Interview with Brother Chris Barton

The interview with Brother Christopher was based on a recording made on 22-12-2003. The regional council wishes to express its sincere thanks to Fr. Charles Cammack for his help in compiling this text. (July 2007)

My name is Chris Barton.  I am a Mill Hill Brother and have been one for 63 years, since 1940.  These wanderings are the result of the prompting of Brother Eddie Slawinski.  We were standing together in the graveyard at the burial of Father Ben Sharkey a couple of years ago in 2003, and Eddie suggested that I must have been present at all the burials in the graveyard.  Well, that’s not true although I’ve been at most.  Anyway, one thing led to another and he got me to record my recollections of my early life and my work in Herbert House.

I was born in 1907 near Standish.  My father was a quarry man and from an old Lancashire family.  Well, that was the case on both sides.  The name Barton comes from a village between Halsall and Haskayne.  Indeed we have some distant relatives living there and I contacted them once at a football match – but that’s neither here nor there.

There were 8 children altogether – two lads and six girls.  I was the fourth born and the first of the two sons.  Two of the girls are still alive.  One is 95 and the other turned 90 this year.  The young one has sent me a Christmas card for this year but I don’t think the other one will. My brother, who must be 93, has also sent me a card but all he wrote was “Tom” and nothing else.  I have sent them all one back.  They used to come and visit me here, but not so much now.  Last month the younger sister, Jenny, she came with her son.  And also Francis, the son of our other sister. He was a parish priest but he is retired.

I first came here to Freshfield, to think of becoming a Brother, in 1932.  I was here in St. Peter’s, in the college, for about 6 months and then they shuttled me off to St. Joseph’s College in Mill Hill.  I was there just a day and then I went off to Holland with another prospective Brother by the name of Neil.  Together we went over to Roosendaal.

I can’t remember how long we were there but it was not all that long.  There we met Father Schoemaker.  He was the Rector of Roosendaal.  He was very nice and he went with us on the train to Arnhem. We got off at Arnhem and we were there for 3 years and 3 months.

I have nothing but praise for the way that place was run.  It was run by a German and he was both Rector and Novice Master.  His name was Father Weisman.  I don’t think you could improve on him.  He was a dedicated man and I know that he was good in God’s sight.  I remember he had a bad arm.  I have a bad arm too.  Anyway, he had this bad arm and he could use only one arm when he was saying Mass.  But he was a good man.

At that time I should think that were over 40 Brothers in formation.  I know that when we arrived the Rector had to do some shuffling to fit us in.  What he did – and I don’t know whether it was right or wrong – but he took two of the German Brothers and two of the other Brothers and put them out of their rooms so that we could have their accommodation.  Now, their accommodation did not amount to much.  It was only a wooden place and in the bitter winter the water used to freeze in the wash basin, there in your room.  There were two sections to the building where we stayed. One was of wood which they had bought when they started up, and then there was an extension which the Brothers had built themselves.

This lad Neil who had come with me, he got tuberculosis -consumption – so he had to be taken out of the same accommodation as me.  Alright, it was a bit primitive, I admit, but it was the best the Rector had on offer and I’ve not a bad word to say about it.  The Rector put Neil in the new extension built by the Brothers.  There was central heating there.  The rooms were not very big but there was the central  heating.  In fact, none of the rooms was very big, including the visitors’ rooms, but they were all passable.

Before I came to be a Brother I was working in a linoleum factory, and in the end I was doing block printing.  So, I got an elementary knowledge of paint and this later served me in good stead because when I was in training as a Brother I did painting, and when I left formation I was a painter.  But in training they tried to give you some basic knowledge of things you would like to do, so I also did carpentry.

Anyway, after this rector, Bishop Biermans came.  Now this new rector was a very kindly man but he had no idea of training.  I should say they lost half the Brothers.  Some of them were kicked out because they were taking liberties and were not suitable, but some of them got sick of the training.

I was finally professed in 1940.  It was not in 1937 as has been said.  That information was wrong, and I wrote to Mill Hill and told them it was wrong.  It was in October 1932 that I first came to Freshfield; I made my Temporary Profession in May 1935, and I made my Final Profession in 1940.

I forget who actually accepted me into the Society.  The Superior General was Father O”Callaghan but it was not him.  It was one of the priests and he went to Ireland later.  He was a lovely priest.  I think that there were 3 of us to be professed at the same time.  There was Alrick, who is dead of course, and Sylvester.  He’s dead as well.  He also was professed with me at Mill Hill.

When I made my Final Profession I did not receive a new appointment.  In fact I have had only one appointment in my life and that was from Father O’Callaghan to go to Freshfield.  That was when I was in Temporary Profession, and I never had another.  It was just understood from the time that I left St. Peter’s that I was going to help with the administration of APF-Mill Hill, and I was 43 years on that job.

I’ve got a book here that was given me when I made my Final Profession.  It is from Father Sullivan, Father O’Kelly and Father Smith, and the inscription tells you when I was professed.  It says it was given as a Profession present to Brother Christopher with best wishes from the organisers on his taking the Perpetual Oath on 9^th May 1940.  They asked me what I would like and I said I would like that book.  It is “Christ the Life of the Soul” by Abbot Marmion OSB.  I try to read a paragraph or two from that book every day.  I have never learned Latin or anything, and there’s quite a lot of Latin inscription in it.  I make out what I can, and what I can’t I bypass.

Since coming back here I have never been anywhere else, apart from a big holiday in the summer.  This was the place where the business is done in the north of England for APF-Mill Hill.  The magazines came from here when they first amalgamated Mill Hill with the APF.  Father Sullivan did that, with Father McLaughlan and the bishops.  They arranged a joint appeal, and that appeal has been very successful. It is still going but for how long I don’t know.  It is getting rather tricky because there are not enough priests to run the job and they are having difficulty getting them.

The magazines were my main work.  I sent out over a million copies of the magazine in my time.  I know that, because I reckoned it up once, from the time I first started packing them.  And I can say this, that from the time I started, every magazine that went out from Freshfield was packed by me.  I used to get people to count out the magazines, and the calendars, and the labels for the boxes.  The boxes were wood in those days; now they are plastic.  I got anybody to help with the counting.  I even got my brother from school to help, and then there was a Father Hilary, a retired priest.  He was my standby.  Then we got a man from the village. I just forget his name but it was Sid something, and he helped.  But every parcel I packed myself.

Most of this work was done at Red Gables, though for the first 12 months we were at St. Peter’s College.  Then they changed Rectors there and some one thought it would be a good idea (somewhere I suppose it is in black and white) and would make a better mixture if the organisers and the old priests all lived in Herbert House.

So the organisers moved over.

I lived there myself in a little room in Red Gables.  It was where Father Ahern used to be later.  Not in his living room but in his bedroom.  It was only half the size of this room here.  Anyway I wasn’t in it often when I first went, so I thought I wouldn’t unpack, and I just pushed my luggage under the bed.  There was also a small wardrobe and I managed with that for about 5 years.  Then I came to the conclusion that there was no use in living like this, and that I might as well make myself permanently settled.  There was an alcove, and I got a few plants and things, and I made a door to the alcove, and that’s where most of my clothes were.  And above that I made a little cupboard so that if I had any money or anything valuable I could lock it up.  So, that’s the kind of thing I did when I had been there 5 or 10 years.

Anyway, I carried on working at the APF until October 1981.  Since then all I have done is look after the grotto and work in the garden here.  I’ve done quite a lot of hedge cutting, but now I can’t climb so well any more because I get dizzy and might fall.  That hedge round the Sisters’, I used to cut that.  I think I cut it for the last time just recently, because that building is going to be demolished and the hedge will probably be just thrown away.  It is a nice hedge.  I take pride in that hedge.  I still do the front hedge down Victoria Road, but I have a job to do it, I can tell you.  When I’ve done, I feel half-dead, without any joke.  I can’t stand so long because my legs go and start aching.

Father John Pacey is the one who made the graveyard at Freshfield.  He did it when he was a student.  The first one to die was the Rector – Father Edmund Farmer.  That was in 1929.  I wasn’t at that funeral.  I was only 23 when he died and just contemplating joining the Society.  I came here only in 1933.

The first one I saw buried was Father Bougle.  You don’t notice his grave much because they were not marble slabs.  They are alongside the Rector’s grave but they have gone discoloured.  The Rector’s grave is a beautiful red marble and he is the only one in it.  There are two more graves on each side. There is a Bother from Holland buried there.  Brother Joe from the College is buried in that plot too.  That is the original plot.  Then they started extending.

All the graves in the extension are vaults.  Father Sullivan had told Father Pacey to dig a grave and Father Pacey told him that it was nothing but water.  So they decided to build up vaults.  And that’s what the graveyard is now – all vaults.  And when a grave is needed they just dig out a vault.  Now there aren’t so many left – only about 12 –15.

Since Father Bougle died I have missed only one funeral, as far as I know.   The only one I can think of is Father O’Kelly.  I was away and when I came back someone told me that Father O’Kelly had died.  He was buried before I came back.  I would have liked to have been present at his funeral because when he had left to go to Holland to take up an appointment he had been very kind to me.  He gave me some little relics and things.  Of course, they are all gone now.  But that’s Father O’Kelly.

If people ask who has been my best friend, who has stood out, then Neil was very good as a Brother.  But I think that the best friend that I had was Dr. van den Biesen. He was the best priest to be sent for higher studies, and he became a Doctor.  He used to say his Office in Hebrew, and he taught in Mill Hill.  For some reason he left Mill Hill and went to the Cotswolds where he did mission work.  He wasn’t parish priest when he was there, but eventually he took charge of Stow-on-the-Wold.  From Stow he went up to Scotland to a convent.  He used to ride, and while he was up there he fell off his pony and broke his arm.  Then he came back and went to Winchcombe, near to Stow-on-the-Wold, and he was there when the war broke out. 

He liked the place and was very fond of the Anglican clergy.  There were plenty of them in that area and he always spoke highly of them.

He had a brother who used to fight for him to go and stay.  His brother was a doctor who had started a hospital in Holland, and he wanted him to go and live there.  That was after he had come to Herbert House.  He was friendly with Father Turner who looked after the finances in Mill Hill.  He used to visit Mill Hill during the summer holidays when the students were away.

It was in Mill Hill that I first met Father v.d.Biesen.  I was visiting there for some reason and we were thrown together quite a lot because he never went into the dining room with the Fathers; he used to dine in his own room.  The Brothers used to dine on their own in those days as well.  We had our own dining room.  There was Brother Ben and myself, and before that there was Brother Bavo.  He went on the missions.  He was a very good carpenter.  You can see his handiwork in the Sisters’ chapel.

Anyway, with Father v.d.Biesen it got so that he could say Mass again.  I think that he had stopped saying Mass in Winchcombe, and that is why he came away; he was recognising his age.  I think that he would be about 70 or something at the time.  He retired when he was 86.  I was very friendly with him.  He was a lovely priest.

I am 96 now and folk sometimes ask me whether I would like to be 100.  Well, I would first of all like to live another 4 months.  If I live another 4 months then I shall have been the longest-lived British member of the Society.  Today I am the longest surviving member, but there was one priest who lived here, and his name was Father Dolan, and he lived 96 years and 8 months.  Now what I have to do is to see off those 8 months.  So far August, September, October, November and December have gone.  That’s 5 months.  That leaves 3 months – January, February and March. When it goes into April this year, if I’m still alive I’ll have been the eldest of the British missionaries.

There have been only two missionaries who have lived longer.  One was Brother Bernard in Mill Hill, and he lived to be 97.  And the other was Father Roemele in Holland and he lived to be 99.   As for me, I’m hanging on to live till next April – and 2 days.

In all these years the worst sickness I had was when I broke a rib and I was in bed for a fortnight.  That rib is still broken because it is the floating rib and it sticks out a bit.  When I was in Holland I was two weeks in hospital because they thought I was going down hill and they sent me to hospital for tests. But I wasn’t really sick.

People like Brother Eddie sometimes think that because you are old you can have special messages for others, especially in the Society, based on experience. Well, all I can say about the Society is that if they want it back on its feet it will be by penance and prayer.  We can’t deny that we are a dying Society, and the only solution I can see is prayer and penance and fasting. Gaudiums and jollifications are alright on occasion.  And so is good food.  The Fathers need that food and they don’t over eat.  But prayer and penance; that’s the answer.

As for me, I have not been as good a Brother as I could have been.  I know that for a fact and it has always been on my mind.  But you can always try to do your best.

Now let’s have a cup of tea.

Brother Chris. Thanks very much.