Page 6 - The Portal magazine - March 2025

THE P RTAL March 2025 Page 6

Iwan Williams

Jackie Ottaway and Ronald Crane meet the man who works in
the Sacristy at the Basilica and Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham

T WAS a cold winter’s day as we settled in the library at Elmham House in Walsingham. We were meeting
IIwan Williams who works in the Chapel of the Reconciliation sacristy at the Basilica and Shrine of Our
Lady of Walsingham.

Iwan was born on May 12th I discovered it as a place
1979 in the Pilgrim Hospital, of pilgrimage.” He was
Boston, Lincolnshire to at Gresham’s School, a
a RAF Electrical Officer boarding school with a
and his wife. He was Church of England chaplain.
immediately adopted At the prayer group they
because of complicated would say Evensong or
family circumstances. With Compline together. He was
his grandparents living in confirmed into the Church
the same property, it just of England and after leaving
would not work financially. Gresham’s began what he
He found all this out about calls his wayward years.
twelve years ago. That was
when he finally met his “I suppose I thought I was
parents. This involved lots of an atheist. But after many
tears and lots of information. years protesting that I was
One can only imagine an atheist, somewhere there
how cathartic, joyous, and was heartfelt prayer. All of
wonderful this was. a sudden this possibility of
exiting a situation would
His adoptive parents were appear to me. It happened
a local professional and his numerous times. The first
wife. She, a housewife, was time it ever happened
Presbyterian. He was baptised in the local Presbyterian was when I was seven years old, whilst at Lincoln
Church in Lincoln. He attended Saint Mary’s school. Cathedral School. I had forgotten to do my homework
Then he moved to the Lincoln Cathedral School. This for a particularly scary teacher.
is the school attached to the cathedral of the Blessed
Virgin Mary. For a short time he was in the choir He was not very popular with the younger boys. I
but then they started a school choir. Because he was remember praying all the way through the night.
local, and maybe because his voice was not quite good Whether I slept I don’t know. Possibly a bit, but
enough, and he ended up as a head chorister of the I remember the dawn coming up. I remember
school choir. praying ‘Please don’t let him remember; please, don’t
remember.’ I went to school. I didn’t hand in my
It was quite a good choir, and they went on to win homework. Nothing was ever said! He was one of
prizes in various choral competitions. They travelled the strictest teachers you could ever imagine. It was
around singing at lots of competitions. He remembers completely unlike him to miss a thing like that.”
the various languages, Polish and Russian among them.
He remembers Choral Evensong in the Cathedral: “St In his early thirties, Iwan took some time out of work
Hugh’s Choir in Lincoln Cathedral is gorgeous” he in order to attend to a health issue. He was working as a
comments, remembering sitting almost daily in the head-hunter at a recruitment consultancy in London.
late 12th century wooden choir stalls that still exist It was a dog eat dog, backstabbing environment in
today. which it felt as though they were making money for
the sake of making money. He knew there was no love
He continues, “I would have been about thirteen or in it whatsoever. Just get as many people through the
fourteen when I came to Norfolk and to Walsingham. process as possible. Ø