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DENIS WADDILOVE

Born: 20 Aug 1913 –  died: 23 Nov 1981
Clothed - 19 Sep 1932
Solemn Vows- 21 Sep 1936
Priest - 20 Jul 1941

Fr Denis was born on 20 August 1913 in Kandy, Ceylon where his father was a tea planter. He joined the monastery direct from the school where he had been a boy in St Oswald's under Fr Stephen Marwood. Fr Stephen's influence and Alec Waddilove's response to this wise man's example and warmth of relationship, was the first sign of a characteristic of Fr Denis which remained with him throughout life: he was a self-confessed hero-worshipper and, to those he admired, he was devoted with an absoluteness rare in human relationships. Those who hero-worship are often loyal lieutenants, happiest when they are serving, less at ease in finding themselves at the head of the pack. Much of the sheer kindness and goodness of Fr Denis was learnt from his housemaster.

He received the habit from Abbot Edmund Matthews in September 1932 and, after three years of Physics at Oxford where he gained 2nd class honours, he returned to the Abbey in 1938 for his theology. He was ordained by Bishop Shine on 20 July 1941. In 1946, he was appointed first housemaster of St Thomas's House, where he remained through the final seven years of Fr Paul's tenure of office as Headmaster and the whole of Fr William's eleven years. He was a young housemaster -aged 33- and much the youngest of the team of 1946. Only Fr Paulinus Massey in St Bede's had been a housemaster less than eight years and four, Fr Sebastian Lambert (1926), Fr Stephen himself (1926), Fr Oswald Vanheems (1935) and Fr Raphael Williams (1933) were also founder-housemasters. It was an experienced team and Fr Denis, inclined as he was to learn from his elders, inbibed the collective wisdom under the guidance of Fr Paul who in 1946 was in his 24th year as Headmaster. It was a team, to a large extent, of a particular generation and Fr Denis, in learning his arts of housemastering from this older and more experienced team, found gradual changes of values and customs in subsequent years both within the school and monastery difficult to come to terms with. The excellence he had learnt was the excellence of the 1930's and he was never a man to compromise with excellence.

His youth and the age gap with his brethren, together with his undoubted physical, athletic and musical gifts, thrust him into public prominence. One, who was a young boy in 1946, remembers him thus: 'Whatever he did, he appeared to do with consummate artistry and skill while giving the impression it was the easiest thing in the world and that he had all the time in the world to do it'. 'The secret of this reputation (for it was general)', says another at about the same time, 'was his effortless grace allied to great ability. He was the one we all wanted to see.' This applied not merely to cricket but to swimming and diving and to rugby: 'I suppose he was not a really good player as we now understand it because he was not a physical contact player - at that time he was very thin and would not have been half as effective if he had been tackled hard or regularly.' Or tackled: Fr Denis used to argue with impeccable logic that, if a fly-half tackled hard once at the beginning of each half, his opposite number, if he were wise, would not risk further confrontation.

As a cricketer, he excelled as a wicket-keeper and bore comparison with his Sussex and Kent first-class contemporaries such as W. H. (Hopper) Levett, the Kent wicket-keeper, who extolled his gifts and remembered him well from one encounter almost 40 years ago. But he was, by all accounts, a handsome striker of the ball. It was only necessary to watch him strike a golf ball to imagine the bursting talent available to him. A monastic Ted Dexter perhaps? Occasionally he allowed this ability to shine forth, perhaps most notably 163 against the Old Rossallians in 1951 and a century before lunch at Tunbridge Wells against a team comprising county 2nd XI players - worthy, no doubt, of the standard of the first class cricketer of today. One can see now, in the mind's eye - the straight drives... What a pity monks in those days were not permitted to play for the University of Oxford! There are those who compare his ability with his Sedbergh contemporary, N .S. Mitchell-Innes, arguably the finest Test-cricketing amateur of the 1930's who could not find the time for regular first class cricket.

But he had wider gifts than sport. He was a pianist who could hold an audience with his variations on a theme. Those who remember the Shrove Tuesday entertainments and occasions when the community entertained Old Boys in the Theatre, will recall the pleasure Fr Denis gave and, indeed, the spell-binding nature of his hold on an audience if he chose to assert himself. But he never 'tossed-off' a performance. It was meticulously rehearsed so that the finished product could indeed be perfect and effortless. After one concert where unprepared slapstick rather than well rehearsed quality was the order of the day, he remarked: 'I don't know how they do it. Don't they ever think that the audience demands quality? Those prepared to entertain must rehearse or not perform.'

Opportunities for entertaining were rare, but Fr Denis could sing and it was in the monastic choir that his musical gifts were at the service of his brethren. For years he played the organ - quietly and without fuss: there was a meditative quality about his style, prayerful and serene. In his interpretation of plainsong he relied on natural musical gifts and devotion to Fr Laurence Bevenot's teaching. The last three choirmasters of the Abbey agree on the quality of Fr Denis's insight into plainsong: 'I learnt all my plainsong more than anything else by listening to him; he alone made it come alive', writes one of them. And another: 'He was second cantor to Fr Oswald and his reputation as a singer was like his games reputation: perfect pitch, could read anything at sight, and beautiful voice'.

In 1946 he had already been second cantor for some years and was to remain so until Fr Oswald's death in 1968 when the official title of First Cantor, which required the holder of the office to lead the choir whenever he was present, was allowed to die. So Fr Denis learnt to be the loyal and sensitive deputy, a challenge to his self-abnegation which was met with the same dedication to serve as in other areas of his life. For a time he had some part in the coaching of the 1st XV, but rugby for him was an instinctive game and more than the sum of its parts. 'He was good on tactics with those already trained.' He liked to watch a game of rugby one remove from the play; not for him, in his later years anyway, a touch-line involved presence. Rather, he would sit on his shooting stick on the north bank of the 1st XV ground, absorbed in the tactical patterns, reading the game as though dictating it from fly-half, watching the gaps appear and assessing the quality of the players by the way they used opportunities. It mattered less who won or lost than how the teams blended into a performance that made the game bigger than the players. His was the Corinthian approach, a combination of fun and excellence without too much effort, and he judged his sport, in the words of one correspondent, '...in a superbly amateur way'.

As in music, where he was a deputy, and in rugby where he was a lieutenant by choice, so in cricket: all his coaching life from 1937-64 was served under the leadership of others: Fr Peter Utley and 'C. B.', as Cyril Ponsonby was called, Fr Martin and Stuart Boyes. In the cricket hierarchy, Fr Denis was No. 3. How many schools have had a cricketer of such quality as third string coach to the 1st XI? He did not force himself on others, but allowed those in charge to run things their way. Advice was given when asked; it never seemed to be contrary to the general scheme of things: it was always given with a view to supporting the senior coach. His expertise was in providing a series of school wicketkeepers of which any school could be proud; and instead of revealing his own talent to boys as a batsman, he preferred to learn the art of spin bowling so that he could test out, tease, and develop the batting skills of the leading players. Off-spin, leg-spin, the googly, the gentle away swinger - his was the natural skill of the perfectionist. For a man who saw a sporting occasion as a form of drama, there was a melancholy mood to his cricket watching at times: he was never able to watch a whole match from 11:30-6:30. He did not talk about it, but the feeling was there: watching in snippets was interesting, but it was not the fulness of what the game was about.

For a man as gifted as he in such a variety of ways and in so public a forum, his achievement in sorting out his monastic priorities, putting prayer before all else, devotion to his brethren, his boys, his matrons, his guests, and the, acceptance of second place in all his work, was not won without pain and often confusion. He knew all about his gifts, his power of personality, his ability to control a situation as and when he pleased. For example, who else on the school staff or anywhere else for that matter, could get parents at Exhibition prize-giving to do his bidding with such good humour and innate self-confidence; or ask 200 retreatants at Easter to remember the cause of the domestic staff when they calculated the cost of their week-end. He knew also that he had limitations: of intellectual clarity, a tendency not to make the effort to achieve and something of the loneliness inherent in the gifted monk. One of his admirers, from whom we have heard before, put it this way: 'He was afraid of giving the impression that he cared too much; or was he too lazy to give himself to anything with complete commitment?'. Too much commitment might be a sign of personal ambition and, of that, in Fr Denis, there was none. Instead he became 'cultivatedly lethargic' and even 'studiedly casual'. Another friend probably sums up what most of his friends say of him: 'He always seemed to have a practical wisdom mixed with Christian charity, and apparently no personal ambitions. (I remember feeling slightly irritated that one so talented should appear to have so little desire to develop those talents, or even to use them.)'

A public man cannot sort out his way of life in such an anonymous way as the man with less public gifts. Fr Denis's confusions took the form of convoluted statements (correspondents and friends seem to agree that G.K. Chesterton was at the back of much of this), some curious customs built almost into a philosophy of life ('never lose height'), and the making of simple issues rather complex ('sometimes I don't know that he himself knew what he was trying to say'). Some of those who knew him well saw this as a bit of a pose but the reality was different. It was an important stage in his development from the gifted public hero to the humble, ordinary monk, slightly afraid of his gifts and how they were interpreted by others, and trying to channel these gifts into the service of others.

On one thing all agree: Fr Denis achieved the transformation absolutely on the spiritual level, though at some cost to the natural level. As house-master, there were certain rules of thumb: a visit to the Matron every day to alleviate the loneliness of her day: 'If Matron is not happy, the house is not happy'; a visit to the Abbey Church every day; insistence on being in the house at certain regular hours every week: 'If the boys know you are there, they can come and see you; if you are not there when they expect to see you there, then they may not come again'. When he became Second Master and Guest Master in 1964, he was not only able to carry on the work of Fr James Forbes in the Guest Room, but in the new second master's office he imprinted a style of personal relations with staff which was admired by all with whom he came into contact. And he gave the lie to those who claimed that he was lazy. He was not. Not always the best of delegators, he took upon himself a mass of paper work without it ever impeding the personal. His office door was left open, he faced the door, a friendly smiling welcome awaited each member of staff; disagreements between staff were put into a wider context, complaints were listened to with patience and understanding. Parents were at once introduced to his wise sayings and the accumulated wisdom and common sense which he had learnt from Fr Stephen and the men of the 1930s. Mothers, especially, were captivated by his warmth, good humour and his ability to empathise with all that was running through their minds as they looked round the school and imagined their sons as part of the monastic tradition. 'He went out of his way to make women feel at home and rather special in a wholly male establishment', and no parent at Exhibition, or guest at the Easter retreat, was left in any doubt about the care and concern he had for each and every family.

The fore-going is written from the vantage point of one who knew Fr Denis for the last 25 years of his life. It is written by one looking up as it were, and profiting from his example. Fr Patrick preached a panegyric at Fr Denis's Funeral, an appreciation of the man who was not far short of contemporary and who provided a loyal, devoted and hard-working presence as Second Master and Guest Master through Fr Patrick's years as Headmaster. It is printed below.

One final point on the style of the man: to illustrate the need to use initiative, he told a story of himself as a boy. He was a good and keen ice skater. He wanted to skate daily during the holidays, but his pocket money was insufficient to allow this, so he went to see the manager of the rink and said he had a proposal to their mutual advantage. He told him that he wanted to skate daily for 2 months. He said, 'I have lots of friends in the town; sometimes I shall come by myself, but more often I shall bring others with me. I want you to give me the free use of the rink all during the holidays in return for £1. In that way we shall both be satisfied: I shall get lots of skating and you will get lots of people paying entrance money and buying refreshments.' The manager agreed.

He retired from the Guest Room on Saturday 21 November, 1981. More than one member of the community voiced the fear that he would not live long. He died 2 days later on 23 November and was buried in the Abbey Church vault on 26 November. May he rest in peace.

Fr Felix Stephens


Your love was calm and wise
alive with a deep humour
your smile drew us
in the wake of Wisdom
in your respect and gentleness
we knew you
as a man of God

from the days of your glory
when few moved
with greater speed or precision
to the days when each step
was a slow decision
your life had an eloquence
that taught us
in patience
to long for the gracious laughter
of a lasting Kingdom

Fr Ralph Wright
24 November 1981


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Fr Patrick Barry gave this homily at the Funeral Mass:

For us, who knew Fr Denis, this is a sad occasion as we come to bury him, but there is an underlying current of gladness in achievement and hope.

The sadness is in our loss. When we think at death of those we have known intimately in life, all that we valued so much surges into our minds. Those limitations and failures, which are part of human life in all of us, count for little. We have lost one whom we loved and the pain of loss reminds us of all the good we knew in him. At the loss of one so lovable as Fr Denis the pain is all the greater. That welcome and that ready smile, which he never failed to show even in the pain of his last illness, will never be waiting here again at Ampleforth. For us, who remain, something has been lost for ever.

But the underlying current of gladness is sustained by our faith. For him this is not loss but a new awakening. We have together celebrated Mass for him - the Mass which he loved so deeply and with such genuine devotion and which he always approached with such deep reverence. Can we doubt that he has today been with us again sharing in the priesthood of Christ? It was in the Mass over many years that he found the food of his life in Christ. That new life, which was given him in baptism, grew and developed through every crisis and every achievement. For him the greatest moments of that developing life were his religious profession as a monk and his ordination to the priesthood. He gave himself to Christ and to others - and he never looked back. The new life, which in St Paul's phrase is 'hidden with Christ in God' (Col 3:3), has now for him burst forth from the shadows into the light of eternal truth. For us who remain it is still unimaginable, but for Denis the new life given by Christ has come into its own.

As we look back in our memories we can see clearly the reflection of what Christ gave him in the Denis we knew. There is a passage in the Book of Proverbs where various ways of acquiring wisdom are recommended. One of these recommendations might be taken as a portrait of Denis. It goes like this:

Let kindliness and loyalty never leave you...
write them on the tablet of your heart
(Prov. 3:3).

Kindliness and loyalty; are they not the outstanding notes of Denis' life, and can we not see quite clearly in them a true image of the new life Christ gave him? And did they not awaken in us, when we met them again and again, hope, courage and a new resolution in the following of Christ?

Kindliness and loyalty were more - much more - than just natural human virtues in Denis. They were sustained always by his deep adherence to what Christ taught in the gospel. They were refined by his fidelity in his religious profession and his priesthood. They were strengthened by the prayer to which he was so faithful. He was reticent about himself, but for those who knew him there was no concealing the true source of these qualities. It was because of their source that they triumphed over all suffering and difficulty; and Denis had plenty of difficulties - the sort of difficulties in which those qualities can easily come to grief; but they did not come to grief; they triumphed and the memory of what they meant to us who knew him is his best epitaph.

He had a busy life of very full involvement in a series of jobs in all of which the very essence was - in his own estimation - that he was at the call of others. He was made the founding Housemaster of St Thomas' when he was only 33, and he looked upon himself during the 18 years that he was Housemaster as being primarily at the service of his boys. I remember that because I learnt the idea from him, although I could never match his achievement of it. Then he became Second Master and Guestmaster - the former for 12 years and the latter until just recently when he became too ill to continue. Either of these jobs would have been enough for most, but he was strong enough to carry both. If one were to take a census of the many guests and staff and old boys who came into contact with him over those many years, it is safe to say that Denis' kindliness would be outstanding in their memories. One who has written already speaks of how 'he put the most anxious at great ease'. But it was his loyalty to all for and with whom he worked that gave a very special quality to his relationships. No-one could ever suspect him of anything remotely like double dealing. Loyalty itself is easy enough to maintain if you are a fighter for a single cause, but in Denis loyalty was never aggressive, never contentious and never narrow. It was always tempered by kindliness to all concerned. It was he who often defused potentially explosive situations, for he knew how to pacify and to spread understanding without compromise of his loyalty.

And he had a very lively sense of humour, which was perhaps his strongest balancing mechanism. It was a kindly humour and never mordant. If things looked black, Denis was the one to cheer you up. His own particular brand of humour was not far removed from another thing in which he was quite exceptional and for which he will be remembered by all who knew him. He was a master of lateral thinking long before that phrase was invented. His approach to a problem was never tame and obvious. The boys he taught learnt that they would not find the easy and lazy way to get an answer if they asked Fr Denis and expected him to do the work for them. If, however, they were willing to think about the problem and learn how to work out the solution, he was the man to provoke and guide them. He stimulated thought and reflection and in this he was a great educator. Adults he treated in the same way. According to their response, they were baffled or stimulated when they consulted him. And there was something he carried into everyday life from another quite outstanding gift. He was an exceptionally gifted games player and, although cricket was perhaps his finest game, there was no game he played in which he did not show masterly qualities. Quite apart from the skill he showed he always knew just how to mislead the opposition. I remember him once in his prime, when he was playing rugger for an old boys' team against a very formidable side. Whenever Denis got the ball the opposing coach would start a despairing cry from the touch line: 'No more dummies'. It made no difference. Invariably Denis would proceed to sell dummies in every direction and remain himself unscathed as he scored a try.

His lateral thinking and his instinct to sell dummies throughout his life often made his comments as baffling to some people as his play was to that coach and that team. There was nothing superficial about this; it meant that he was thinking deeply even when his thought was difficult to follow; and it always ended the same way. It ended with that inimitable smile and some comment which was encouraging and reflected his deep sense of the real and ultimate priorities. His wisdom was revealed by the way kindliness and loyalty always shone through. How right the Book of Proverbs is on that point.

His priorities were unwavering. I remember when the Abbey Church was being built at the time when Fr Denis was still Housemaster in the furthest reaches of the east end. He never failed to come and see how the building was getting on every day. Once, when I was walking back with him, he remarked that he had been thinking of how he came to see the building of the Church every day. He had resolved, he said, that when the building was complete and the Church was consecrated and the Blessed Sacrament there, he would try to be no less faithful in coming on special visits quite apart from the prescribed ones. That was the sort of man he was. His loyalty sprang from the deepest level.

As his illness progressed over the last few years Denis had a difficult time. The real difficulty was not the obvious one. It was the gradual loss of his ability to be useful to others that worried him. In the end he had to face the prospect that he could no longer be of use and that his way of life, which was to help others, was coming to an end. Some of us might have basked in the anticipation of idleness imposed beyond our will. To him it was a sort of agony; when the time came for him to give up his job as Guestmaster, I think he could not bear to be unable to help others any more; it was time to go.

So now it is for us to pray for him that he may receive the forgiveness which we all need and come soon to the fullness of Christ's reward for his kindliness and loyalty. For those of us who knew him well our prayer will be mingled with gratitude; and we might ask him to remind us of those qualities, of which he gave us so outstanding an example, and nudge us occasionally when we are in danger of forgetting; for we have not ceased to need them and we shall certainly miss his influence and his kindly and loyal presence among us.



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Details from the Abbey Necrology


DOM ALEXANDER DENIS WADDILOVE    23 Nov 1981
               
1913   20 Aug       born Kandy, Ceylon (Sri Lanka)
               edc Ampleforth
1932   19 Sept      Habit at Ampleforth     Abbot Matthews
1933   21 Sept      Simple Vows               "      "
1936   21 Sept      Solemn Vows               "      "
1939      Jun       Tonsure, Minor Orders   Abbot Byrne
1939   23 Jul       Subdeacon     Bishop Shine
1940   21 Jul       Deacon          "      "
1941   20 Jul       Priest          "      "
1935-38             Oxford  St.Benet's Hall  Physics  2nd.
1946      Sept      Housemaster of St.Thomas' - foundation
1964      Sept      Second Master & School Guest Master
1976      Jan       Retired from Second Master (continued as Guest Master)
1981   23 Nov       died at Ampleforth
1981   26 Nov       Buried at Ampleforth - church vault
               



Sources: AJ 87:1 (1982) 29
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