Thomas Turner (Father Theodore as we knew him in religion) was born at Walton-le-Dale, in June 1851, the talented son of a talented father. His home and his native town must have had strong attractions for the boy, as he was well into his 'teens' before he came to Ampleforth in 1865. Here again the spell of Alma Mater worked on his receptive nature, and his 'teens' were completed before his departure to Belmont in 1872. After taking his simple vows there, he went through the usual course of ecclesiastical studies, returning to Ampleforth in 1876. From then onwards for nearly twenty years, he lived the community life and taught in the school, and it was during those years that so many of us learnt to love his winning personality and appreciate his astonishing gifts. But it was given to few of us to remain long in the monastery, and Father Theodore, privileged though he had been, had to say good-bye to the home he loved so well, and face the music of a new life on the Mission. As with most of us, he found he had to go through another novitiate, and learn all about things he knew little of before. Warrington, Liverpool (the usual training grounds), Dowlais, Workington, in turn, lent a hand in fitting him for the arduous work to which he was to be appointed. In 1912 he was placed in charge, single-handed, of the two contiguous parishes of Aberford and Garforth. If anyone wants to know what strenuous priestly work is, let him try Aberford on a Sunday. Two Masses, two sermons, a long drive in every description of weather between the two places, and all this on a fasting stomach. Then, Children's service and Catechism, the Evening Service and sermon, to say nothing of Confraternities and Societies' meetings. 'Expertis crede.' Some of us have supplied there from the Abbey, and know the work entailed. To the faithful fulfilment of these trying duties, Father Theodore devoted himself for eight years, never counting the cost, never complaining, though what he must have suffered, with his sensitive conscience, is known only to his Maker. In 1920 the strain proved too much for him, and, with failing health and increasing years, he retired to spend the evening of his life at Fernyhalgh, happy in the home and society of those he loved and by whom he was loved in return. He was able to say Mass regularly almost to the end. He could get about the house, feed the birds in the garden, sit down to the piano, and troll out the ditties we all knew so well, and take a hand at cribbage on the smallest provocation. The end came with merciful suddenness; pneumonia following on influenza. He said Mass on Sunday, February 13th, sang a favourite song, and played his favourite game on the Tuesday following, and on the succeeding Sunday he passed peacefully away. We laid him to rest at Brownedge, close under the shadow of the Sanctuary, close to the home of his boyhood, close to those near and dear ones who loved him too well in life to be unmindful of him where he sleeps with his Benedictine brothers who had gone before. May he rest in peace!
When I was asked to write something in memory of Father Theodore, I accepted the commission with a light heart. But, as the stories and scenes began to crowd in, one realized how feeble and inadequate is the written word to convey that which was spoken and lived. It was one thing to see and hear Gladstone in his native town swaying the vast throng with the glance of his eye, the magic of his voice, the vehemence of his gesture; it was another and a poorer thing to read on the following day in cold print, the account of it in the newspaper. And so is it in a very real sense in the case of our well beloved 'Theo.' We of his generation, all knew him in the intimacy of religious brotherhood. We were all under the spell of his magical personality - so vivid, so breezy, so brilliant. His smile, his laugh, the play of his features, the modulations and inflexions of his voice in song or speech, we were familiar with them all. And now alas! they are only a memory, and we call out in Tennyson's lament:
It is getting on for sixty years (the year of the Franco-Prussian War) since, for the first time, I heard the voice and felt the hand of Tom Turner. He was a big boy at the top of the school, and I a little one at the bottom. I stood in some awe of him, because he had real whiskers, appendages of which he appeared to be 'justly vain.' My uncle, Father Wilfred Cooper, had recently brought me to Ampleforth, and, during his stay, uncle and nephew in juxta-position, were on view, to the intense amusement of the whole establishment. The contrast when thus seen together was of course quite ludicrous. The nephew, a frail wisp of a boy, whose weight might be told in pounds; the uncle a prodigious man, with a portentous corporation, and weighing every ounce of twenty-five stone, avoir-dupois! Now, the roving eye of Tom Turner had taken in all the humour of the situation, and he hit on an idea to give it permanence. As I was scudding down the passage one morning he pulled me up with a friendly grip and called out, 'Well, 'Kiddie Cooper,' how are you getting on?' There was kindliness and alliteration in the name, and it stuck to me. The 'Kiddie' was dropped as I grew stalwart, but I owe it to Tom Turner that I was 'Cooper' to the end of my school days.
Those who were fortunate enough to see Tom Turner on the stage will never forget the experience. It wasn't simply that he showed talent as an actor, because talent can be taught and improved. No one ever taught Tom Turner to act. It was born in him, and his acting on the stage was that of genius, which is untaught. It didn't in the least matter what part he took as long as he was in evidence, the other actors had to 'peep about to find themselves dishonourable graves.' I have the dimmest recollection of the impersonations of Hamlet, Macbeth, or Mark Antony, but the 'Grave-Digger' in 'Hamlet, and the 'First Citizen' in 'Julius Caesar' will never fade from memory. Both rôles were enacted by ToM Turner. I can still see him 'jowling' the boxes to the earth, expounding 'crowner's quest law' with inimitable solemnity, flinging both soil and insolent back-chat at the Prince of Denmark. But it was in the part of 'First Citizen' that he made history on the Ampleforth stage, turning Shakespeare's masterpiece into a scene of uproarious mirth. Mark Antony (poor Austin Firth it was, with his own keen sense of humour) did his best to sustain the part and keep a straight face, but he hadn't spoken a dozen lines of the great oration before becoming painfully aware that the cynosure of all eyes was not his toga'd patrician self in the rostrum, but the fascinating scamp of a first citizen who capered at his feet, clad in a much abbreviated garment revealing a wealth of sturdy plebian leg!
'Friends, Romans, Countrymen,' began Mark Antony, 'Lend me your ears.' The First Citizen obliged! - arms akimbo, head on one side, alert as a thrush listening for a worm. The speaker ventured the modest assertion that Brutus was an honourable man. Dissent 'in toto' from the First Citizen! Mark Antony observed that he had Caesar's will with him, but did not intend to read it. Violent and vehement protest from the First Citizen - 'The will, Caesar's we will hear the will!' The voice from the rostrum coos to the mob, 'Shall I show you him who made the will? May I descend, and will you give me leave?' 'You shall have leave! Mark Antony, come down!' The intonations and gesticulation with which these words were accompanied had nearly proved the undoing of Mark Antony there and then. But he held on bravely, came down as he was bid, and with the First Citizen at his elbow made assiduous search for the rent the envious Casca had made. This found, the transports of simulated grief manifested by the First Citizen warned Mark Antony that his time had come. 'If you have tears to shed, prepare to shed them now,' he gasped in a fine effort, and then the barriers burst. 'A peal of laughter rang out from the stage, and we all knew the voice as that of Mark Antony - otherwise Austin Firth,' at length free to take part in the fun that had ruined his speech. Audience and actors alike followed the example, and the merriment was general and prolonged.
And what of the 'fons et origo mali'? A marvellous thing, to those who took it in. With swift intuition for dramatic effect, he passed from comedy to tragedy, and, while stage and audience still rocked with laughter, took his stand by the deserted bier - mute, motionless, rigid, a very monument of grief! - the only one poor enough to do dead Caesar reverence!
It was in 1880, the year of Father Theodore's ordination, that I returned from Belmont to Ampleforth to become a member of a very happy Community under the rule of Father Placid Whittle. One of the causes contributing to that happiness was the genial comradeship of the Prior (Abbots were not, as yet) with his Community.
Next to the Prior, it is beyond question that in the years I refer to, the one who contributed most to the gaiety of our community life was the blithe spirit who is the subject of these 'memories,' Father Theodore - he of the many gifts : songster, artist, linguist, musician, incomparable story-teller. He gave as freely of them all, though, as is no uncommon feature in the artistic temperament, he required coaxing - like the delicate handling of a wireless instrument. The time when he was at his best, and gave us of his best, was in Lent, throughout which (as did most of us) he fasted, rigorously. After his 'two ounces' breakfast, he would sit down to the piano and charm us with his 'ditties'; some pathetic, some amusing, some reminiscent of the old plays and operas; some in dialect, English, Irish or Scots; some in foreign tongues, French, German, Italian, Spanish - he knew them all. After dinner, round the Calefactory fire, he would tell us stories. What stories, and what a teller! Here, the dramatic genius told as it had done on the stage. We knew the stories off by heart, every incident, every phrase: 'Grand Fair the day at Dumbarton!' - or 'Cannles i'day leet, Mum; Cannles, i'day leet!' Yet we never, never tired of them, and I hope I am not telling tales out of school when I assert that 'Dumbarton Fair' and 'Aud Kit Ludley's Funeral' had no more enthusiastic listeners than Prior Whittle and the present, happily with us, Incumbent of Grassendale. After supper, especially in the winter, was sacred to 'Uncle Remus.' They were veritable 'Nights with Uncle Remus' as in the title. Father Theodore was the Old Nigger, and we, simply a lot of curious delighted children. The wizard had his way with us, and we were as surely drawn into the magic circle as Prince Hal was attracted to Eastcheap by 'that reverend vice, that grey iniquity,' Jack Falstaff. We knew all the characters and adventures of the book, yet time after time we would sit and listen captivated by the genius of the narrator. Who can forget the sonorous 'plop' with which he uttered that mystic word, 'Kerblunkity-blink!' How did he go down, Uncle Remus,' we'd lean forward and ask, as if we heard it for the first time? 'Kerblinkity-blunk!' came the variant, with the 'plop' a shade deeper. But reminiscence of this kind takes up space, and I shall have the editor calling me to order. I pray you, sir, bear with me for another couple of paragraphs. I'm on my hobby and want to stay up a little longer. From the depths of your arm-chair, with the 'Nights' in your hand, you may think you understand, and perchance you excogitate a reply to, that profound query: 'How duz yo' sym'tums seem ter segashuate?' - or, you remark perhaps to yourself that there is humour in the observation: ' Brer Fox, he sorter chuckle in his stummuck' - or, you take in, in all its bearings, the non-committal attitude of the equivocating old negro when posed with a facer by the little boy: 'Dat's all de fur de tale goes. He mout, and den again he moutent.' And possibly you resolve to put the words to practical use in your own case should the occasion arise. But, you know, sir, you never heard that dramatic genius, Father Theodore, utter these expressions, as we did, in the flesh. There's the difference. To use the old man's classical phrasing, 'It's right thar, whar you spill your molasses!' Had you heard him as we did, you would have fallen under the spell, and realized that up to that moment your education had been incomplete. You would have understood how privileged was the Ampleforth Community of the 'eighties and 'nineties of last century to have as their brother religious one so highly gifted as Father Theodore.
No memoir of Father Theodore would be worthy of the name that omitted to record his brilliance as an artist. He was the son of his father, a great artist himself, who passed on to Father Theodore that deftness and skill with pencil, pen and brush which we all admired. There were amongst us certain wags who indulged in verse dealing with the foibles and idiosyncrasies which generally appear on the surface of community life. Some of it was good; some, done 'in-differently well,' but, whether good, bad or indifferent, it became immortal when illustrated by T.T.T. His work was always characterized by sudden inspiration and swift execution. I've known him jump up from the Calefactory fire, speed off to his room, and return under the hour with three or four finished sketches worthy of Charles Keane. I've seen him pick up the lid of a bandbox, seize a piece of charcoal, and in three minutes knock off a delightful caricature of a strong featured brother, what time the victim sat composedly smoking his pipe through the ordeal. The appropriate 'legenda' of other masterpieces of his art will recall them to mind: 'The Departure,' - 'The Arrival' - 'Sibi invicem praevenientes' - 'The Great Matutinal Sweepstakes' - 'Quintus Curtius' - 'Filly Fudge' - 'Early Bird' - and 'Dog Fox.' There were a dozen of them or more, and for years they hung on the walls of our 'Academy' upstairs, which he used as a recreation room. They disappeared with our use of the room. What became of them? If any vandal destroyed them, he deserves penal servitude, for they were works of pure art, with never an ill-natured line in sketch, verse, or legend. I have a suggestion to offer in explanation, but it must be in a whisper. It's my firm belief that these treasures were spirited away lest the fate I have hinted at above should befall them, and, were search made, I am confident that the delinquents would be unearthed in the precincts of Goosnargh and Lostock Hall!
And so, here endeth my tale.
It is hard, dear Theo to say 'Farewell,' but surely we need not say it. We cannot forget you and all that you were to us. We cannot forget the sunshine and happiness you brought into our lives, when often there was cloud and shadow in your own. You always had our silent, respectful sympathy in bearing the cross that it pleased God to lay on you, and in bearing it so bravely to the end of your days. We will remember you, dear brother, as priests and brethren, in the way we know you would most wish us to remember. Your thoughts were ever kindly; your words were ever gentle; your deeds were those of an innocent life. When we sang you forth to your rest, we feel sure the Angels heard, as they pleaded before the Throne:
Hic erat amator fratrum.And surely, surely, the answer of Our Lord's promise came from the Throne: 'Amen, I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to Me.'
THOMAS THEODORE TURNER 20 February 1927
1851 17 Jun Born Walton-le-Dale Lancs
1865- Educ Ampleforth
1872 29 Sep Habit at Belmont
1873 7 Oct Simple Vows
1875 29 Aug Minor Orders
1876 8 Dec Solemn Vows Ampleforth Prior S Kearney
1877 18 Nov Subdiaconate
1879 8 Mar Diaconate
1880 18 Sep Priesthood Bishop E Ilsley
1896 On the Mission at St Mary's Warrington
1897 Dowlais
1901 Malvern Monastery
1902 Returned to Ampleforth
1902 Oct Ormskirk
1904 St Peter's Liverpool
1906 2 Apr Ampleforth
Workington
1912 Aberford
Suffered much from ill-health & nervous trouble
1920 Oct Brindle
Lived in retirement at Fernyhalgh near Preston
1927 20 Feb Died at Fernyhalgh
Buried at Brownedge