Parish Profile
St.Michael & All Angels, Camberwell
A very unusual kind of parish
When Pat Vowles first arrived as Deacon-in-charge of St. Michael and All Angels,
Camberwell in 1991, community police warned her not to visit tower blocks in the parish at
night unless she had been called in by a resident, or had protection.
"I can't say I'm not frightened sometimes. There's
a risk involved in being alone in UPA parishes."
St. Michael's is No 9 on the diocesan Oxlip poverty list: only four of the congregation
have cars. A year ago a mentally disturbed visitor wrecked the church during Sunday mass,
and attacked Pat and others in the sanctuary. Claudette Brown, who has since become a much
needed Southwark Pastoral Auxiliary (SPA) in the parish, still suffers from the effects of
intervening. Two members of the congregation went to hospital.
Quite apart from the rapid turnover of tenants, moved on (no doubt happily) to
somewhere else in the Borough of Southwark, it's impossible to go knocking on doors in the
parish.
For security reasons, the tower blocks all have entryphones. However, Pat did slip in
safely behind the postman at 7am to do a bit of leafleting.
She made it clear from day one that she would never ask anybody in the parish to do
anything she wasn't equally prepared to do herself. She meant (as well as visiting and
shoving notices through doors) church-cleaning, putting out chairs, anything practical.
"And she never has" says Eileen Harris - one of her churchwardens.
Mother Pat, as she has been known since her priesting in 1994, wasn't just setting a
good example. She was defining how the parish has to work. The emphasis is on self-help
because St. Michael's is a very unusual kind of job. To use her parish church on weekdays
she must ask permission of the head teacher of Archbishop Michael Ramsey school. The
church, a small 1972 brick structure, is physically in the school. Until recently it was
part of the school's music department. It's done service as the gym too. Everything needed
on Sunday (which for Anglo-catholic worshippers equalled quite a lot) had to be put away
after use. Now it is all left in place and the room serves as school chapel during the
week, a rare phenomenon in a Southwark educational establishment.
Locals, who remember it as a gym when they were pupils at Archbishop Ramsey, are
disinclined to see it as a nice place to get married. The associations are all wrong.
Pat has no vicarage either (though one is promised - in a commercial development a few
streets away). She lives in the top half of an Edwardian terraced house, up a steep narrow
flight of stairs. Needing a spare room for the odd visitor, she must sleep in her office
beside the computer.
The next door parish is the famous Anglo-catholic shrine of St. John the Divine,
Kennington - whose spire, recently restored by English Heritage, is one of the
architectural landmarks of South London. Mother Pat's patch, high rise blocks and
Victorian terraces between Walworth Road and Camberwell New Road, used to boast three
Anglo-catholic churches - All Soul's Grosvenor Park and Emmanuel, Camberwell Green as well
as St. Michael's. Anglicanism in the area has seen little but decline, decay and
withdrawal.
Mrs Harris, who has lived in the parish all her life, and whose father was churchwarden
at Emmanuel in the thirties , remembers the vicar there in the 1950's having a breakdown.
The church faced a huge maintenance bill. The Bishop of Woolwich came and closed it down.
Eight of the congregation moved to Fr Edward Thompson's All Souls', and that in turn bit
the dust in 1972.
Later a commission chaired by Canon Douglas Rhymes recommended closing St. Michael's
too. (He was nervous about stirring old resentment when Mother Pat asked him to come and
preach).
But the parish is open, and growing again now. The electoral role has doubled in the
last five years, though the parish is only financially viable because it owns a couple of
houses in the Walworth Road, one leased to a restaurant. The weekly collection averages
between £90 and £120. They've had to spend £15,000 since Pat arrived on "things
like renewing the loos and bringing facilities up to standard."
She's not the first woman involved in pastoral care here. Before her there was a parish
deacon, Antonia Dean, opposed to the priesting of women, who was also school chaplain - a
doubling which made the parish into mainly a Sunday phenomenon. Now with much help from
the congregation, Mother Pat is getting St. Michael's back into the community. As Mrs
Harris says "It makes all the difference, when you've got a good parish priest."
The fact that it's a catholic tradition with a woman priest has not led to difficulty.
As well as being an oblate of the Wantage Community of St. Mary the Virgin, Mother Pat is
Vice-Rector-general of the Society of Catholic Priests, an organisation she helped set up
which is growing fast right across the country. She says "I'm not a radical person;
I'm a person of order."
The last incumbent before her that anybody remembers was "Fr Douglas"
(Bartles-Smith, now Archdeacon of Southwark) who left in 1975. After that it was served
generally by locally ordained ministers, with backing from St. Mary's Kennington.
It's a church with an overwhelming sense of welcome and community.
The Sunday service at 10am is mass - with no compromises, just as it would be done in a
progressive Roman Catholic parish though Mother Pat in vestments uses mostly the Anglican
texts.
But it's in no sense an uptight, self-conscious kind of Anglo-catholicism. There's an
emphasis on the bible and teaching, a conviction that the circle of Christian friends
gathering together will work for each other, for the whole parish, and bring that trust
and familiarity into their worship. The central theme - following Anglo-catholic tradition
- has to be social work and sacramental life. The parish contains the John Kirk centre for
16 to 26 year olds. The prayer ministry is strong. But despite having a woman priest, the
notion of lay women administering the chalice was not immediately accepted. The SPA,
Claudette, who came to Britain from Jamaica in 1974 and now works as an accounts clerk for
the Fire Brigade, was brought up a Baptist - a church which Mother Pat, born in Camberwell
behind the Salvation Army College, also belonged to on her journey from the Plymouth
Brethren to Anglicanism. The parish's Christmas Day dinner is a joint op with the local
Baptists across the road.
The organist just now is Femi Ladele, who started to learn to play when the parish
suddenly found itself with nobody to do the job. "The service had become a bit dull
without any accompaniment," he said, chuckling modestly. The singing is fervent.
Femi's background is typical of St. Michael's. His first Anglican church was Christ
Church, Streatham. He came to St. Michael's two years ago when he moved into the area. And
he's still coming back now that he's been moved on to Bermondsey. There's something
empowering for black people like himself having a woman as a parish priest, he finds.
"It gives people a sense of belonging, and also represents justice and fair play. No
group or sex is relegated to the background." He appreciates the "bring and
share" approach of the parish, the way everybody mucks in, the frequent parties they
hold, the family atmosphere of parish meals together. "We live like a family. We talk
very freely to each other." At Christ Church, he didn't participate in church
activities. "Here I have found my attitude changing. I do things I wouldn't have
dreamt of doing three or four years ago - the social club, trips, and so on. It gives me
joy that my life has been greatly improved in the service of God. Mother Pat is a very
nice person, and we will go on working until we get more people into the parish".
The full printed edition of the 'Bridge' newspaper
is available at all Southwark Parish Churches.
Further copies can be obtained from wendy.s.robins@southwark.anglican.org
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