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Parish of the Holy Family   
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226, Trelawney Avenue, Langley, Slough, Berkshire. SL3 7UD             Telephone: 01753 543770
 
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Fr. Brian Godden : 50 Years a Priest

Bishop Peter Doyle and priests and religious from parishes throughout the diocese – including our own
Fr Kevin O’Driscoll - turned out in force at St Ethelbert’s for the Golden Jubilee Mass of former
Holy Family curate, Fr Brian Godden.
The splendid stone-built edifice, where Fr Brian had served as parish priest for 12 years until his retirement in 2005, was packed to capacity; and such were the fulsome tributes paid to him that the midday service went on for an incredible two and a half hours

There were many humorous moments. Bishop Peter, in giving thanks for Fr Brian’s fifty years of loyal and unstinting service to the Church, remarked that the celebrant had reserved a parking space for him outside with the words BISHOP PETER scribbled on a rubbish bin!

Fr Brian recalled that shortly after his ordination in 1957, he and fellow rookie Fr Norman Smith were sent to Walsingham, where they were put in charge of erecting toilets for the pilgrims.
‘What Norman and I don’t know about portable loos isn’t worth knowing,’
he said to laughter from the congregation
Canon Norman, who was to serve for six years as parish priest at Holy Family, paid several glowing and highly amusing tributes to Fr Brian, whom he revealed maintained a modest lifestyle in order to make provision in his will for the various Church charities he supports.
 

After the service, Bishop Peter,
the clergy and congregation adjourned to the hall
next door,
where a truly sumptuous buffet
had been laid on.

There were two huge cakes for Fr Brian –
one to commemorate his 50 years as a priest
and the other his 80th birthday,
in celebration of which the assembled gathering delivered a rousing rendition of,
Happy Birthday To You.
 
Concert pianist put Fr Brian in tune with the Church
It had been a memorable occasion in honour of this extremely well-known priest, who was converted to Catholicism more than sixty years ago by an Australian concert pianist. For it was a chance meeting with London-based Mary Kiernan in 1946, just after the end of the Second World War, that was dramatically to alter the course of his life.

RAF Wyton (Cambs)
Born on 30 April 1927, the only child of Anglicans Gladys and Sidney Godden, who was the chief clerk at Nine Elms Gas Station, the Battersea Grammar School pupil from Streatham graduated from Jesus College, Cambridge, with a BA in modern languages before being conscripted into the RAF on a deferred call-up.

 “Flying Officer Godden hardly saw an aeroplane,” he says wryly.
“I was  stationed at RAF Wyton (Cambs), teaching air force personnel. Looking back, it makes me realise how efficient and organised the Catholic church is in comparison.

“To get out of work I decided to book myself on a residential current affairs course near Berkhamsted. It must have been divine inspiration, for it was there that I met Mary and her close friend Linda Caselli, an Italian.
 “Mary was in her late twenties, I imagine. As well as giving public concerts and recitals, she went about converting people. I can say she influenced me through prayer and example.
“It just shows how good can come from evil. As a reward for skiving off work, God gave me the gift of faith. It was certainly none of my doing.”

Brian began visiting Mary at her home, a rented one-room apartment in Kensington. “She talked about her religion quite a lot and I was keen to learn from her. He met also with Linda Caselli but his interest in her was inclined more toward the romantic. She was dark and attractive and they saw each other on a regular basis. He was already fluent in French and German -- “but because of Linda I started learning Italian.”

The fact that, like friend Mary, she, too, was a Catholic, served to heighten his interest still further and he took the decision to join the faith. He was received into the Church in 1947 at the age of 20 and later confirmed at Westminster Cathedral.

Gradually, however, the realisation dawned that there was little future together for he and Linda. The difference in their ages – she was 35 – and Brian’s burning desire to become a priest were proving insurmountable obstacles to love and romance.
By the time he came out of the RAF, he knew in which direction his life would go. He applied to Northampton Diocese but initially his hopes were dashed. “Bishop Parker said it was too soon, as I’d only just become a Catholic. He told me I’d have to wait a year.”
Brian filled in the time by teaching French at St Aloysius’ College in Highgate. Linda, meanwhile, had returned to her home in Italy.
Many photo memories
adorn Fr. Godden's walls

“When the year was up and I joined the seminary, I wrote to Linda. I told her that as I intended becoming a priest, there was no real point in continuing the relationship. It hadn’t developed into anything too serious but we were extremely good friends.”

He confesses he had some misgivings about becoming a priest.
“It’s not something you do lightly. For instance, I didn’t like the idea of celibacy.”
 He nevertheless went ahead and undertook his studies at St. John's Seminary in Wonersh, near Guildford.  Six years later, he was ordained at the Franciscan Friary at East Bergholt, near Colchester.
The date was15 June 1957 and Mary Kiernan was there beaming with pride, along with Brian’s mother Gladys (dad Sidney had died a few years earlier).

“I’d enjoyed my time at seminary and it was lovely to have Mary supporting me at my ordination.
I know she felt very proud because she had started the whole thing off. She later returned to Melbourne
and we gradually lost touch.”

Fr. Crawfurd
He was now ‘Fr Brian’ and his first assignment after that initial flush of success in erecting the loos at Walsingham was to be appointed curate to Fr Geoffrey Crawfurd at the newly-built Holy Family Church.
“Fr  Crawfurd was hard-working and totally dedicated to the Church, which he had built up from nothing,” says Fr Brian. “He drove himself hard and other people too, including myself. It was a tough baptism but I learned a lot.”

His next appointment was with Fr Tony Hulme at the Church of the Holy Child Jesus and St Joseph in Bedford.
“I found him very difficult as well. He expected rigid obedience. He was also very suspicious. He said, ‘You never give me any of the pennies you find on the Church floor. You must be keeping them.’  I did not say anything.
We were taught to suffer in silence.”


From there Fr Brian served at a number of other churches before starting the parish at Sundon Park in Luton, where he was in charge from 1966/74.

He was also parish priest concurrently at St Thomas Aquinas and All Saints, Bletchley (74/91), St Peter’s, Biggleswade (91/93) and, finally, his round dozen at St Ethelbert’s.

He is now based in the village of Burnham, Bucks, where, most days, he says Mass at the church of Our Lady of Peace. Age does not weary him.
He is only too willing, he says, to act as relief priest wherever there is need.

He is happy and content in his cosy retirement flat. He has no family and  no regrets at having devoted his life to the priesthood.
“If I had my time over, I’d do it all again”, he says with a smile. “My flock was my family.”
He particularly enjoyed his time at St Ethelbert’s. “It was a humdrum day-to-day slog but also a very happy time for me. There was a wonderful ethnic mix, which I loved.”

Over the decades Fr Brian had never forgotten his first and only love, Linda Caselli, and the prospect of married life and fatherhood he had sacrificed for the high calling of the priesthood.

A short while ago, he travelled to Milan to see her. “I had been there with her all those years ago and remembered where she lived. I spoke to her neighbours, who told me she had died a month previously.”

Memories of times past, revisited and shared. It was not to be.
Even priests are not infallible to the winds of fate.

Fr Brian has a whole range of other memories, too: recollections of a rich and rewarding life, lived to great purpose in the service of others
It is a fine legacy.