‘Spotlight on ………………Gwenna Howard’
By Sally-Anne Jarvis The Link (June, 2017)
Sitting in comfort, with a tasty piece of cake on the plate and a hot cup of rich coffee I face Gwenna as she starts to tell me about her life story …… ‘Have I told you I’m descended from Charlemagne?’ …. A dramatic pause, a look ….and then we both giggle! … it is a tale I have heard a few times and is never stale in the telling. These are often words that Gwenna greets new friends with as a prelude to the joke she loves to play on herself – and in so doing exhibits her self-deprecating sense of humour as she continues, it turns out that everyone of European descent is descended from Charlemagne, so it is not a spectacular claim to fame!  However, just listening to the way Gwenna reveals the pin prick to ego, is just a taster of the wonderful, and inspirational, lady she is.  
After several approaches, Gwenna finally agreed to let us have a brief snapshot of her extremely interesting life and I had a fabulous afternoon hearing all about it – and laughed and cried whilst all the time my plate was topped up with a constant flow of delicious cake and my mug with coffee! What a real treat for me!  I could tell Gwenna was little nervous to be sharing her life story – and I feel very privileged to have been allowed to enter that private world, and hear about the wealth of experiences she has had. We are extremely grateful to her for agreeing to do so.
 Born in Montreal, Canada, August 1931, the youngest by several years of four children, her early childhood experiences were key to forming the outlook and varied career choices made on the journey through the past 86 years.  It is hard to believe Gwenna is 86 as she is so youthful in her outlook and energy but, apparently, she is! 
Growing up in Canada during the war she was the only one of her siblings still at home.  Her older sisters had gone to England when their husbands were there in the armed forces and her brother was also there with the Royal Canadian Air Force. This meant that Gwenna grew up as an only child to elderly parents. 
During WW1 her mother had travelled to England with her husband who was in the Royal Canadian Artillery.  While in England he had been invalided back to England from Ypres, where he had been gassed and he also had Trench Fever.  After a spell in Hospital he was sent home to her mother who  was told he might live or he might die.  Fortunately he lived until the age of 76 after working as a corporation lawyer but Gwenna’s mother lived with a horror of the effects of war, and during WW2 when Gwenna was growing up her mother was constantly anxious about her two sons in law and her own son in the armed forces and her two daughters and 3 grandchildren in England,  Life at home for Gwenna was not easy, especially when the husband of her older sister flying in RAF Bomber Command went missing for 3 months,  ended up in Stalag Luft 3 Concentration Camp and was involved in the long march away the Germans  from the advancing Russian Forces.  Many on this march died along the roadside, but fortunately after a long time the news came through that he had survived.
Though home was not easy, Gwenna enjoyed her school days and was educated in a private school from the age of 12, becoming a Prefect and later Head Girl. She attended McGill University in 1949 where she read Sociology and obtained her BA Degree, graduating in 1953. It was during this period that Gwenna first visited England, whilst on backpacking tours with friends during the long summer breaks of ‘51 and ‘52, and lost her heart.  She describes her first view of England out of the ship’s porthole one cold misty dawn sailing up the Thames as a sort of mystical experience, a coming home.  Seeing the coast in England on the way to docking at Tilbury ‘just spoke to my soul’ and was extremely powerful – ‘I thought to myself  - this is where I belong, this is where I want to spend the rest of my life …’.  It wasn’t a dream that could be fulfilled until after she graduated from McGill and in October 1953, she arrived in England to undertake voluntary work in a Settlement in Camberwell to build up her CV.
After 3 months volunteering, Gwenna was offered the opportunity to work as a Social Worker with The Invalid Children’s Aid Association (ICAA) an organisation that helped children who were invalided through polio, cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, or coeliac disease or those who needed to be separated from parents who had TB.  Gwenna was based in offices located in Lewisham, Islington and West Ham. She was later promoted to work in the Tottenham Office as Area Manager for Middlesex, where she was joined by a Co-worker and Secretary. Part of her duties involved training the students who arrived for their placements – a varied and demanding part of the role. She had to travel a lot so rather than contend with public transport, she bought a Lambretta scooter and happily ‘scooted’ all around Middlesex to visit families who needed help with an invalid child.
Anyone who knows Gwenna today is moved and inspired by her practical, deep and profound faith – and could be forgiven for assuming her faith had always been a  part of her life, but when she came to England she was a non – believer,  although she been brought up an Anglican.
 She described how she found her true belief in God, It was during her time in England with the ICAA when she started to attend, as a way of meeting friends, first a Youth Group at St Martin’s in the Fields and then later, with the encouragement of  youth group friends, the church services.  “I thought of algebra problems at school when you said :Let X = 5 or 6 or whatever, and then you worked out the problems to see if it did or it didn’t.   I said to myself  ‘OK, then let God exist,  I will pray to him and I will take Holy Communion and if he does exist I will know and if he doesn’t exist I will know’,  Suddenly one day I knew!  He was there!  It wasn’t an emotional conversion experience; it was more a gentle ‘hello’ “ . This was the birth of the new pathway that would later see Gwenna take the challenges of God’s calling in several ways, honestly and sometimes painfully but always with a trust in God’s message that it was the right thing to do.
During her time at the ICAA, Gwenna experienced the reality of the harshness of life and the depressing impact disability can have on people.  There was growing within her a sense of the futility in her work having no real lasting effect.  She experienced a developing conviction of not being able to make a sustaining positive difference in the lives of the children or parents the organisation worked with.  It seemed no matter how hard and dedicated the work, very little change was effected in the way the children were looked after and supported by society in general.   She thought “Well if I give my whole life to God could He then do something lasting with it for good?”   She decided to test her vocation to the Religious Life in an Anglican Community.  Her parents insisted she return to Montreal for 6 months, and she agreed.  After the 6 months back in Montreal in 1959, aged 27, Gwenna returned to England to begin the next chapter of her life – as a member of the Community of the Holy Name (CHN) which was then based in Malvern Link, Worcestershire but has since moved to Derby.
Gwenna was very animated and her words have a vitality to them as she described this part of her early life in the Community. The process of moving from postulant to fully professed nun was lengthy and took 5 and a half years.  Gwenna was content with the way the road was opening before her as she followed this path, though the life is not an easy one. She spent time in various parts of the country working on projects run by several houses of the Community living the religious life and learning many  useful skills too – from 10 months in the kitchens of the Convent (not her favourite part) and periods in the Mother and Babies’ Home in West Malvern,  Retreat Houses in St Albans and Chester,  Anglican Chaplaincies at the Universities of Cardiff and Newcastle  and a mission house in Coventry to name a few.  
It was whilst working in Newcastle that Gwenna, aged 34, began to experience depression, and the inner conflict that brings to any sufferer.  As a nun, content and happy with the life, the question was asked what was wrong and she was encouraged to view it as an ‘arid time’ the desert experience that many Christians experience in their spiritual life.   But after two years descending deeply and more deeply into depression Gwenna realised she needed help, that  she was becoming very seriously ill. The Mother Superior moved her back to the Convent in Malvern Link, where arrangements were made for Gwenna to visit a psychiatrist in Birmingham.  Reactive depression was diagnosed – stemming from childhood unhappiness.   After being put on medication and attending two weekly sessions with the Psychiatrist for some months the depression gradually became less and less severe.  It had taken two years to sink to the bottom and a further two years to slowly move up out of it.  The whole experience proved to be a ‘break through’ rather than a break down’.  The Mother Superior then sent Gwenna back to Newcastle where she had been at her worst.  She was to face the challenge of living where she had been most miserable.  No problem!  Gwenna had emerged a stronger person and returned to work happily at the Anglican Chaplaincy at the University of Newcastle.
Interestingly, Gwenna noticed that since her own recovery from depression, people with a range of mental health difficulties seemed to be particularly drawn to her. She felt this was strange as she never told people about her own experience but they were attracted to share theirs with her and she felt increasingly she was being prompted by God to work with this group within society.  Whilst working in the mission house in Coventry the rare opportunity to study a course in Clinical Theology presented itself, and Gwenna was given permission to undertake this two-year course – designed by the renowned psychiatrist Frank Lake (1914-1982)  one of the pioneers of Pastoral Counselling in the UK and a keen supporter of training clergy and later lay people in how to work with emotional trauma.  Many thousands of people have benefited from his training and ideology. This helped her provide more effective support to the people who were approaching her, as well as the people she came into contact with as part of her daily work. She did hospital and other forms of pastoral visiting ‘somewhere in Coventry is a prostitute’s daughter named after me…...’  She was made Sister in Charge of the retreat house in Cardiff and later the Guest Sister in charge of the Guest House on her return to the Convent home base.
Throughout this period the sense that she was being urged to work more closely with people in the mental health field increased and the question of where, and how, this should happen raised with the new Reverend Mother.  ‘Somehow this was a life changing event in my life and I found myself asking what am I doing here? – I want/need to work in mental health’ .  After prayer and discussions Gwenna was encouraged to follow this path and take a year’s exclaustration (a period offered to people in religious life to help in the discernment of God’s calling at that point of their journey) to help her discern if she should continue as was or leave and take up a new role.  After this period Gwenna was released from her life vows by the Archbishop of Canterbury.  She was then 41.
Having the overwhelming urge to work with people in mental health crisis, Gwenna found employment with the Richmond Fellowship (RF) as a Residential Project Manager –initially, for the first year, a live-in position, at Denbridge house in Bickley, Kent.  This was a half-way house for residents with mental health problems between hospital and community, with five staff and 2 students to live and work with 20 residents.  The Richmond Fellowship was a well-established organisation and had its own College which provided ongoing and updated training for staff.   Her career with the RF was to last for a total of 24 years, before her retirement aged 65 in 1996, and was a very rewarding one.  Seeing the positive difference made to the people supported was reward enough.
People may be surprised to hear that nuns have holidays – but they do! So where do they go when they are due for one?  Many different places but often a week or so staying with supporters of the Community, Gwenna usually would return to her home in Canada but on occasions this was not possible.  She had made many friends along the way, one with Eirian Davies.  When Gwenna needed somewhere to live after her first year at Denbridge, Eirian offered to share her house in nearby Bromley.  Gwenna continued working at Denbridge for the next four years after which she was promoted to House Supervisor. This involved supervision of Homes and Day Centres.  As this role grew in responsibility it evolved, and changed title accordingly, into Area Manager – by which time it had become a much more demanding and highly responsible role, involving the foundation of new Half-Way Houses and Day Centres.
The area for which Gwenna had become responsible covered houses as far apart as Reading, Ealing Sevenoaks, East Molesley and Worthing and there were regular meetings at the Fellowship’s Headquarters in Holland Park.   Her work involved a good deal of daily travel.   When Eirian moved to Datchet in 1983 to set up a joint house with her parents, it was a better geographical site for Gwenna’s work and suited her too.  They have remained in the same house ever since/.   Gwenna has kept in touch with CHN and some of the sisters have stayed with them in Datchet for holidays.  I remember meeting one very lovely nun who made us laugh so much the sides hurt – some of the stories were about how Gwenna kept the Community positive but mainly how she loved animals and cats in particular.   One that still sticks in my mind is about the cat who got stuck in the walls of the Nuns’ house, the meows and subsequent hunt and rescue operation led by Gwenna!     
On ending her sessions with the Psychiatrist Gwenna had asked her if her depression would ever  return and was told ‘I can’t tell you a definite no’  So ‘I was never sure it wouldn’t’.  But I can honestly say I have never  experienced it again – of course there are days where I feel a bit gloomy but when you have had depression you know the difference ‘.  She says, ‘There is so much pain in the world and we each have to carry our share of it’   It almost felt as if God had facilitated the safe environment of the Convent to allow the depression its full expression to clear the way for Gwenna’s main work – that of Mental Health. 
At this point in the telling Gwenna brushed over the years since retirement as not being filled with ‘very much’ but this just reflects the unwillingness to blow her own trumpet – She has been incredibly busy working within the Datchet community in various ways, starting with clearing the churchyard at St Mary’s. She took this on after the man whose task it was had been involved in a car accident. She didn’t ‘do’ mowing but happily weeded.   She recalls Edward Duffy stumbling across her one day and asking ‘what are you doing? ‘‘I’m pulling out weeds’ was the reply! ...  ‘I loved it – I found it relaxing - I could let my thoughts wander where they would and get the physical exercise I needed without too much effort !’  She also took up art work and the house is full of beautiful paintings she has completed over the years. Gwenna was also the Parish Administrator at St Mary’s during the time of the Reverend Bill Knight but she shyly admits, ‘it was not one of my best phases in terms of efficiency, I was never very good as the administrator but I did enjoy the people side of it’    Then Gwenna also became  Clerk/Treasurer of  Datchet United Charities a post she held for 10 years.
When Robert Spicer, the then curate, moved to be Vicar at Beaconsfield. Gwenna took over a few of his tasks in Datchet. One was as leader of a Bible Study/House group which she continued to run for about 8 years. This facilitated discussion on God, Life and the Universe and was well attended by people such as Janet Piggott, Pamela Barnes-Taylor, Beryl Stickland, Angela Warwick, Jim Hart and Derek Alan  and later Pat Peirson and Margaret Frewin. (amongst others) it came to a natural close when people moved away or sadly passed on.  Another task was as the LINK Editor.  Already instrumental in the development of it in finding advertisers and broadening its scope, she took on the editor role in 2001: The LINK we have today is due to Gwenna’s vision, hard work and energy in establishing and embedding it as the magazine for the community of Datchet, where it is delivered into every letterbox, and even sent abroad. Past residents often request they be added to our mailing list.
Gwenna wound the session up by saying ‘now all I do at 86 years old is unlock the church on a Monday morning, prepare as Sacristan for the Wednesday morning Communion, prepare ‘some’ Sunday service intercessions and help drive people to and from church on Wednesday and Sundays’ – ALL? -  what she doesn’t say is that she is generous in every sense of the word;.  She still proof reads the LINK.  She has a very vibrant sense of humour and down to earth attitude to life. Whilst having a deep faith, she  is not ‘churchy’ or ‘religiousy’ but genuine and sincere and very warm. Her faith exudes naturally, without need of attention seeking and is expressed in practical daily living; she inspires and encourages but can be a very firm gentle challenger too, when needed!
Thank you Gwenna!