birmingham. There was a key difference, he pointed out: unlike Birmingham and Coventry had been destroyed by German bombs during World War II.

This riverside development along Lichfield Street was built in 1967, and includes six 15-storey houses, each with 58 dwellings. Between 1965 to 1981 the population of Tamworth doubled from 32,000 to 64,000, with the development of major new housing estates including these high rise tower blocks on the edge of the town centre.

When it came to naming the six blocks, the planners paid some tribute to the history and heritage of Tamworth whose loss they were contributing to in the 1960s, including previous owners of both Tamworth Castle and the Moat House.

Weymouth House on the corner of Lichfield Street and Silver Street recalls a 17th century MP for Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Weymouth House is the closest to the town centre, at the east end of Lichfield Street, almost on the corner of Lichfield Street and Silver Street, and diagonally opposite the corner of Aldergate and Church Street.

Weymouth House takes its name from a title held by the Thynne family, whose connections with the Lichfield and Tamworth area begin with Thomas Thynne (1640-1714), 1st Viscount Weymouth, and his marriage in 1671 to Lady Frances Finch, a granddaughter of the Dowager Duchess of Somerset who was a close friend of William Comberford of Comberford Hall and who also held properties in Comberford, Wigginton and Tamworth.

Through this marriage, Lord Weymouth inherited large estates and political interests in the Tamworth area, including Draycott Bassett, and extensive Irish estates in Co Monaghan. His mother-in-law, Lady Mary Seymour (1637-1673), was a daughter of William Seymour, 2nd Duke of Somerset and Lady Frances Devereux (1599-1674), who, as the Dowager Duchess of Somerset, she also held properties in Comberford, Wigginton and Tamworth.

Weymouth inherited more estates through a division of land between the heirs of the two daughters of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. Earl Ferrers, who lived at Tamworth Castle, inherited the share of his grandmother, Lady Dorothy Devereux, while Weymouth succeeded to the inheritance of Lady Frances Devereux, Duchess of Somerset.

Weymouth was MP for Tamworth (1679-1681), High Steward of Sutton Coldfield (1679-1714), High Steward of Tamworth (1681-1714), and High Steward of Lichfield (1712-1714). His sons including son Henry Thynne (1675-1708), MP Tamworth (1701-1702) with Thomas Guy, one of Tamworth’s great benefactors.

The Thynne family later owned Comberford Hall for almost 30 years (1761-1789), and Weymouth’s descendants held the title of Marquis of Bath – but, perhaps, the planners thought it injudicious to give a tower block the name Bath House.

Strode House recalls Grace Strode, who married Henry Thynne, briefly MP for Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Strode House is southwest of Weymouth House, and recalls Grace Strode, who married Weymouth’s son, Henry Thynne (1675-1708), briefly MP for Tamworth (1701-1702).

Grace Strode was the daughter of Sir George Strode and a wealthy heiress, and at her marriage in 1695 she brought her husband a fortune of £20,000.

Peel House takes its name from the Peel dynasty who dominated political life in Tamworth for much of the 19th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Weymouth House and Strode House are separated from the other four blocks by New Street.

Peel House, to the west of Weymouth House, obviously takes its name from Sir Robert Peel and the Peel family who dominated political life in Tamworth for much of the 19th century, beginning with Sir Robert Peel (1750-1830), MP for Tamworth (1790-1820), who lived at Drayton Bassett.

Sir Robert Peel (1788-1850), was twice Prime Minister (1834-1835, 1841-1846), and also bought up the mortgages on Comberford Hall.

Other members of the Peel family included William Felton Peel (1839-1907) was living at Comberford Hall from 1900 to 1902, and the Revd Maurice Peel (1873-1917), Vicar of Tamworth, who was an army chaplain when he was killed by a sniper during World War I.

Townshend House takes its names from a family who inherited Tamworth Castle and the Moat House (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Townshend House, in the middle of the development, takes its names from the Townshend family, who inherited Tamworth Castle by marriage in the mid-18th century. The Townshend family also became proprietors of the Moat House. They were was forced to sell the castle to pay off debts in 1821.

The Townshend family bought back Tamworth Castle in 1831, but they never recovered the Moat House. They finally put the castle up for sale by auction in 1891, when it was bought by Tamworth Corporation, to mark Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee.

Stanhope House … Philip Stanhope was a roalist colonel and MP for Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Stanhope House, at the west end of the development, overlooks the high rise development of Devereux House, which separates these high rise blocks from the grounds of the Moat House.

The name of Stanhope House recalls Ferdinando Stanhope (1619-1643), a younger son of Philip Stanhope, 1st Earl of Chesterfield. He was MP for Tamworth (1640-1643) and a Royalist colonel in the English Civil War.

Stanhope and Colonel William Comberford of the Moat House were among a group of royalist officers who were created MA of the University of Oxford by Charles I. Stanhope fought at the Siege of Lichfield when he was killed in a skirmish near West Bridgford in 1643.

Shortly before his death, Stanhope married his step-sister Lettice Ferrers, a daughter of Sir Humphrey Ferrers of Tamworth Castle, and their daughter Anne was born after his death.

Harcourt House recalls a family who were intermarried with the Comberford family and who once lived in the Moat House (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Harcourt House is in the south-west corner of the development. The south side of Harcourt House overlooks the banks of the River Anker and towers above the Moat House to its immediate west.

Harcourt House recalls a family who were intermarried with the Comberford family and who once lived in the Moat House. Under an agreement made in 1554, the ultimate right to the Moat House passed the heirs of Humphrey Comberford (1496-1555). Humphrey Comberford’s daughter, the widowed Mary (Comberford) Ensor had married her second husband, Walter Harcourt of Tamworth, by 1563.

When Mary Harcourt died ca 1591, the title to the Moat House reverted to the Comberford family, although Walter Harcourt continued to live there until he died in 1598, when he was buried in Saint Editha’s Church.

Meanwhile, the title to the Moat House inherited by Mary Harcourt passed to her nephew, William Comberford, who moved to the Moat House from Wednesbury.

Devereux House borders the remaining lands of the Moat House (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

In the same area off Lichfield Street, the low-rise housing developments include Balfour and Devereux House. Devereux House, between the tower blocks and the Moat House recalls a family closely linked with the political life of Tamworth and Lichfield in the 16th and 17th centuries and with the Comberford family.

I once thought Balfour was named after Arthur James Balfour (1848-1930), 1st Earl of Balfour, who was Prime Minister in 1902-1905. But, instead, perhaps, Balfour recalls Jabez Spencer Balfour (1843-1916), MP for Tamworth (1880-1885), but later jailed for financial fraud. A series of companies he set up and controlled, starting with the London and General Bank and culminating in the Liberator Building Society, left thousands of investors penniless. Instead of advancing money to home buyers, they advanced money to property companies to buy properties owned by Balfour, at a high price.

After the swindle was uncovered, Balfour fled Britain but was arrested in Argentina in 1895 and sentenced to 14 years in prison.

Hardly an inspiring MP for Tamworth, even in these days!

Recently, Tamworth Borough Council began an improvement programme on the blocks, which are almost 60 years old. About £1.75 million is being spent to replace soil and ventilation pipes. But this aging development needs more attention.

The tower blocks frequently provide a stark contrast to the prevalent scale and character of Tamworth, and have long had a significant impact on Tamworth’s skyline, contributing to the disproportionate poor image and perception of the town.

Recent reports have recommended addressing the issues by reconfiguring the layout of the estate around more conventional streets and urban blocks and through the selective demolition of houses and maisonettes. This will enable the development of a number of contemporary high density dwellings to wrap around and integrate the tower blocks at the ground floor-level and take maximum advantage of the riverside setting.

The reports also recommend reconfiguring the entrances to the tower block to integrate them into the street-scene and to create a more welcoming arrival point. They also recommend addressing the visual impact of the blocks by individually recladding them to create a softer and less uniform appearance and exploring innovative approaches to roof treatments and lighting design to create some character and visual interest to the Tamworth skyline.

The high-rise towers are unlikely to be demolished in the decades to come, so they will continue to have a significant impact on Tamworth’s skyline

Walking along the river bank, behind the Moat House and the tower blocks, on Sunday afternoon (Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Praying through poetry and with USPG: 29 January 2023

The Moat House, the former Comberford home on Lichfield Street, depicted on the welcome sign at Tamworth Railway Station (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

Today is the Fourth Sunday of Epiphany, although some parishes may decide to bring forward the celebration of the Feast of the Presentation from next Thursday to this morning.

Later this morning, I plan to be at the Parish Eucharist in the Church of Saint Mary and Saint Giles in Stony Stratford. But before the day begins I am taking some time in prayer and reflection at the beginning of the day.

Christmas is not a season of 12 days, despite the popular Christmas song. Christmas is a 40-day season that lasts from Christmas Day (25 December) to Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation on Thursday next (2 February).

Throughout the 40 days of this Christmas Season, I am reflecting in these ways:

1, Reflecting on a seasonal or appropriate poem;

2, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary, ‘Pray with the World Church.’

‘Our town has underused churches and underappreciated ancient monuments’ … Saint Editha’s Church and the town seen from Tamworth Castle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I was back in Tamworth last week, visiting some places associated with the Comberford family. So, my choice of poem this morning is another poem about Tamworth by Mal Dewhirst, ‘Our Town.’

Mal Dewhirst, who died in 2021, became Staffordshire’s first poet laureate in 2012. He lived in Tamworth and Tamworth inspired a number of his poems.

He was a writer and film maker, and his plays have been performed across the Midlands, including ‘The Fell Walker’ in Tamworth and ‘At the Crossroads’ at the Garrick in Lichfield, which was commissioned by the Lichfield Mysteries.

Mal was a poet-in-residence in a town market and an archaeological dig, his work has been published in many magazines and journals, and he appeared on BBC Radio and Radio Wildfire. He was also responsible for the Polesworth Poets Trail.

Mal was a regular reader on the Midlands poetry scene and was part of the Coventry Cork Literature exchange in 2011, performing readings in Cork City and Limerick. As a film director, his film Double Booked was shown at the Corona Fastnet Short Film Festival in Ireland in 2014.

He hoped to bring ground-breaking writing to new audiences, always seeking to redefine boundaries, and wanted to develop and improvise new work as collaborations with other artists and performers in unexpected places as a melding of ideas, skills and talents.

Tamworth Castle, on a mound above the town (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Our Town, by Mal Dewhirst:

Our town is being defined
by the corporate; coffee shop, pseudo design brand clothing stores, token music shop and two branches of a major pharmacy,
mixed in with charity shops for our hearts, the aged, the hospice and cancer.
It has an out of town retail park
with two supermarkets, a pet store, two electrical shops and a DIY store,
all mingled among a disruptive road network.

I know what you’re thinking,
Our town sounds just like your town.
It has several co-ops, a flower shop, a row of; banks and building societies,
travel agents and estate agents, solicitors and accountants,
they all group together, power in numbers,
creating quarters, where they know each others secrets.
Then there is the local council office, the tourist information centre,
pubs and restaurants, cafes and Kebab shops,
cheep booze emporiums,
where Chateauneuf-du-Pape is not even an aspiration.
Market stalls on xdays and ydays,
for the purveyors of:
fleeces and fruit, trainers and towels,
books and batteries, rugs and rollers,
cheese and chutney,
Our town sounds just like your town

Our town has a Non-league football team,
whose fans chant about coming from our town,
how nobody likes us but we don’t care,
just like they do in your town.
We have a leisure centre, with swimming pool and gym,
all franchised out to entrepreneurs from the Dragons den.
Our town has underused churches and underappreciated ancient monuments,
it has some green open spaces with swings and a slide
and some artworks, that just appeared as if dropped by aliens.
There is a carnival in the summer,
where lorries squeeze through open backed streets
and the sea cadets, girl guides and boy scouts
hold on for dear life, whilst the spectators thrown coins at them.
The carnival, when they crown a local girl as queen
who smiles for the camera and hopes that there is more to fame than this.

Our town has the battle of the bands in the autumn,
when young testosterone filled teenagers
thrash guitars and grunt about being misunderstood.

Our town has a bonfire and fireworks in the park,
except now it’s only fireworks
because the fire destroys the grass.
Our town sounds just like your town

Our town was badly re-planned in the sixties and has a local newspaper
that keeps reminding us, by printing pictures from the past.

Our town’s car parks are free after seven pm
but demands payment for a minimum of two hours at all other times.

Our town has its Assembly rooms where fading sixties bands strut their Zimmer tunes,
and the local dance groups hold their annual shows,
followed by the X factor rejects, grabbing their last gigs
before disappearing into Wikipedia.

Our town has its taxi ranks where A2B vie for business with Ourtown Taxi’s,
there is a bus garage that is in the narrowest most inappropriate part of town,
the multiplex Cinema surround sounds an American Diner.
Pedestrianised streets where
there are sometimes fights at weekends,
tears and bruises, over indulgent consequences.
Fading hotels, who have offers for weddings
where suits feel uncomfortable
upon their wearers
and women wear large bright hats.
Our town sounds just like your town.

Our town has bred several footballers, rock musicians and the odd writer,
all of whom no longer live here,
and never mention that they ever lived here,
We do have many other worthies, who were named after the roads,
where boy racers now avoid the awkward speed bumps
as they tear up the worthy tarmac.

Our town has its own crest,
is tripleted with several foreign towns,
one in Germany, as an act of reconciliation,
another in France, although I did not realise Agincourt still ran so deep,
and the obvious one, the one with same name, in a former British colony.
Our town used to produce things,
was known for producing certain things;
now either people don’t want our things,
or they can be made cheaper in Eastern Europe or China,
our town has lost its industry
has become overspill for the city
has more incomers who commute to work,
than those who are born and bred and speak with a local accent,
use local sayings; know everyone and who they are related too.

OK, In our town there is a familiar feeling
that our town is just like your town.

© Mal Dewhirst

‘Our town has its own crest’ … the Tamworth Arms on Lichfield Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

USPG Prayer Diary:

The theme in the USPG Prayer Diary this week is the ‘Opening Our Hearts.’ This theme is introduced this morning by James Roberts, Christian Programme Manager at the Council of Christians and Jews, who reflects on Holocaust Memorial Day and World Interfaith Harmony Week.

Holocaust Memorial Day, which we commemorated on Friday, and World Interfaith Harmony Week, which begins on Wednesday, require us to open our hearts, both to the memory of the past and towards a more tolerant and loving future.

Holocaust Memorial Day is when we remember all the victims of Nazi persecution, including the six million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust, and all subsequent genocides. In order to authentically witness to the memory of the Holocaust, we need to open our hearts to the pain of the past. We need to inform ourselves of this shameful history, and to hold the memory of the victims in our minds. We may even look inwards and ask ourselves how we might do more to stand up for those who are persecuted, abused, or rejected in our world today.

To look forward towards a better future, towards a world where genocide will be no more, we must also open our hearts to the other — to our neighbours, to people who are different from us. In interfaith harmony week, we think especially of people of other faiths.

To open our hearts to the memory of the past, and to our neighbours, is to actively and prayerfully strive towards harmony between all people, so that we may grow one step closer to a world united in love.

The USPG Prayer Diary today invites us to pray in these words:

Lightness our darkness, O Lord,
and reveal the unspeakable
lest we forget the victims of our inhumanity.
Turn our hearts to repentance and our actions to justice.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued Tomorrow

‘Our town has … underappreciated ancient monuments’ … the Comberford monument in Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Praying through poetry and with USPG: 28 January 2023

Tamworth Castle and the Moat House, the former Comberford home on Lichfield Street, decorate the welcome sign at Tamworth Railway Station (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

Christmas is not a season of 12 days, despite the popular Christmas song. Christmas is a 40-day season that lasts from Christmas Day (25 December) to Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation on Thursday next (2 February).

Throughout the 40 days of this Christmas Season, I am reflecting in these ways:

1, Reflecting on a seasonal or appropriate poem;

2, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary, ‘Pray with the World Church.’

I interrupted that pattern to mark the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which came to an end on Wednesday.

I have an appointment in Milton Keynes University Hospital later this morning. But, before the day gets busy, I am taking some time for prayer and reflection.

Inside Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

I was back in Tamworth earlier this week, visiting some places associated with the Comberford family. So, my choice of poem this morning is Mal Dewhirst’s ‘We are Tamworth,’ a poem commissioned for ‘This is Tamworth’ at Birmingham Symphony Hall on 3 July 2014.

Mal Dewhirst, who died in 2021, became Staffordshire’s first poet laureate in 2012. He lived in Tamworth and Tamworth inspired a number of his poems.

He was a writer and film maker, and his plays have been performed across the Midlands, including ‘The Fell Walker’ in Tamworth and ‘At the Crossroads’ at the Garrick in Lichfield, which was commissioned by the Lichfield Mysteries.

Mal was a poet-in-residence in a town market and an archaeological dig, his work has been published in many magazines and journals, and he appeared on BBC Radio and Radio Wildfire. He was also responsible for the Polesworth Poets Trail.

Mal was a regular reader on the Midlands poetry scene and was part of the Coventry Cork Literature exchange in 2011, performing readings in Cork City and Limerick. As a film director, his film Double Booked was shown at the Corona Fastnet Short Film Festival in Ireland in 2014.

He hoped to bring ground-breaking writing to new audiences, always seeking to redefine boundaries, and wanted to develop and improvise new work as collaborations with other artists and performers in unexpected places as a melding of ideas, skills and talents.

Sir Robert Peel’s statue outside the Town Hall in Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

We are Tamworth, by Mal Dewhirst:

We are Tamworth
We are Tamworth
We are Tamworth
From the Lamb
from Stonydelph, Wincote, Belgrave, Amington, Two Gates, Lakeside, Riverside, Coton Green, Gillway, Perrycrofts. The Leys, Leyfields, Glascote and its Heath, Bolehall, Dosthill, Kettlebrook, Bitterscote, Castle and town and all our blessed lands.
We are Tamworth.

Where Tame meets Anker,
bringing Birmingham and Black Country tales
to mix with the Anker's Warwickshire words,
all the ripple and flow from here, to the Trent, to the Humber, to the Sea.

Rivers spilling full lap through meadowlands:
where Offa palaced in the castled grounds
of Sandybacks and Plastic Pigs,

Aetheflaeda proclaimed
build me a bridge, a Lady Bridge,
then guard it so that only I might cross.
Build me a mound, a castled mound,
where I might live and watch for dust.

This is Tamworth.
Where Saxon and Viking built their border,
we gave camp to the knights of Bosworth field,
where Roundhead met Cavalier on the Tame bridges
and we gave tea to soldiers as they passed on to the Somme,
always trying to bring some comfort to conflict.

This is Tamworth
where Enigma Heroes learned to swim,
ski’s ride summers of man-made frosts,
Rawlett, preached his legacy of learning,
where Guy built a town hall and gave Alms
then took them away when he didn’t get the vote
and Policeman Peel built his weaving mills,
warp and weft, webbing and tape,
building his new manifesto.

This is Tamworth where the Beatles and the Stones played,
in their constant touring, egg and chip days.
Tamworth, where the original Teardrop Exploded,
and Wolfsbane gave us a massive noise injection,
where every year we see the Assembly Rooms
host the next Battle of the Bands,
which is not when young testosterone filled teenagers
thrash guitars and grunt about being misunderstood.
It is when, just maybe, our Beatles and Rolling Stones might be heard.

Ventura Park and Ankerside, the retail lands
of designer brands and coffee shops,
supermarkets, house and homes,
enclosed by roads that circle and twist and never want to let you leave.

Market on Tuesdays and Saturdays,
for the purveyors of:
fleeces and fruit, cakes and clothes, trainers and towels,
books and batteries, rugs and rollers,
cheese and chutney, shoes and socks, games and gifts.

Town has several co-ops, flower shops, a row of: banks and building societies,
travel agents and estate agents, solicitors and accountants,
they all group together, power in numbers,
creating quarters, where they know each others secrets.
All watched over by the Philosophers of Upstairs, Downstairs, Sidewalk Cafe.

This is Tamworth
Our housing estates that are built on themes; of counties, of plants,
cars, poets, space travel and stately homes – and we don’t waste
people’s time in naming our roads, don’t see the point of adding road or
street or close – makes it so much easier to write an envelope.
And have you noticed that many of our famous people were named after the streets.

Famous people: Marmion, Ferrers, Robert Peel. Thomas Guy, John Rawlett, William McGregor, Colin Grazier, Tom Williams back to Ethelflaeda and Offa, and onward to Julian Cope, Blayze Bailey, Phil Bates, Mark Albrighton. Miss Pym and her suffragettes –
All worthies who have a staked a claim in Tamworth.

Along with the miners of Glascote and Amington, the car workers of Reliant, the spinners and weavers, the potters and warehouse crews. The choirs and bands all hammering the sound of Tamworth.

This is created in Tamworth, along with the crafts and cakes, the paintings and
sculpted forms that bring all the welcomes into the light of valued art.

This is Tamworth
Where the Herald reports our community woes and triumphs
then reminds of how the town used to look.
Tamworth, home where the Tamworth Two were trying to return,
and the Lambs raise goals to the songs of the shed choir.
Tamworth where the town hall is like an orange, it has Peel on the outside,
where the Olympic torch chose to catch its breath,
and jousters, fireworks, skateboarders,
families all strut their thought in the castle grounds.

Tamworth with our French and German twins
Sharing culture and song
Poetry and peace
Bringing markets to share cheese and meat and finest wine.

Tamworth where we race for life.
bring help to heroes
and support those in need.

This Tamworth where our dialect is spoken with a distinction, alright me duck.
These are our words that tell of a proud heritage built on toil
and a strength that sees one Tamworth, perfectly placed
to create our piece of theatre in the world
and remember who we are and where we are from
we can shed a tear and raise a smile
as we share our town with all those who choose to come.

Because we are Tamworth
Super Tamworth
We are Tamworth
from our land.

© Mal Dewhirst 2014

Aetheflaeda ‘enclosed by roads that circle and twist and never want to let you leave’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

USPG Prayer Diary:

The theme in the USPG Prayer Diary this week is the ‘Myanmar Education Programme.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday with a reflection from a report from the Church of the Province of Myanmar.

The USPG Prayer Diary today invites us to pray in these words:

Let us give thanks for the Myanmar Education Programme. May its work amongst the rural communities of its dioceses resource and empower them.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued Tomorrow

The former Peel School at 17 Lichfield Street, Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Another stage comes to an end in half a century of journalism

A two-page illustrated feature on Padua in the February 2022 edition of the ‘Church Review’, the Dublin and Glendalough diocesan magazine

Patrick Comerford

Sometimes anniversaries can come and go with a note of forgetfulness rather than nostalgia. I was reminded the other day that it is 20 years this summer since I left The Irish Times in the summer of 2002, and it is 50 years since I joined the Wexford People as a staff journalist in the summer of 1972.

I must seem unkind in my forgetfulness at times when it comes to birthdays or anniversaries. But it’s a trait that probably provides an insight into why I cannot recall the exact dates when I joined the Wexford People 50 years ago and left The Irish Times 20 years ago.

I was reminded of these anniversaries, of starting at the Wexford People and leaving The Irish Times, when I read a few days ago that Paul O’Neill is retiring as the Editor of The Irish Times.

I had worked as a journalist for over 30 years, starting as freelance contributor to the Lichfield Mercury and the Tamworth Herald, followed by almost three years with the Wexford People and almost 28 years with The Irish Times, the last eight as Foreign Desk Editor.

The past 20 years have brought their own changes and challenges too. By then I had been ordained for two years. I worked for four years with the Church Mission Society, and combined that with four years of part-time academic life, lecturing in church history and social theology, before becoming a full-time academic, lecturing in liturgy and church history in the Church of Ireland Theological Institute and becoming an adjunct assistant professor in Trinity College Dublin.

I continued in priestly ministry throughout those years, as an honorary curate in Whitechurch parish, Dublin, and a canon of Christ Church Cathedral Dublin. I spent the last five years as the Priest-in-Charge of the Rathkeale Group of Parishes in west Limerick and north Kerry, and Canon Precentor of Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick, and Saint Flannan’s Cathedral, Killaloe.

I had planned on retiring some time this summer, but a stroke in mid-March brought that forward, and I retired on 31 March. Of course, one retires from an appointment or employment. But a priest never ceases to be a priest, and a writer or journalist never ceases to write.

When the Revd Stephen Hilliard was leaving The Irish Times to enter full-time parish ministry, the then deputy editor, Ken Gray, joked that he was moving from being a ‘column of the Times’ to being a ‘pillar of the church.’

Later, when I asked Stephen to define the different challenges of journalism and parish ministry, I was told: ‘In many ways they’re the same. We’re supposed to be comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.’

In my 30 or more years as a full-time journalist and writer, I had tried to work at the point where faith meets the major concerns of the world. That work has made me a witness to the great conflicts and disasters of the last century.

I have seen the evil consequences of the Holocaust in museums, memorials and synagogues. I have met the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the children of Chernobyl. I have been in the midst of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Middle East.

I have witnessed the evils of apartheid and racism, seen military occupation, poverty, and the deprivations of famine in Africa and South Asia, and talked and prayed with the victims of torture and violence.

I have family experiences of the social terror left behind by the old regimes in East Europe. I have friends who were tortured and exiled by the colonels in Greece but who went on to make major contributions to the arts, diplomacy and politics.

Through those years I have been inspired by the courage of people who refuse to become victims and instead become fearless and articulate witnesses to the truths that good can overcome evil, that there is hope in the face of oppression, that faith is not a mere comfort but can inspire, motivate and provide vision for what can be – for what must be.

Like many academics, over the past 20 years I have contributed chapters and papers to books and journals. But, after leaving The Irish Times 20 years ago, I continued to write regularly in other formats too. My daily blog has been a daily exercise. But I continued to write occasionally for The Irish Times, and only last month I contributed a news feature to the Wexford People.

I have written too for the Lichfield Gazette and CityLife in Lichfield, returning to the place where I began working as a journalist. I also wrote for a number of Church publications, including the Church of Ireland Gazette and the Church Times.

But perhaps the one enduring and continuing exercise in journalism was a monthly column that I wrote first for the Diocesan Magazine in the Diocese of Cashel, Ferns and Ossory, and then for the Church Review in the Diocese of Dublin and Glendalough.

It was first commissioned about a quarter of a century ago by the Revd Nigel Waugh when he heard me speaking in Saint Iberius Church, Wexford, about the Church of Ireland during the 1798 Rising. The column made brief appearances in other diocesan magazines in Limerick and Meath and Kildare, and eventually came to an end in the Diocesan Magazine with a new editor some years ago. But I continued to write for the Church Review until this summer.

For years, I had an encouraging and tolerant editor who rejoiced in my thoughts on a broad range of topics, from travels in Greece and Italy to the cathedrals of England and the thoughts of Samuel Johnson and TS Eliot to the church in China, Egypt and Romania.

Perhaps my ideas were eccentric or even eclectic at times. I was seldom controversial, but I hope I was always thought-provoking and that I provided one diocese with a window onto the world. The response of readers was always generous, and some have shared with me how, because of my column, they decided to visit places as diverse as Lichfield Cathedral and Crete and the Greek islands.

The diocesan website continues to describe it as ‘a very popular and informative monthly column.’

But, sadly, the time has come to sign off on this column too. All good things have to come to an end.

Nadine Gordimer, in a lecture in London 20 year ago, argued that a writer’s highest calling is to bear witness to the evils of conflicts and injustice. But that is the calling of a priest too. I shall continue to write.

The Castle Hotel in Tamworth, a tragic fire, and its links with the Moat House and Comberford

The Castle Hotel in Tamworth dates from the early 18th century, with additions from the mid-19th century and the early 20th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

During our recent visit to Lichfield and Tamworth, two of us stayed in the Hedgehog Vintage Inn on Stafford Road, Lichfield, and in the Castle Hotel on the corner of Holloway Street and Ladybank with Market Street in Tamworth.

The Hedgehog has been a favourite place in Lichfield to stay in for many years, but this was my first time to stay in the Castle Hotel in Tamworth. While staying there, I was reminded there were connections between the owners of the Castle Hotel in the early 19th century and the owners of the Moat House, the former Comberford family home on Lichfield Street, which I had visited once again that afternoon.

The Holloway leads down from the town centre, past Tamworth Castle and over Lady Bridge. It is lined with some fine and interesting buildings, including the Castle Hotel, once owned by William Tempest, once Mayor of Tamworth.

The hotel building dates from the early 18th century, with additions from the mid-19th century and the early 20th century. The hotel itself dates back to at least 1814, when George Townshend (1778-1855), 3rd Marquis Townshend and the proprietor of Tamworth Castle, sold Tamworth Castle, the Castle Inn (now the Castle Hotel) and the castle gardens to John Robins.

Lord Townshend’s father had enthusiastically restored Tamworth Castle, and the Moat House had been the residence of his steward, John Willington and then of Lord Townshend until he died in 1811.

The family titles were inherited in 1811 by his son, George Townshend, who became the 3rd Marquis Townshend. The tenants at the Moat House included Sir John Sheal, from 1811 to 1815.

George Townshend had been disinherited by his father, and he lived in exile in Italy instead of living at Tamworth Castle, partly due to public scandal created by his wife, the former Sarah Dunn Gardner, her extramarital affairs and bigamous marriage and her children born outside the marriage.

As part of the efforts to clear the debts of the Townshend family, the Moat House and the Castle Inn were sold as part of the Tamworth Castle estate to John Robins, a London auctioneer, John Robins, a London auctioneer. He lived in the castle after seven years delay in legal proceedings to complete the purchase, after claiming the castle to settle debts owed him by the 2nd Marquis in 1814. From 1815 to 1821, Dr Robert Woody, a surgeon, was renting the Moat House, and he licensed the house as an asylum for the insane. He died in 1823 and his widow Alice died in 1863.

Visiting the Moat House on Lichfield Street last week … when John Robins died in 1833, Tamworth Castle, the Castle Inn and the Moat House were sold at public auction (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

George Townshend’s younger brother, Lord Charles Vere Ferrers Townshend, twice sat as MP for Tamworth, in 1812-1818 and 1830-1835. He was watching Tamworth Castle, the family estates and the Townshend titles slipping from his grasp and passing out of the family to his sister-in-law’s illegitimate children.

When John Robins died in 1833, a family dispute ended up in the Court of Chancery. The court decided that his estates should be sold by public auction, including Tamworth Castle, the Castle Inn, the Moat House and his property near the river, described as ‘a garden with a terrace walk along the bank of the River Tame, a summer house and bowling green.’

Lord Charles Townshend was successful in buying back Tamworth Castle, and the estates came into the ownership of the Townshend family once again. He then petitioned the House of Lords in 1842 to have Sarah’s children declared illegitimate.

George Townshend died in Genoa on 31 December 1855; he was 77. His only brother, Lord Charles Townshend, who had succeeded in having Sarah’s children declared illegitimate, had died two years earlier, on 5 November 1853. He had no sons either, and the Townshend title passed to a cousin, John Townshend (1798-1863), who was MP for Tamworth (1847-1855).

Meanwhile, the Castle Hotel was the scene of a tragic fire in 1838, when the building was severely damaged and six maidservants were trapped in upper rooms and died. A monument was erected in Saint Editha’s churchyard to record the incident, and because of the fire, the town’s first fire brigade was formed.

Tamworth Castle and the Castle Hotel, including the Castle Bowling Green, were put up for sale again in 1897. The castle was bought by Tamworth Borough Council for £3,000, while the Castle Hotel was bought privately.

William Tempest (1830-1911), proprietor of the Castle Hotel, was born in Burley near Duffield, Derbyshire, and became a wealthy businessman, hotelier and wine merchant. He moved to the Lodge Farm in Drayton, Staffordshire, in 1858, before moving to Tamworth.

Tempest was involved public life in Tamworth. He was elected an alderman in 1874 and was elected Mayor in 1878. He served as Mayor of Tamworth three times, being re-elected in 1880 and again in 1900.

He was a Governor of the Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School and a trustee of the Municipal Charities, Tamworth’s Permanent Benefit Building Society and Tamworth’s Friendly Institution. He was a director of Tamworth’s Savings Bank and Tamworth Gas Company, and a director of the Tamworth Herald from its formation in 1877.

He died on 8 August 1911 and was buried in Aldergate Cemetery.

The Castle Hotel at No 39 Holloway, the night club and the ‘Bow Street Runner’ on Market Street, form an interesting set of buildings on a prominent street corner.

The hotel is built of brick with ashlar dressings, with tile roofs with brick stacks. It is in an L-plan, with three storeys and a four-window range. The entrance to the right end has a Tuscan porch with a scrolled wrought-iron balcony, and a blind overlight to the paired half-glazed doors. Some of the windows have interesting stained glass, decorated with the fleur-de-lys, once the heraldic symbol of Tamworth.
.
The left return to Market Street has a five-window range with four Ionic pilasters, a frieze and a cornice at the entrance with paired doors and flanking four-pane horned tripartite sash windows.

The mid-19th century additions at the right, including the Holloway façade, have additions dating from ca 1900. It is worth noting one large and two small shaped gables, and two elliptical-headed carriage entrances with banded arches and hoods, two elliptical-headed windows with keystones and hoods, and a large oriel window.

Inside, the hotel has chamfered beams and staircase with column-on-vase balusters. Two of us stayed above the Market Street façade, which dates from the 19th century, and could see the Town Hall and the statue of Sir Robert Peel on Market Street.

The Market Street frontage, with the hotel’s ‘Vodka Bar’, was once used as a grocer’s shop, and before that housed Ford and Rowley’s Castle Garage, with a petrol pump outside, an important early facility for motorists.

The Brewery House, at the end of Lady Bank opposite Holloway Lodge, is now an annex of the Caste Hotel. The Old Brewery House was donated to the town as a workhouse in 1750 by Thomas Thynne (1710–1751), 2nd Viscount Weymouth, High Steward of Tamworth, and by Francis Willoughby (1692-1758), Lord Middleton, a former MP for Tamworth (1722-1727).

There was another Comberford connection here, for Lord Weymouth’s geat-uncle had bought Comberford Hall from Cumberford Brooke in 1710. His son, Thomas Thynne (1734–1796), 1st Marquess of Bath, later sold Comberford Hall and the estate in 1790 to Arthur Chichester, Earl of Donegall.

The Brewery House gained its later name when it was later bought by a businessman, Edward Morgan, who owned a brewery behind the property. The house became his home and the brewery offices.

Facing the Castle Hotel, Bank House dates from 1845, and was used as the Tamworth Savings Bank, founded by Sir Robert Peel in 1823.

At the end of Lady Bank and opposite the Brewery House, Holloway Lodge was built as a gatehouse and is the most recent addition to the castle. The lodge was built by the 2nd Marquis Townshend in 1810 as an entrance to his castle. Originally it was a single-storey building, but a second storey was added ca 1897.

Lady Bridge, at the end of Lady Bank, crosses the point where the River Tame and the River Anker meet. The Lady Bridge was built in 1796, replacing an earlier, mediaeval bridge that was destroyed over time by ice and floods.

Documents dating back to 1294 name Lady Bridge as the Bridge of Saint Mary. It was probably given this name because it once had a pedestal supporting a figure of the Virgin Mary on a cross. The pedestal survives and has been placed on the approach to the Castle’s square tower.

When Thomas Comberford died in 1532, his estates included the Manor of Wigginton, the Manor of Comberford, the right to hold a fair in Tamworth twice a year, the rights of fishery for a 2½-mile stretch along the River Tame from Lady Bridge, marking the boundary between the Staffordshire and Warwickshire parts of Tamworth, to Hopwas Bridge, and the right to keep six swans in the river.

Lady Bridge was widened at each end in 1840. For many years, the bridge carried the main Birmingham to Nottingham trunk road, but it was closed to traffic in 1984. Today there are beautiful views from the bridge of the castle and west along the river towards the Moat House.

The Town Hall and the statue of Sir Robert Peel on Market Street, Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

21 years in priestly ministry and my scenic route to ordination

Patrick Comerford

I was ordained priest 21 years ago tomorrow, on the Feast of the Birth of Saint John the Baptist [24 June 2001], and deacon 22 years ago on 25 June 2000.

The Birth of Saint John Baptist (24 June) is one of the few birthdays of a saint commemorated in the Book of Common Prayer (see pp 20-21).

Bishops, in the charge to priests at their ordination, call us to ‘preach the Word and to minister his (God’s) holy sacraments.’ But the bishop also reminds us to be ‘faithful in visiting the sick, in caring for the poor and needy, and in helping the oppressed,’ to ‘promote unity, peace, and love,’ to share ‘in a common witness in the world’ and ‘in Christ’s work of reconciliation,’ to ‘search for God’s children in the wilderness of this world’s temptations.’

These charges remain a sacred commitment for life, even after a priest retires from parish ministry. I retired from full-time ministry almost three months ago (31 March 2022), and I am in process of seeking Permission to Officiate (PTO), I shall always remain a priest.

As I reflect this week on the anniversaries of my ordination, I recall too how my path to ordination began 51 years ago when I was a 19-year-old in Lichfield, following very personal and special experiences in a chapel dedicated to Saint John the Baptist – the Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield – and in Lichfield Cathedral, both of which I returned to last week.

It was the summer of 1971, and although I was training to be a chartered surveyor with Jones Lang Wootton and the College of Estate Management at Reading University, I was also trying to become a freelance journalist, contributing features to the Lichfield Mercury and the Tamworth Herald. Late one sunny Thursday afternoon, after a few days traipsing along Wenlock Edge and through Shropshire, and staying at Wilderhope Manor, I had returned to Lichfield.

I was walking from Birmingham Road into the centre of Lichfield, and I was more interested in an evening’s entertainment when I stumbled into that chapel out of curiosity. Not because I wanted to see the inside of an old church or chapel, but because I was attracted by the architectural curiosity of the outside of the building facing onto the street.

I still remember lifting the latch, and stepping down into the chapel. It was late afternoon, so there was no light streaming through the East Window. But as I turned towards the lectern, I was filled in one rush with the sensation of the light and the love of God.

This is not a normal experience for a young 19-year-old … certainly not for one who is focussing on an active social night later on, or on rugby and cricket in the weekend ahead.

But it was – and still is – a real and gripping moment. I have talked about this as my ‘self-defining moment in life.’ It still remains as a lived, living moment.

My first reaction was to make my way on down John Street, up Bird Street and Beacon Street and into Lichfield Cathedral. There I slipped into the choir stalls, just in time for Choral Evensong.

It was a tranquil and an exhilarating experience, all at once. But as I was leaving, a residentiary canon shook my hand. I think it was Canon John Yates (1925-2008), then the Principal of Lichfield Theological College (1966-1972) and later Bishop of Gloucester and Bishop at Lambeth. He amusingly asked me whether a young man like me had decided to start going back to church because I was thinking of ordination.

All that in one day, in one summer afternoon.

With Archbishop Walton Empey at my ordination as priest in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, on 24 June 2001, and (from left) the Revd Tim Close and the Revd Avril Bennett (Photograph: Valerie Jones, 2001)

However, I took the scenic route to ordination. I was inspired by the story of Gonville ffrench-Beytagh (1912-1991), which was beginning to unfold at the time. He was then then Dean of Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Johannesburg, and facing trial when he opened his doors to black protesters who were being rhino-whipped by South African apartheid police on the steps of his cathedral.

My new-found adult faith led me to a path of social activism, campaigning on human rights, apartheid, the arms race, and issues of war and peace. Meanwhile, I moved on in journalism, first to the Wexford People and eventually becoming Foreign Desk Editor of The Irish Times.

While I was working as a journalist, I also completed my degrees in theology. In the back of my mind, that startling choice I was confronted with after evensong in Lichfield Cathedral was gnawing away in the back of my mind.

Of course, I was on the scenic route to ordination. A long and scenic route, from the age of 19 to the age of 48 … almost 30 years: I was ordained deacon on 25 June 2000 and priest on 24 June 2001, the Feast of the Birth of Saint John the Baptist.

I had started coming to Lichfield as a teenager because of family connections with the area. But the traditions of that chapel subtly grew on me and became my own personal expression of Anglicanism; and the liturgical traditions of Lichfield Cathedral nurtured my own liturgical spirituality.

That bright summer evening left me open to the world, with all its beauty and all its problems.

The chapel in Saint John’s Hospital and Lichfield Cathedral remain my spiritual home, and I returned to both again last week (16-17 June 2022).

As priests, we normally celebrate the anniversary of our ordination to the priesthood and reflect on it sacramentally. However, as I await PTO in a new diocese I am finding unexpected restrictions on celebrating this meaningful day tomorrow. This is trying at personal level, and so it was good to visit Lichfield last week and to be reminded that I remain a priest forever.

Letters of ordination as priest by Archbishop Walton Empey

The Collect (the Birth of Saint John the Baptist):

Almighty God,
by whose providence your servant John the Baptist was wonderfully born,
and sent to prepare the way of your Son our Saviour,
by the preaching of repentance:
Lead us to repent according to his preaching,
and, after his example, constantly to speak the truth,
boldly to rebuke vice, and patiently to suffer for the truth’s sake;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Archbishop Walton Empey’s inscription on the Bible he gave to me on my ordination to the priesthood in 2001

My safe castle on High Street has become a pink house facing the Opera House in Wexford

The National Opera House (left) and No 18 High Street (the house in pink on the right) in Wexford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

It is almost 50 years since I moved to Wexford in 1972 and joined the staff of the People Group of Newspapers as a sub-editor.

At the time, I was trying to complete a BSc in Estate Management at Reading University with the support of Jones Lang Wootton. But I was getting greater satisfaction as a freelance journalist, contributing to the Lichfield Mercury, the Rugeley Mercury, the Tamworth Herald, the Kilkenny People and Horse and Hound, among others.

The Wexford People was the first newspaper to offer me a full-time job, and I worked there for the best part of three years, living first on School Street and then on High Street.

At No 18 High Street, Wexford, I had the whole top floor of the house – all two rooms – to myself (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Living in a flat at No 18 High Street, Wexford, I had the whole top floor of the house – all two rooms – to myself, making me the envy of many of my former schoolfriends who found themselves in cramped ‘digs’ or squeezed into dingy one-room ‘bedsits.’

Wexford, like Lichfield, felt like home to me. My great-grandfather, James Comerford (1817-1902), and his brothers had lived, at different times, on John Street, which runs parallel to High Street, just a stone’s throw from that small flat, and on my paternal grandmother’s side of the family, my great uncle, John Lynders (1873-1957), had lived on South Main Street earlier in the 20th century.

Wexford was kind to me and warmly welcomed me. I quickly became integrated and assimilated into the life of the town and the county. No 18 faced onto the back entrance to the People workshop, so it seemed like I could roll down the stairs and roll into work each morning, and there was no long trek home after a late evening’s work.

Everything I needed, enjoyed and that could enrich me was within easy reach. Further along High Street at the time was the Theatre Royal, and during the Wexford Festival I often went to sleep to the sound of opera rehearsals. On other nights I fell asleep to the chimes and bells of Rowe Street Church.

Around the corner and down the end of Rowe Street on Main Street was Saint Iberius Church, the Church of Ireland parish church, where Canon Eddie Grant was the Rector, the Tower Bar, where I made many friends from all walks of life, and the Corish Memorial Hall, then the hub of trade union life and the Labour Party.

In White’s coffee shop in the mid-1970s, probably planning a poetry reading in the 1970s

I soon became involved in the Labour Party in the 1973 general election and the local elections the following year, in the trade union movement as a branch secretary in the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), and in church life, including the committee of the YMCA which served effectively as the parish hall, work parties in the Church of Ireland national school, speaking in a Lenten series in Killane and Killegney group of parishes organised by the late Canon Norman Ruddock, and preaching for the first time ever, in the Presbyterian Church on Anne Street and in the Presbyterian Church in Enniscorthy, both on the same Sunday.

I was involved in the arts, including poetry readings, folk sessions and art exhibitions with Billy Roche, later to become Wexford’s celebrated playwright, in the local rugby club, Wexford Wanderers, editing a local monthly, What’s On In Wexford, commissioned by the Junior Chamber, and had pen-and-ink illustrations published in local magazines, including Ireland’s Own.

It was a time to develop and tune my gifts in writing, my appreciation of the arts, and my understanding of the world; it was a time to make lasting friendships; it was a time of growth and maturing, a time to develop and enhance my own values, socially, politically, religiously and spiritually; and it was a time to deepen a sense of identity with the part of Ireland where I had deep family roots.

I was back in Wexford this week, not so much to recover those memories and joys as to say thank you for them and to reaffirm – after half a century – that they are deeply embedded in my self-understanding and my self-awareness.

After lunch in the Ferrycarrig Hotel, looking out onto the estuary of the River Slaney as it flows into the sea at Wexford Harbour, I walked along the Main Street, past the YMCA, the former site of White’s coffee shop, through the Bullring, past Saint Iberius Church, the premises where the Tower Bar and the Corish Memorial Hall once stood, past the former People office, stopping to browse in the book shops, and on down into South Main Street and to the former Dun Mhuire Theatre, once the RIC station where my Great-Uncle John Lynders once lived.

Later in the afternoon, I walked along the Quays and the Crescent, recalling the ‘woodenworks,’ the lost Guillemot and ‘South Station,’ and pennies childishly thrown on the railway line to be squeezed and squashed by trains destined for Rosslare.

The Crescent in Wexford in late February, early Spring sunshine (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

In the side streets and narrow lanes off Main Street, I found the churchyards of the former mediaeval parish churches, Saint Mary’s and Saint Patrick’s, and then I was back into High Street, where I was so happy 50 years ago. It was my own safe castle.

No 18 was sold again some years ago, and has been turned back into a single-unit family home. The house has been ‘prettified’ and painted pink, and now looks charming in the early Spring sunshine of late February.

When I moved to Wexford in the early 1970s, I was told about ‘the narrow streets and proud people.’ The Theatre Royal moved many years ago, and across the narrow street from No 18, the former People printworks have become the National Opera House.

I climbed the stairs to the top floor for afternoon coffee, and soaked in the view from the balcony across the town and the harbour, out to Begerin Island and the Wexford Slobs. From the balcony outside the coffee shop, looking down on the roofs of Wexford, I could see my old office where the People editorial team and sub-editors had worked.

Happy memories were rekindled of old colleagues, including Gerry Breen, who died a few weeks ago, Nicky Furlong and Hilary Murphy who both joined me for dinner in Ferrycarrig during another recent visit to Wexford, Phil Murphy, Tony O’Brien, Frank Murphy, Gene Yore, Johnny Roche and the late Eddie O’Keeffe. There were so many others too.

A painting by Neil Shawcross of the Penguin paperback cover of ‘The Castle’ by Franz Kafka in the National Opera House, Wexford … now part of a tribute to the late Mairead Furlong (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

On the way back down the stairs, my eyes were caught by the collection of paintings by Neil Shawcross of Penguin paperback covers, especially – of course – The Castle by Franz Kafka.

The Neil Shawcross bequest of paintings to the Wexford Festival Trust was in recognition of the contribution to the arts over a lifetime by the late Mairead Furlong. I never got to see Nicky on this visit. But I still felt I could pay tributes to the mentors of half a century ago.

The People titles when I worked in Wexford included the Wexford People, the Enniscorthy Guardian, the New Ross Standard, the Gorey Guardian, the Wicklow People and the Bray People. The skills I learned there have their fruits today in my writings and in my blog postings.

Looking down on my former office in the Wexford People from the balcony at the coffee shop in the National Opera House (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)