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Faith, Hope and lots of charity
A farewell service for the retiring Archbishop of York takes place in York Minster tomorrow. As the goodbyes are prepared, Michael Brown, Religious Affairs Correspondent, talks to the primate about the highs and lows of his decade in office.
A quite ordinary – but to some surprising – thing happens to His Grace the Lord Archbishop of York, Primate of England and Metropolitan, as he walks down the long gravel drive of his palace at Bishopthorpe and into the village street. A cyclist
chummily calls out, "Hello, David".
Such matey familiarity has happened a lot to David Hope since he became Archbishop of York 10 years ago. It even happens in the village's Co-op supermarket where he frequently does his smaller shop, and in Tesco's at Dringhouses, the venue for his more occasional bigger trolley-pushing exercise.
Not only does he never mind, he quietly enjoys the chumminess. David Hope has never been one to expect in his clergy what the 19th-century divine, Sydney Smith, called a dropping-down deadness of manner. He would certainly not welcome any display of obsequiousness by lay people, and would doubtless be embarrassed if fawning were shown by chaps on bicycles or by girls at supermarket check-outs.
Years ago, David Hope had lunch with the Roman Catholic primate of Belgium, Cardinal Archbishop Daneels. The two church leaders were served, at Daneels's house, by nuns, and something offered seemed particularly delicious to David Hope. Suspecting it was therefore expensive, the visitor from England asked his host how much it cost. According to the tale, Daneels responded that he had no idea what food cost because not only did the sisters cook his meals, they also did his shopping.
Not David Hope's way. Not the way of the Wakefield-born builder's son not to know the cost of a loaf of bread or a fillet steak or whatever. To Hope, it was, and is important to know such things because ordinary people need to know such things and he wants to be able to share their concerns at every level, including the alarming size of grocery bills.
Not bothering about how he is addressed and doing his own shopping have been characteristics of David Hope's no-nonsense approach to life. And to his religion, which is traditional Anglo-Catholic. They soon learned as much at St Stephen's House, Oxford, where Hope trained for the priesthood and to which he returned as principal in 1974 before becoming Vicar of All Saints', Margaret Street, in London's West End, and then being made Bishop of Wakefield.
At St Stephen's as a student, David Hope got the nickname Ena, after Coronation Street's Ena Sharples and, it's said, because of his dislike of the prevailing atmosphere of Anglo-Catholic high camp. This wasn't bachelor Hope's style at all. His religious origins were in the Anglo-Catholicism of the North. But the majority of his fellow seminarians at St Stephen's were of the "gin, lace and backbiting" brigade.
"Staggers" – as it was known by its alumni – resembled Sodom and Gomorrah. Sodomy was rampant and nearly everyone was sodden with gin. Scornful of it all, the student from Wakefield took himself off to his room, kept himself to himself, got on with his doctoral thesis and said his prayers. And years later, as principal, he cleaned the place up in his no-nonsense fashion.
The no-nonsense outlook showed itself again when he moved to Margaret Street. During his first Sunday High Mass at All Saints', David Hope was singing his head off during some hymn as he presided in the sanctuary.
This did not meet with the approval of the rather precious young man who was the thurifer – the server looking after the incense.
The thurifer minced over and petulantly whispered to the vicar: "Father, in this sanctuary we don't sing the hymns."
The attempt to correct him was too much for David Hope. "It's my bloody sanctuary and I'll sing if I want to. Get back to your corner and set fire to your handbag," he told him.
The no-nonsense attitude has long been admired and will certainly earn him new admirers when he becomes vicar of St Margaret's, Ilkley, in March. But in the upmarket West Yorkshire spa town there will inevitably be critics of the Hope style, as there have been critics in the recent past. During his time as Bishop of London, one critic dubbed him an ambitious man and commented: "He's a Yorkshireman and he doesn't like London. He wants to be Archbishop of York."
Was he indeed ambitious to land York? Over a simple cod and chips lunch at the Ebor, a favourite pub in Bishopthorpe village, the 96th Archbishop of York quietly declines to talk about the turmoil in the Church of England over the gay issue and women bishops – "It's all been said before," he observes – but, equally quietly, responds to the claim that he was ambitious.
"I don't think I was. I don't think ambition has featured much in my life. I've always been happy wherever I've been. I've always taken the view that that is where God has placed me. The invitation to consider becoming Archbishop of York came as a considerable surprise – a shock, even. I think I took about three weeks to consider it, to decide.
"I was Bishop of London and there was a lot of reorganisation going on in the diocese. And when I had made up my mind to accept York, one of the London archdeacons said I was leaving a building site. I'd thought I'd be there for 10 years. I only did a few years. But God had chosen to place me in York, as He had in London and, earlier, in Wakefield. That's how I see it, anyway. That's how I perceive it."
His happiest times in York? The cod consumed, David Hope sips his pint of shandy and says: "I suppose the diocesan mission initiative, engaging, that is, with people, particularly in secular places. I've opened a new fire station, opened a new unit at York District Hospital, presented bravery awards to lifeboatmen at Whitby, opened extensions to countless schools and reopened a refurbished bank in York. There's plaques about me everywhere.
"I've addressed businessmen at Rotary clubs and so on, and it's never ceased to interest me, intrigue me, that while some people say they have no time for the Church or for bishops, I've been invited by all these people and organisations to do all these things."
Almost as though he'd forgotten one particular happy event, David Hope adds: "And, of course, there was the visit of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh to York, to the Minster, in millennium year. The Queen came at my personal invitation. That was a truly enjoyable day."
And the sad times? "One of the saddest was the Great Heck train disaster in 2001. I visited the site three days after and there was a memorial service at the Minster. It was a very difficult occasion. What do you say to people who, for no apparent reason, have suddenly lost loved ones? It was like the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster that's with us now, though on a smaller scale. You have somehow to insert into it something of the Christian faith and Christian hope.
"Then there was the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, and the phenomenal outpouring of grief. But it had to end, as I said at the time, because life goes on. And there was also the tragedy of foot-and-mouth, also in 2001. I had to go to Cumbria. I couldn't believe what I was seeing – heaps of cattle being burned in the fields. Whole communities were devastated. That was one of the saddest, most tragic, events during my time at York."
Ilkley now beckons. Of his future there, he says: "I'm looking forward to it, of course I am. So far, the people have been exceedingly welcoming. No doubt it's going to be hard graft. I've not been a parish priest for 20 years so I've got a lot to learn because the job has changed so much. But I've always taken the view that you can learn with people."
This most unprelatical of prelates, who enjoys long walks in deep countryside and who will be 65 in April, then adds: "And I've still got the energy."
One thing the no-nonsense David Hope will miss in his York diocese will be popping into the kitchen of some church hall after some parish "do" to thank the ladies, and finding a towel and helping with the washing-up.
But he'll be doing just the same in Ilkley. And as he does, he'll be smiling from the eyes and he'll be as he's always been – completely devoid of artificiality. And the Ilkley ladies will love him for it and say he's fair grand. And they'll mean it.
michael.brown@ypn.co.uk
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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