THE
P RTAL
October 2017
Page 7
A Catholic Country Parson!
Jackie Ottaway and Ronald Crane travelled to Gloucestershire
to meet Fr Stephen Lambert
R
ecently, we drove into a remote part of Gloucestershire. The countryside was stunning; the
people friendly. We had not just gone there for a trip out. An appointment had been made with Fr
Stephen Lambert. Fr Stephen is a former CofE priest, now an Ordinariate priest.
We found the house with ease, although it is at the
end of a rather long drive. The house is beautiful - an
eighteenth century farmhouse perhaps? It sits in its
own grounds and has stables with horses. The views of
the Gloucestershire countryside from every window
are inspiringly beautiful.
The Lamberts are a friendly lot as not only did we
have tea, coffee and chocolate biscu its, but we later sat
down to lunch with Fr Stephen and his wife, Jane!
Fr Stephen is tall, thin and physically fit. He told
us he was adopted as a small boy. He describes his
adoptive parents as “marvellous”. They lived in Surrey.
His father was a great friend of Mervyn Stockwood,
who eventually became Bishop of Southwark. Lambert
senior was a member of the Church Assembly and then
of General Synod. He was for a long time a Guardian
of the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham - from 1950
to his death in 1984 in fact.
Settled in the lovely drawing room of their house,
with voice recorder going, we asked him to tell us all
about himself.
“You see, I was introduced at a very early stage to
Anglo Catholicism. I am probably one of the very few
people who is still alive who was present at Fr Hope
Patten’s death.” (For new readers, Fr Hope Patten was the funeral etc. It left a marked impression. Fr Colin
the re-founder of the CofE Shrine at Walsingham in Stephenson followed him as Master of the Guardians
the 1920s.)
and Administrator of the Shrine. He had come from St
Mary Magdalen’s in Oxford. He had only one leg, and
Fr Stephen continued, “It took place, as you probably suffered greatly from heart trouble.
know, at the Bishops’ Pilgrimage. This marked the
top of the hill for Fr Hope Patten because, of course,
“After ten years in Walsingham a coronary
bishops were not his greatest supporters usually! So to thrombosis caused his retirement, and he came to live
have a full tribe full of bishops at the Shrine was very with us in Surrey. He liked to call himself our Private
exciting for him.
Chaplain because we had the chapel attached the side
of the house.
“Fr Patten had given Benediction. He went up to
the tabernacle (where it still is, upstairs in the Shrine
“He was a major influence on me. I’ve actually got
Church). He took a step back and he keeled over. a hand-written manuscript of his autobiography
Shortly afterwards he died.
‘Merrily on High’.
“I was present and, of course, had to stay on for
“He married Jane and me in 1972.