A life and faith story – Roger Hatton
I was born in April 1936 just 18 years after the end of World War 1, in the short reign of the uncrowned Kind Edward VIII, who abdicated in December of that year.
My mother was a devoted member of the Church of England and I consider I was destined to be a Christian from the moments of my conception and birth.
Somewhat controversially my father, though born into a Methodist family, was an atheist.
He may have reacted against overly strict religious rules and he received a secular education when feelings against war and in support of atheism were at their height.
In those days Church and Chapel people did not mix, so it may have caused a scandal when my father met and became engaged to my mother.
Their marriage photographs give no hint of any tensions between the two families. They were married in Saint Paul’s, Colwyn Bay in the Church of Wales allied to the Church of England. Their love for each other was never in doubt.
I was duly christened 4 years later at St Matthews, Church of England, 1 month after my birth in a village near Warrington in the county of Cheshire. Warrington was the site of a critically important aluminium factory producing sheets of metal for aircraft involved in the Battle of Britain and for bomber aircraft in the years that followed.
As a newly qualified engineer my father had the task of sleeping in the factory sick bay round the clock for 3 weeks and weekends without a break, only to be woken at any hour of the day or night when a machine needed repairs.
The factory was a target at night for German bombers which I remember hearing as they flew overhead, but they never managed to find or destroy the factory, while my mother, sister and I waited in an underground air raid shelter until the “All Clear” siren sounded.
My first memory of Church at age 5 was the single Sunday morning service, seemingly attended by the whole village.
A choir of small children in robes led the way in at the start, followed by older children and adult choir members, also in robes, all in procession, and finally the minister, with the choir and congregation singing “All People that On Earth do Dwell”
In 1949, at the age of 13, I was sent to London to be interviewed for a scholarship at a prestigious boarding school near Salisbury in the south of England. Though successful myself I remember feeling extreme compassion for the unsuccessful candidates.
It was an amazing Christian school with its own river, Church and sporting grounds. There were morning assemblies with hymns, gospel readings and before that Chapel communion services every weekday for those who were already confirmed, plus morning and evening Sunday services at St Martin’s Church in the school grounds.
The school in Dorset, to the south of Salisbury, was Bryanston. It followed the same spartan ideas used at Gordonstoun in Scotland, with cold baths and morning walks before breakfast in all types of weather, including below zero mornings in winter, in shorts and open necked shirts.
Following the ideas of Kurt Hahn, a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, and the founder of Gordonstoun in Scotland and Outward Bound, the school substituted an emphasis on character building and individual talents in place of corporal punishment, and a university style system of tutoring and individual study assignments, in place of standard homework. Students were able to choose their own study interests. In my case these were history and languages.
Preparation for confirmation took place beside a roaring log fire in the Chaplain’s residence. It was one of the few warm places in a cold building in winter time.
I was confirmed in 1951 by the visiting Bishop of Salisbury in St Martin’s Church in the school grounds.
I correspond weekly with three friends from those days, now in their eighties and living with their wives, two couples in Salisbury and another couple in Edinburgh.
One, an ex-Navy officer, with his wife, attends regularly at Salisbury Cathedral services, which I often attend online also, together with other online services at Canterbury, Cardiff, Chester and York.
In 1952 while still at school I heard the BBC announce the death of King George VI and the accession of Queen Elizabeth II.
In 1953 I obtained entry to Oxford and Cambridge universities, but grieved for many years the lost opportunity to attend due to my family’s emigration to Australia immediately after seeing the coronation of the Queen on English television. My father was sent to help the post-war revival of the Australian aluminium industry.
My marriage to Sheila in January 1964, followed a short 6 week engagement.
Our marriage preceded the funeral of my mother on 6th May that year. Her impeding early death was an event foreseen in the Church in Sydney where we were married four months earlier, and where the funeral took place. That funeral date now coincides with the date of the recent Coronation.
Sadly, my mother never saw her two grandchildren or seven grandchildren, but her Christian love has been an example for my whole life.
The death of my father occurred 20 years later from a heart attack in England as he watched the 7pm BBC news on 12th October 1984. The news showed the bombing by the IRA of the Conservative party annual conference in Brighton where Margaret Thatcher was seen holding the hand of a Government minister who was trapped in the collapsed building, as she recited the Lord’s Prayer. I hope my father heard that prayer. His ashes are buried in an English Churchyard.
My sister had no passport at the time, so I elected not to travel to my father’s funeral without her. I had sent a farewell message which I was told brought most of those attending his funeral to tears. Sheila and I and my sister were later able to visit the Church in Cheshire, near where he was born, and which is now his earthly resting place.
My father was 81 when he died and both Sheila and I have somehow managed to survive that age by 6 years.
An earlier visit to the UK was for the 2nd Ordination of Women in Wells Cathedral which included the Ordination of the wife of Sheila’s late brother. His wife is still active in the Diocese of St Albans.