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Requiem sermon: Bishop John Gaisford

It will surprise no one here to learn that Fr. Membery - Donald - left strict instructions regarding his funeral ceremonies - which is why I have the privilege of presiding and preaching for this Requiem Mass. Far be it for a lowly National Service aircraftman to disobey the express wish of a regular Squadron Leader! So I acquiesced. Mind you, Donald also gave instructions about the sermon - and in this I shall risk being partly disobedient - but safe in the knowledge that he can't now put me on a charge for that disobedience.

Part disobedience - because he said that it was not to be a panegyric. Well it won't be just that but - part disobedience only - because Donald would certainly deserve a panegyric as he spent his life preaching the Gospel of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Pointing always towards the glorious truth of the Resurrection and the promise of eternal life won for us by our Blessed Lord. And that is why we are here - and can confidently commend this faithful priest into the loving arms of his Saviour - and ours.

As far as Donald is concerned I have two main regrets. The second I will touch on later, but the first and main regret is that, of his long 88 years I knew him for only 15 - but 15 in which I came to value, respect, depend on and care for him - and 15 in which Donald has become a close and dearly loved friend.

But there were 73 years before that - and it has been a little like producing the TV documentary "Who do you think you are?" - trying to match up all the events and stories and anecdotes I'd heard from him, with the biographical facts. It was like doing a jigsaw, with each of the pieces being held by different people and even now, for me at least, it isn't entirely complete. But I am grateful to so many people and in particular, Fr Ian Cook, Fr Wilkie Denford, Canon Brian Barnes and Kevin Johnson who have shared their experiences of and with Donald over these many years.

If you know all this already, please bear with me because I suspect it isn't all known to many here.

We know that Donald was born in 1920 - that is recorded and is in Crockford! When the Second World War was declared, in due course he enlisted the Royal Air Force. He was aircrew - and reached the rank, as I said earlier, of Squadron Leader. He was always proud of the RAF and was a member of the club in London - entertaining friends to dinner and using it as his pied a terre. He enjoyed it - and so did I when he took me as his guest.

This service in the RAF took him in 1943 to Rhodesia - and there his love for that country was born. He conducted services in the station church on many occasions. Even being demobbed, he could not get Rhodesia out of his system and became a voluntary member of a Rhodesian missionary society - attached to the then SPG in Tufton Street. He spent time at High Leigh in the junior branch of the Society and was nurtured, I understand, by Fr Baker CR who was responsible for building or building up S Augustine's Penhalonga. His zeal for the Gospel was evident even then - even though it would be some years before he could express it fully.

He went up to King's London and in 1950 gained his BSc - and a year later his Dip Ed and AKC - and began to teach. And here the jigsaw is minus a piece - I think - because the next I learnt is that he married Gladys and they both went out to Rhodesia to teach, almost immediately. At least I think that was the case because Gillian and I remember being regaled with his hilarious tales of losing their wedding certificate or leaving it at home and all the problems that had caused.

But that brings me to my second regret - that I never knew Gladys. I've heard so much about her and seen samples of her beautiful sewing but alas, she died a year before I came to Leeds as PEV. I do know - as many of you do - how much Donald loved her and how much he missed her. I dare to believe that in becoming my unofficial, unpaid, overworked, indefatigable, ever-faithful, and self-appointed chaplain, it helped him to live through his bereavement. He served Mass in my chapel every morning unless I was committed elsewhere.

But that is jumping forward too far.

He loved his time in Rhodesia - and made lifelong friends there - and in S Africa. One of his many loves was fine wines - and with a twinkle in his eye, one night he brought out a bottle from the vineyard of his friend - a bottle entitled "Goats do Roam" - an obvious play on words but, I gather, chosen because the goats did indeed roam where the choicest grapes were harvested.

Despite his labours - building up a school, teaching, preaching, caring, labouring for the Lord - efficient, self-sufficient, having to make do and create and build and concoct so much, because of lack of funds and isolation, eventually they decided to come home to England.

Donald taught at Trowbridge Grammar School and at first they lived in Westbury where Donald was licensed as a Reader. The parish was regarded as a good training ground by the staff at Warminster where men were being prepared for ordination. I understand that Gladys' suppers for these ordinands after Evensong were the main cause of the clockwork regularity of their attendance. As one, now retired priest, Fr Wilkie Denford, put it - "It was worth enduring Westbury for the sake of Gladys' suppers!". Gladys and Donald again made lifelong friends - among those ordinands and he was still in touch with them, as usual, this last Christmas.

But in 1963 Donald made a complete change of work. He joined the Institute of Marketing and for several years he was responsible for much of their training - and especially organizing conferences, the annual one being in the Castle in Durham.

By now, too, they'd moved house - buying, if you please, a redundant Congregational chapel and making it - literally themselves, - making it into a much loved, much-used home. Some of the furniture Donald made is still in use in Carr Manor Gardens!

But in God's plan for Donald, the Institute was simply a temporary phase, long though it was. The insistent nudging of a vocation the priesthood was at last accepted - at last, that is, by CACTM - Donald had been aware of it for some long time. He went on a course in Reading, exploring the possibility of non-stipendiary ministry and met David Hopkinson. Two years later they both embarked on the NSM training course and their friendship grew and flourished as they sat together for hours of lectures in S Stephen's House in Oxford over a three year period. Made Deacon in 1979 and priested in 1980 in Oxford Diocese. David would never allow Donald to forget that although Donald was older in years, David was senior in Orders - by 59 seconds!

Donald served his NSM title at Aston Rowant with Crowell but only a short time later he was made redundant by the Institute of Marketing and was asked by the Diocese to go as priest-in-charge to Swyncombe - with a view to closing the parish down. Well in 1981 he went - and far from allowing it to be closed he expanded the congregation and nurtured a thriving dynamic parish. I'm told Swyncombe was a Norman church and not long after he'd been there the interior was an authentic reflection of what it probably looked like in AD1200.

Priest-in-Charge for 5 years and then Rector for 3, Donald was a very effective and faithful parish priest. But retirement beckoned and in 1988, aged 68, he accepted the inevitable - inevitable as far as stipendiary ministry was concerned - and he retired from that parish.

But other vistas were opening. David was now an incumbent in Leeds and Donald and Gladys moved house to Yorkshire. He helped David for as long as he was needed and when eventually there was a full-time stipendiary curate in the parish, Donald felt he could help more elsewhere - and so he came here to S Wilfrid's. And has spent so many years serving the priests and people of this parish he loved. And giving unstintingly of his service in many churches during interregna in this Diocese.

Not all the pieces of the jigsaw are in place perhaps but enough for us to recall that a varied, fulfilling, demanding, inspiring and inspired life he had. And so many talents - talents from which all of us benefitted. Not only his preaching and teaching- but his practical skills. A new Crib only recently here at S Wilfrid's; church furniture or notice boards created or repaired; expertise on the computer; skills at organisation - and completely dependable.

One knew that if you asked Donald to do something it would be done - on time and well. He believed in doing things properly and was impatient when others didn't. He was dismissive of clergy who failed to respond to communications. I well remember when he was helping to organise one of the Festivals he said to me after the Mass, "Well Father - of the 90 priests who said they were coming, 150 turned up!" He had a sense of humour - and we had many cards over the years bearing it out.

He was an indefatigable traveller. Whenever we pondered a holiday abroad, thinking of a possible destination, Donald would say "Oh yes - that's great; go to so and so - and so on". He seemed to have been everywhere - 30-odd times to Jerusalem for example! - and even in his late seventies he went to China. He had a fabulous time and regaled us with stories galore.

But one sticks in our minds. He went with the group to a talk on acupuncture. At the end, volunteers were requested and only Donald was brave enough to go forward. He had had a bad arm - couldn't get it anywhere over his ear. He had the needle - and was cured! "I just wish I'd asked them to do the other one as well" was his comment on telling the tale.

But travel was only one on many interests - and love of music and opera; enjoyment of cooking and entertaining; addicted to chocolate - and a considerable skill and knowledge of gardening. So many talents - and so much to remember him by. We all have our own personal remembrances. When I rang our daughter Sophia to tell her the sad news and we talked about Donald she said "My fondest memory is seeing him climbing up a ladder to fix the chandelier in our wedding marquee". So typical - epitomising kindness and a willingness to help in any way possible.

Well there it is - guilty of partial disobedience I may have been - but I thought that many would want to be reminded of some parts of Donald's multi-faceted life and also because I believe that life exemplified, perhaps unwittingly, that injunction of S Francis of Assisi to his brethren "Preach the Gospel. Use words if you must".

Donald used words, of course and used them well, but his life was spent preaching the Gospel and pointing people towards Our Lord and His promise of eternal life. His life of prayer; his devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, evidenced by the Gospel reading tonight; his insistence on liturgical excellence; his study of the Faith; his love and care for other people; his deep and lasting friendships; his time given so freely and willingly in the service of church and people; his valued work as confessor and spiritual director; his membership of and service to the SSC; his defence of the faith, particularly since 1992 and his unshakeable belief in the Resurrection - this was his life, lived in the service of God.

And we have all benefitted from it - and are grateful to have known Donald and to be privileged to be counted among his friends. Now we no longer have his physical presence with us - only for now, his mortal remains and we mourn his passing. We know what a gap that leaves in our lives - no longer here at S Wilfrid's; or at the other churches in the area; no longer at Chapter; no longer at the end of a telephone or across the table at a meal - we shall miss him greatly.

But with him we believe in the Resurrection and it is with confidence that we commend him to our Heavenly Father - and we hope that as he reached his eternal homeland in Heaven, not only will he have found his beloved Gladys waiting to greet him at last but he will have heard those words so richly deserved of this devoted priest "Well done thou good and faithful servant. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord".

Amen.

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