Rev Wright
Last Christmas, Farewell to Rev. Simon Wright
The children’s Christmas Eve service at St Clement’s Church in Dartmouth will be particularly poignant this year – for two very different reasons.
It’s the first of the major Church festivals to be celebrated in the newly refurbished and restructured St Clement’s, Dartmouth’s oldest church and probably its oldest building.
But it is also the last Christmas in Dartmouth for the man who spearheaded the church’s transformation and who has been the vicar here since arriving from Middlesborough nearly 10 years ago. Rev Simon Wright is retiring – hanging up his dog collar and, in the New Year, leaving town for good.
“It has been fantastic here, but it is time to go and make way for someone new. I was 65 in August, the right age to become someone who helps out, rather than having the responsibility that I have here.”
Simon and his wife Sue have bought a house in Malton in North Yorkshire, somewhere to indulge a love of gardening, walking, painting in oils, and time to study art and theology, “Or maybe a combination of both.”
But why so far away? And why now? Simon explained: “There is a convention within the Church that retiring vicars leave their parish before the new vicar arrives. My replacement won’t be found for some months, after an interregnum period where other clergy will take services here, and once I have moved on.
“Although I was born in Somerset, I have lived most of my life in the North of England and it is where Sue and I consider ‘home.’
“The timing felt right not least because the St Clement’s Church refurbishment is now finished – and I am really pleased with it. It wasn’t all my idea, it was planned by a team, but I wanted to see it through to completion. It has taken more than seven years to complete, two years longer than I anticipated. It’s been a long haul with an incredibly detailed process of consultation and costing £280,000, for which we are still fundraising.”
It’s an impressive make-over. Gone are the old pews in their rigid straight lines. New chairs, giving the church a cathedral-like feel, can be moved and repositioned as required. There is a smart new kitchen corner, bustling with a coffee morning when I visited, but which can be shut away when required. The church now has toilets, a choir area, and a handsome new entrance making it easily accessible for disabled people. And every inch has had a thorough clean, making the stone and wood gleam as it must have done when the church was built, sometime before 1200.
Dartmouth’s vicar looks after three churches in the town – St Saviour’s in the town centre, St Petrox at the river mouth, and the hill-top St Clement’s. Simon’s motivation for driving the transformation was to install the necessary new facilities (like the loos!) and to create the possibility for more imaginative worship.
“We have our big church, St Saviour’s, for very formal things, but this church is nearer the schools, nearer most of the families with children, and if we are to attract younger people to come to church we need to be more imaginative in the way we use it. We’d like to see a wider range of activities here – as long as they are suitable of course!
“The new chairs mean we can create different spaces. Sometimes it will be more appropriate to sit the congregation more formally, but on other occasions we might use two banks of seating, like when we hosted two visiting choirs recently, or put people in the round, like when the children from Dartmouth Primary School come in for their Nativity play.
“Typically church buildings are used for three hours a week but cost tens of thousands of pounds to run. Now we have a more versatile building that can play host to groups and societies, bringing life to St Clement’s.”
As Simon broke away to discuss maintenance of the church organ and answer questions from the project’s architect, Paul Heighway, parishioners enjoying coffee and cake spoke fondly of the vicar and his wife who will leave them before the end of February.
They’ll miss him. And Simon? “I try not to get emotional, but it will be strange that this is my last Christmas here.
“Dartmouth is fantastic. Here it is still possible to see the Church as part of the community, something that has been lost elsewhere because churches are locked up all day. As the vicar, and as the rector of Dittisham, I have been involved in so many things that I have enjoyed, like being a school governor for example. The Church has taken me into other aspects of life, not just ministering to the congregation.”
He added: “Dartmouth people are great and they come in a huge variety. There are locals who have lived here all their lives, some who have moved here, and some who have done great things with their lives, and brought that experience here to enrich the town.
“I will always remember it very happily – it has never failed to be interesting, not least because of some amazing funerals. I will never forget the recent funeral of Trooper Brett Hall, which touched the whole community deeply. But there was one lady whose final wish was for a jazz band to be hidden within the church, who would emerge on cue playing the Charleston! It was a wonderful uplifting moment that suited her character and made everyone smile.”
Simon is looking forward to all the Christmas services he will deliver for one last time this year, even the familiar dash back and forth between Dartmouth and Dittisham. But in the Wright household it will be an extra special festive season, because for the first time in many years both children will be home for Christmas – son Michael from his job as stage manager at the Theatre Royal in Glasgow, and daughter Becky, a photographer on cruise liners.
“I like to think that when the last Christmas Day service is done we’ll all settle down for a jolly afternoon – but I will probably be so tired I’ll come home and fall asleep. I am getting on you know!” he said.
“However our tradition is that we always go out for a big walk on Boxing Day to blow the cobwebs away – usually on the beach. It clears the head and we’ll certainly do that this year, all together.”
Rev Simon Wright’s last Sunday in Dartmouth will be on February 14th.
First Published December 2009 By The Dart