Fr Bernard, who died at the age of 87 on 17 May 1997, was undoubtedly one of the great Ampleforth characters of his generation. But how difficult it is to write an appreciation of him that will enable anyone who didn't know him to understand how so many apparent contradictions could have been combined in one man. Superficially he was impatient, brusque, intolerant and often infuriating. He was a man of boundless energy for whom nothing but the best was ever good enough. He was immensely hard-working, and would go to endless trouble to ensure that whatever he was planning should be perfect. He loved planning and organization. The route was always complicated and often littered with potential pitfalls. The potential often, inevitably, became actual, but the result in the end was almost always a triumph - particularly if it was a major exercise. But though he could be brusque and impatient he was also exceptionally warm hearted and affectionate, and he had an enormous number of friends with whom he kept in constant touch and who all valued his wisdom and judgment and who knew they could rely completely on his interest and concern for them and their welfare.
Fr Bernard was born on 11 March 1910. His father was a Surgeon Captain in the Royal Navy, his mother the younger daughter of a Major General. Fr Bernard was their only child, and from them both he inherited all those characteristics which distinguished his personality. From his very able father he inherited his impatience and brusqueness; from his mother his warm heart and gift for sympathy and friendship. From them both he learned to love the faith and acquired his great devotion to prayer and to the Church. From them both, too, he inherited his great love of travel, his love of music and the arts, his innate sense of good taste, his tremendous sense of pride and loyalty - to his family, to his country, to Ampleforth, to his House, to his friends, to whatever he was involved in.
At the age of nine he came to the Prep School, progressing from there to St Aidan's House, and then joined the Community in 1928. He was sent to St Benet's Hall to read Physics and then returned to Ampleforth to do his Theology before being ordained Priest in 1937. He was commissioned into the Officers Training Corps, and this gave him enormous pleasure. Service life was in his blood and he loved the courses with the Grenadier Guards. In the classroom he taught Physics and was universally known as Bunsen, famous for abortive experiments. With the outbreak of war he found himself appointed Senior Air Raid Warden, responsible for all the blackout and firewatching. He was made priest in charge at Helmsley, and he made many contacts with the vast number of troops who were stationed around us.
In 1949 he was appointed Housemaster of St Oswald's House following the sudden death of the much loved and deeply revered Fr Stephen Marwood. It was a difficult act to follow, but Fr Bernard threw himself into it with his characteristic wholeheartedness and commitment, fiercely proud of 'the House' and its tradition. During this same period he was Adjutant in the CCF, in charge of the 'Army' class, Careers Master and teaching Physics. Between times he found scope for his love of organization and of music by taking large numbers of boys and staff to the concerts at the Leeds Festival and the York Festivals. In 1960 he took a huge party of some 80 boys, old boys, wives, parents and friends to the Passion Play at Oberammergau, preceded by a week's holiday at Riva on Lake Garda with expeditions to Venice, Padua, Verona, the Dolomites etc. As always his attention to detail was minute and nothing was ever left to chance - although occasionally it did manage to get the upper hand.
At this period the New Church was being completed, during the course of which his mother was tragically run over and killed in Oxford. She left her estate to Ampleforth, and from that it was decided to build the magnificent Walker Organ in memory of his mother and father - designed by his greatest friend, Fr Richard Wright - and also the Crypt Chapel in honour of the English Martyrs. Fr Bernard supervised every detail - having the vestments specially made, choosing the Crucifix and candlesticks, the frontal, carpet, reredos and a specially composed and carved Latin inscription.
In 1964 Abbot Basil asked him to become the first Catholic Chaplain at the newly founded University of York. It was a daunting challenge, particularly since the University was avowedly non-religious. Characteristically he rose to the challenge, succeeded in acquiring the ideal and superbly placed former Rectory of Heslington as a Chaplaincy, much of it still furnished with his mother's furniture. He struck up a very close friendship with his Anglican counterpart the Vicar of Heslington as well as establishing excellent relationships with the University and not least its Vice-Chancellor, not to mention the many close friendships he made with undergraduates which were lifelong. But having set it all up he was asked to move again, this time to be Parish Priest of our Priory in Cardiff.
He moved there in 1970, with no normal parish experience, aged 60, and finding on his staff three retired parish priests, two of whom had taught him as a boy. It was not an easy time for any of them, particularly in the post Vatican II era which necessitated a great deal of change. But as usual he made a great number of new friends, and when the time came for him to leave in 1977 he did so with great sadness.
He was appointed the first Vicar for Religious for the Archdiocese of Liverpool. It was another daunting challenge, breaking new ground. He found himself responsible for 112 convents and about 1200 Sisters in the Archdiocese with full responsibility for them. As always he worked enormously hard, was immensely appreciated, by the Sisters certainly, but equally by Archbishop Warlock who came to value him and trust his wisdom and advice. So after five very successful years as Vicar for Religious the Archbishop asked him, with the Abbot's approval, to stay on in the Diocese. He lived at the Cathedral, and joined the team of Hospital Chaplains. Every morning he would spend two or three hours in the Hospital, and reckoned that in his first year the team anointed nearly 2000 people.
In 1987 came the Golden Jubilee of his priesthood which he celebrated with typical thoroughness. On Trinity Sunday over 200 of his close friends assembled in the Cathedral for a Mass of Thanksgiving presided over by the Archbishop, with the Choir and Orchestra singing a Mozart Mass de Trinitate, followed by lunch at the Chaplaincy, the meal prepared and brought by Joan Mulcahy from Ampleforth, and with Ampleforth monks as the waiters. A generous presentation then enabled him to set off on a world tour, to New Zealand via the United States, Australia, Hong Kong and Cyprus. Needless to say, wherever he went there were friends waiting to welcome him.
Life with Fr Bernard, as almost every one of his many friends would testify, was rarely less than complicated, and no account of his life would be complete without a few examples. How, for instance, he was once escorting the school train to London only to find it disappearing out of the station while he was still on the platform. How he once sent a Junior monk to the bus stop to tell it to wait till he had finished changing. How he would get his shoes mended in Gilling by Mr Suggitt when he was in Cardiff, or would come to York to the dentist when he was in Liverpool. How, on a very snowy New Year's Day, he asked some friends with whom he was going to have lunch in Glasgow to come and collect him from Dumfries!
In May 1988 Fr Bernard moved from Liverpool to our parish in Bamber Bridge where he joined his old friend Fr Edmund Hatton, and thence in 1990 to Parbold with Fr Michael Phillips. There he suffered the first of a series of strokes and returned to the Abbey for his final years. They were hard. It is difficult to think of anyone temperamentally less suited to having to endure the indignity of almost total dependence on others. It was not easy, but it was inspiring. He was a man of prayer, and in his last years his faith was transparent. His friends came in hordes to visit him. They had all had their heads bitten off at one time or another, but that never diminished their love or respect for him. They valued his great gift of being an exceptionally good listener, they valued his genuineness, his concern and his wisdom, and he, likewise, was deeply touched and moved by their affection for him. May he rest in peace.
John Francis Bernard BOYAN 1910 Mar 11 b.London ed. Ampleforth 1928 Sept 28 Habit Ampleforth Abbot Matthews 1929 Oct 1 Simple Vows Abbot Matthews 1932 Sept 14 renewed Vows Dec 8 Solemn Vows 1934 Oct 2 Tonsure part time teaching 1935 Apr 23,24 Minor Orders “ 1936 Jly 19 Deacon Bishop Shine 1937 Jly 18 Priest 1931 - 1934 St Benet’s Hall Oxford Physics 4 1937 Sept Teaching Physics knpleforth 1939 - 45 i/c Air Raid Precautions Ampleforth & Helmsley parish 1950 Jan - 1964 Housemaster St Oswalds 1964 Sept First Catholic Chaplain York University 1970 Aug 31 St Mary’s Cardiff PP 1977 Jan 1 Vicar for Religious, Liverpool 1982 Sept Retired V.for Rel. 1983 Jan Assistant Cathedral House, Liverpool (Hospital) Chaplain Royal Liverpool Hospital 1988 May Assistant St Mary’s, Bamber Bridge. 1992 Retired to Parbold 1993 ? Retired to Infirmary, Ampleforth 1996 May 17 Died at Ampleofrth