A Slice of Life from a Vicar's Wife

By Jean Jarvis

Jean Jarvis was born in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, a market town in the East Midlands and part of the Portland estate within the Dukeries.
Her working life has been spent in schools in Worksop and Sheffield. She lived through the time when Britain was recovering from World War II. It was the time of Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley & His Comets.
She met and married the curate and became his wife and mother of two children.
During this time, she met John Betjeman, a friend of her husband. She acquired his fun name, “The Smasher”.
Her love of art and music continued throughout her life, and she became a church organist. Her love of painting is a set of fourteen stations of the cross, which was on show for a short time in Derby Cathedral.
This is the story of a long and happening life, told in slices.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Feb 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9781398424593

Jean Jarvis

Jean Jarvis, a wife and mother of two children, was born and educated in Worksop and Sheffield. Her working life has been spent with children of all ages. Her interest in art and music was originally inspired by her religious interests. Her painting, The Woman of Jerusalem, inspired her to write the book during the lockdown time. She tells of falling in love and marrying the curate. Meeting John Betjeman, a friend of her husband and holiday locums, in other parishes.

Book preview

About the Author

Jean Jarvis, a wife and mother of two children, was born and educated in Worksop and Sheffield. Her working life has been spent with children of all ages. Her interest in art and music was originally inspired by her religious interests. Her painting, The Woman of Jerusalem, inspired her to write the book during the lockdown time. She tells of falling in love and marrying the curate. Meeting John Betjeman, a friend of her husband and holiday locums, in other parishes.

Dedication

To my husband and family, who inspired my work. To the many friends in the book, who allowed me to write about them.

Copyright Information ©

Jean Jarvis 2022

The right of Jean Jarvis to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

All of the events in this memoir are true to the best of author’s memory. The views expressed in this memoir are solely those of the author.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398424586 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398424593 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2022

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Acknowledgement

I am thankful to my children and granddaughters, without whose help this book would not have been written. To the many friends, who gave me permission to write about them, including Alexie, Simon, Andrew Burnham, Richard Lycett Green, Lord and Lady Somerlayton, Rodney Smith. For the friends who forgave me for not asking. To the Silver Surfers at Bramcote and their instructors who guided us through computer technology.

Wilfrid Jarvis (for the memories)

David Jarvis (front cover design)

Rebekah, Katie, Jessica

Alexi Walmsley

Rupert Lycett Green

Bramcote Silver Surfers

Andrew Burnham (for his eulogy)

Rodney Smith

My friends for their encouragement

Synopsis

Jean Jarvis writes her first book at the age of 83 years. It is set before the start of the second world war and part of social history at the time. It includes childhood memories and growing up during the Second World War Her discovery of learning to play the piano from an early age, working with children in schools. How religion became an important part of her life. The setting of the book is built on the wider family of the church, falling in love with the curate and events of church life at the time. Meeting John Betjeman, a close friend and confidant of my husband. Our summer holiday Locums which took place in other parishes over the years. The events leading to the closure of St Augustine’s church and infant school in Nottingham. My husband’s chaplaincy work at Nottingham playhouse.

‘A stroke of genius’, chapter seven is written as a diary during my husband’s stroke and animated with simple cartoon drawings. Following this literary friendship with John Gardner and the church in challenging times. I hope this proves an interesting read. Jean Jarvis.

Chapter 1

Wilfrid Harry Jarvis

(First Slice)

Wilfrid Harry Jarvis arrived at Worksop Priory church in 1960, at the age of forty, to serve a curacy. He attended Leeds University and Mirfield theological college. He had already had ten years of experience as a school chaplain in Oxford. It was 30 years later he was to be chaplain to Nottingham playhouse. Wilfrid was born in Wantage, and those days are known as Harry. He met his future wife Jean in Worksop, and they were married in Southwell Minster in 1965. Here is a single priest who discovers in his forties, the consolation of marriage and children. He became a close friend of John Betjeman where they met at a cricket dinner in the late ’40s. The friendship continued until the poet’s death, in 1984. Betjeman sometimes used Wilfrid as a confessor, particularly informally, and in 1959 as a temporary secretary.

References to Wilfrid found in Betjeman’s (collected letters edited by Candida Lycett Green). Betjeman described Wilfrid, in a letter from Wantage on 19 August, 1960 as, The calm mentor of my life and the only person who knew its twisted strands. Wilfrid had a natural feeling for Liturgy, which he brought to bear on his work with the Diocesan Liturgical Advisory Committee and the Bishops Liturgical Committee, a compromise was not a natural feeling, where being impatient with what he regarded as pointless, Anglican innovative ideas. Why was the church of England so intent on reinventing the Liturgical wheel? He was the kind of Anglo-Catholic who liked the minimal provision of Anglican Liturgy. This attitude was the very quality which kept him going, Neither of his two parishes in Nottingham was comfortable, they were beginning to run out of steam. The present archdeacon of the time told him he would be there for only three years. He served a thirty-two-year ministry there.

It was difficult for him later to see his church raised to the ground where He had fought hard for the redevelopment of the area. His task quoting a French city priest, Keep the rumour of God alive and remain faithful to the priest’s essential work. He accomplished this and celebrated 50 years to the priesthood.

Chapter 2

My Beginnings

(Second Slice)

I was born in Worksop in Nottinghamshire on 14 April 1937, just two years before the second world war in 1939. Gerald my older brother was two years old. My sister Angela was born 16 years later. Before we were born, my father was a fireman in Leicester. Mother was expecting me, and all was not well. Mother wished to return to her much loved market town in Worksop in north Nottinghamshire all her babies were born there. The only living accommodation my parents could get at the time was a rented room on Stanley Street, owned by some elderly lady whose name I never knew. My father gave up his job as a fireman in Leicester. He managed to find a temporary job as a manual building labourer, the only part-time work he could find, and things were desperate. Unemployment was rife, and many men were on the dole with families struggling to eat.

Mother gave birth to me completely unaided, and the helping friend had gone to find the midwife. When she arrived and entered the room, she saw me. Oh dear, we have a dead baby, she cried alarmingly, bring hot and cold water in two bowls as quickly as possible please. They arrived, and I was immersed from hot to cold water alternatively to shock me into breathing, when all failed a hefty slap on the bottom, I responded immediately. I took my first breath. My father appeared later with a heavily bandaged hand caused by a falling brick. Not entirely unexpected. He was untrained for the job of bricklaying. My first day was memorable as my mother related these happenings to me. The family moved later to another house; a luxury house compared to the one-room we were living in.

Now a year old we moved to Kilton terrace. Our life was frugal we relied very much on an open grate fire with a side oven for cooking and baking needs.

Coal was in plentiful supply and cheap, the Manton colliery supplied us well. The outside toilet was near a tiny garden, next to that a public washhouse, although I never remember my mother using it. The stone kitchen sinks with a much-polished brass cold water tap built in the corner of the room. We widened our reading skills and borrowed books from the public library waiting for the reminder card from the library to say the book had arrived ready for collection. The books were in high demand. Favourite authors were Enid Blyton’s, Richmal Crompton’s, Just William and Lucy Maud Montgomery’s ‘Anne of Green Gables’.

The two-bedroomed houses with attics. Supported a much-loved playroom used by my brother and me. It housed a dartboard, a table tennis table and a lot of Dinky toy cars. The left-hand side of the road had electricity, on the right, Gas with fascinating gas