Why was I never made a Canon?
I think it was partly a matter of luck, mainly a matter of impatience. The basic cause of my stammering has been that I used to get stuck through trying to finish a sentence before I could get out the first word. And I would too often accept an exciting new challenge before I had finished my current project. I have also had too little ?interest? with the complacency of the current "Establishment".
So after a happy time as Curate of Swinton - looking after the parish while the vicar was on holiday because he could not believe that World War 2 was due to begin - I accepted the temptation and the challenge to go as Vicar to Holy Cross, Billesley Common: and Margaret accepted me as her husband.
So after less than three years in my first curacy I became a vicar. I still do not know how much I lost in depth through never having a second curacy: but I believe that we were right to get started!
It was in August 1941 that we were married, in the darkest days of the war, and we were happy and fulfilled. The Bishop of Birmingham was very generous and even sent me a curate, though the terms in which he sent him, "Hobson's Choice" - go to Jager as a condition of your ordination! - made it impossible for me to keep him.
The Rector of Birmingham, Guy Rogers, supported me enthusiastically in the radical line that I was taking in urging the common ownership of the means of production. The Deputy Provost of Birmingham gave me some very valuable advice. And my Rural Dean, Michael Parker, I am sure supported me with the ?.
But I did not have the benefit of definite direction from a senior clergyman, or even have a "soul friend" in the modern sense of arranging for sharing experience between incumbents.
So all our family was born in Birmingham and we made some lifetime friends in the eight years that we were there. And we did our best in war conditions to develop the life of the Church.