Guy Wace was born on 3 August 1915 at Ipswich, the son of Monty (1885-1949) and Maud (1884-1970, née Jump) Wace. He was the elder (by over ten years) of two brothers, the other being the present Mgr Harry Wace, of the diocese of East Anglia. Their father was in the Indian Army (14/15th Sikh Regiment, with whom he served in the North West Frontier province, retiring as Lt-Col), and the family later lived at Melton Hall, Woodbridge, in Suffolk. Guy’s first school, when he was seven, was St Anthony’s, Eastbourne, but he only stayed a year, moving to Ampleforth in 1924, in what was then called the Preparatory School, but in 1930 became the Junior House. It was at this time that Fr Basil Mawson was its Headmaster, and with Fr Maurus Powell supported the boys’ natural interest in animals, and in particular in the birds in the aviary which they developed. All his life Fr Vincent retained an interest and care for birds, and a few days before he died he was recalling seeing the Amherst Golden pheasants in the aviary seventy years before. For many years, various devices to feed birds in the winter hung outside his window.
He moved to the Junior School in 1927, being then just twelve. This was the lowest part of the College, only started the year before under Fr Illtyd Williams. From here he passed into St Bede’s House, where his housemaster was Fr Hugh de Normanville. In those days it was regarded rather as the ‘tough’ House. Only St Cuthbert’s had a separate building, and the south and east parts of the present quadrangle were not yet built. The other three houses were therefore squeezed into the College and Old House buildings. Guy left the school in December 1933, being by then in Middle VIB, and a contemporary of people like Lord Oxford, John Gilbey, Noel Murphy and Peter (Fr Benet) Perceval. He was keen on rugger and cricket, and made friends easily. After school, and encouraged by his father he went to Woolwich to train as a cavalryman, or rather as part of the Horse artillery, and stayed with them nearly two years, acquiring a reputation as a fine horseman.
Colonel Wace was Anglican, but wholly sympathetic and supportive to his Catholic wife in the bringing up of their sons. He was pleased that Guy chose the Army, but when it became clear to Guy that something more was necessary, his father made no objection, and gave his support. Guy therefore returned to Ampleforth, and was clothed by Abbot Matthews on 22 September 1935, together with six others, among whom were Fr Michael Sandeman (also an ex-serviceman), Br Augustine Stuart Douglas, Abbot Patrick Barry, Br Anselm Walters, and also Edward Keogh and Victor Berman, who left before profession. He made his Simple Profession on 23 September following, and took Solemn Vows on the same day three years later. A contemporary recalls him as ‘always cheerful, vague, disorganised and much given to such things as going for runs’. Some of this is reflected in his own diaries. He was ordained on 22 July 1945, so he was a priest for nearly fifty-six years. His father died not long after this, but his mother lived till 1970. When she died, the Hawke family in Cambridge offered the two brothers a home for their holidays and a base for them to replace the family home at Melton. Vincent and Harry often enjoyed a quiet few days there. The Hawke family continued to offer them their home to relax in every year. They became members of the family, and the family ‘Chaplain’.
It was characteristic of Fr Vincent that his ordination card should be a highly practical aid to those using the breviary, though something of a puzzle to others, containing as it did all the small blessing texts used during the readings in the old form of Matins. It was also a notable piece of design.
As part of his studies he spent four years at St Benet’s Hall, Oxford, where he got an honours degree in Chemistry, though in which class does not appear. Alarming stories are told about his method of convincing pupils that water purification worked, for he is reported to have drunk water extracted and purified from what is described as sewage. While powerful as demonstrations, such methods might not meet current standards of safety: but Fr Vincent was still alive half a century later. However, he does not seem to have been wholly successful in the classroom: at any rate Abbot Byrne moved him to Mission work two years after his ordination. He was one of those parish fathers who happily move wherever they are asked: in the next twenty years he was at Workington, Harrington, St Peter’s, Liverpool and Leyland as Assistant, then Parish Priest at Easingwold (1964) and Seel Street (1968). He then went for three years as Assistant to St Mary’s, Warrington.
Many of the liturgical changes of the Vatican Council he readily accepted, but some passed him by. He found considerable inspiration from the Pentecostal movement in America while he was at St Louis. This led him on his return to England to an increasing interest in the ecumenical activity of the Church in Europe, and in particular in Yorkshire, where Ampleforth was taking a leading part. In later years he was a happy occasional participant in the ‘Abbot’s Group’ of ecumenically minded local clergy, until age reduced his ability to give a disquisition the attention it deserved.
In the summer of 1972 Abbot Basil asked him to go to St Louis as Novice-master: in general he might have made a good novice-master, but one may wonder if America in the seventies was the right place for him to try this idea out. In the event he was only the Assistant. The Americans were preoccupied with a Presidential election, and Fr Vincent found it very difficult to get a visa. This however led to a letter which caused a considerable impression in the US Embassy (they received it on 1 December 1972), and gives a good view of Fr Vincent's courteous persistence, gracefully restraining but not wholly concealing reasonable anger:
St Mary's Priory, Buttermarket Street, Warrington – Nov 23
Dear Sir, I have been trying to get a visa now since August & have filled in numerous forms. I have sent you all sorts of documents & have been hoping for some courteous explanation for the delay. I would not have expected a Presidential Election to have caused such procrastination. I have been in touch with your consulate in Liverpool as I have already had to cancel two bookings in my pastoral work – one for Thanksgiving Day. I had hoped to travel by ship by way of the St Lawrence Seaway which is now closing & so have given up a passage on two ships: at this rate of progress I shall be an old age pensioner before I even hear if there is any likelihood of getting to the States. I assure you that I am neither blind, black or a bolshevik, but am considerably surprised at not having received any encouragement to persevere in hoping to obtain a visa.
Yours frustratedly, Rev V Wace OSB MA
At St Louis Priory, as it then was, he functioned as Sub-Prior as well as Assistant to the Novice-master, and enjoyed life (as he always did wherever he was) for five years in America. He found time to teach carpentry, and he was of great value to the young community both as a most loyal supporter of the Choir Office, and as an easy Community man in recreation. He was noted for his frugality, patching clothes instead of replacing them, and making do with simple food and limited recreations – though not without some second- rate golf. His centre of interest seems to have been the parish, which was based on the Priory church. During this time, St Louis achieved independence, and the monks had to choose between staying as members of the new house, or returning to the old. Fr Vincent was unwilling to change his obedience, and did not wish to do as most of the others did, to take American citizenship. But Abbot Basil asked him to remain on loan to the small community, which he did until recalled (or allowed to return) in June 1978.
For the rest of his time he lived at the Abbey, but looked after Ampleforth village parish till 1981, and then became the monastery Guest master for six years. In 1990 he entered what was officially described as retirement, but which involved miscellaneous activities like looking after the Monks Wood, assisting with carpentry as it turned into Design – Fr Vincent particularly liked making picture frames in the then new Sunley Centre – and a great deal of energetic walking about the adjacent villages, inviting himself in everywhere, visiting in the best and oldest fashion of the Missioners. It was difficult to dissuade him from driving when he could no longer see, and he baffled doctors who long ago were confident that he might die at any moment.
But there were other interests. Fr Vincent collected Folio Society books, which he then passed on to the Monastery Library. He collected stamps, originally, perhaps, in the ordinary sense of arranging them in albums, but latterly simply in bags and envelopes and boxes, which he at least intended to send to nuns who could make charitable use of them. He may indeed have done so, but the task was incomplete (by quite a wide margin) at his death. He took photographs, mainly slides, on his many travels, and he was always fond of travelling. He kept diaries, certainly of his earliest trips, and towards the end of his life of his holidays in Greece or Italy with Fr Symeon Peers, the former Warden of St Symeon’s House in Oswaldkirk (where the Orthodox boys lived between 1968 and 1979). There may well have been others, but they have not come to light.
He was greatly interested in the archaeology of the Holy Land, subscribing for many years to Biblical Archaeology Review, a title which he met, perhaps, while he was in the United States. Fr Vincent was one of those people who love to investigate something new or unexplored, and he would make notes, and could give interesting talks. A certain weakness led him to ramble to some degree, and a particularly endearing characteristic was his remark, ‘Oh, I did not know’, made frequently when someone mentioned something which had only just happened. He always seemed to be surprised if he found out something new, and yet he was seeking such details all the time. And a further characteristic, which gave no little innocent pleasure to the brethren was Fr Vincent's uncanny ability, on coming into an existing conversation, to grasp (and sometimes with some firmness) the wrong end of any stick. Yet, the information he provided, if you asked him about something, was generally pretty reliable. The apparent vagueness was not a pose, or even an attempt to avoid display, but rather a product of the happy and untroubled curiosity with which he approached any aspect of God's creation which happened to be presented to his notice.
We can follow this, in its early stages, in the Diary which he kept during various Juniors’ holidays between 1937 and 1943. This he deposited in the monastery Archives with great diffidence some years before he died. It will no doubt be of great interest to historians and the like in two or three hundred years’ time (would that we had such a document from seventeenth-century Dieulouard), but it is by no means dull now. Curiously – but perhaps rather British – it contains almost no reference to the contemporary activities of Hitler and his friends, but it says a lot about Barnabas and Cuthbert and Wilfrid and Dunnypede (Fr Dunstan Pozzi, leading the Juniors’ holiday) and others, with many details about bicycle punctures, half pints (because they could not afford a whole pint) and Mars bars (half now, half later). An example may stand for the whole:
We all had our own ideas about direction, and Wilfrid took a separate line and we bustled along so as to get in before him and be able to say the ‘Where-did-you-go’ stuff to him; but there wasn’t much in it as Cuthbert wasn’t very reliable as he was tired and so we both got in at about 6.30 and met at the cyder-barrel. It’s great having Cuthbert who does know where we are going as it saves such a lot of trouble (and unpleasantness) & time. It’s his last one unfortunately. I was very grubsome & so took the soap to Penny Hill pool and got to work & put on a different pair of shoes which made me feel a new man. A glass of sherry and a huge dinner & a short dip before an early bed made me sleep like a log & so I missed a very amusing incident, Cuthbert being stood a whisky & soda was given a double whisky which rose swiftly to his cranium & he is reported to have sat in the middle of the floor and solemnly taken his shoes and socks off. Anyway this ten days comes but once a year & and at that only five times in a lifetime, and these are not the crimes of the world.
But there were realities: in August 1940, Br Kevin Mason, in the year below him, was allowed home on a ‘Profession’ holiday, and sent Br Vincent a characteristic post card from Wallasey, Cheshire –
An excellent holiday with plenty of fireworks. Adolf runs a show twice nightly, sometimes thrice nightly. I have only had one night’s sleep since I arrived – it’s great fun... Yours surrounded by barrage balloons, Kevin.
Fr Vincent’s keenness on travel took him several times to the Holy Land, but also to Italy, France and Spain. His taste was for the most part limited to places of pilgrimage rather than culture: he would prefer Lourdes to the Louvre. And everywhere he would gladly walk, right up to his last days.
When he was about eighty there were signs of heart trouble, and the then Infirmarian thought at one point that he was about to go. He was taken to hospital and they took his case seriously. Fr Abbot (it was then Abbot Patrick) went in to visit him, and to the alarm of the nurses Fr Vincent was nowhere to be found, until he returned towards lunchtime, having, as he said, gone for a walk ‘because he felt bored’. On another occasion, the Abbot said he could not go on holiday camping in Greece. This had been planned with his great friend, the Orthodox priest Fr Symeon Peers, but there was considerable anxiety about the state of his heart, and there was fear that, if Fr Vincent were to die in Greece, he would by law have to be buried there at once. He was equal to this however, and went to see a specialist of the highest renown who declared him fit for travel. It was on this occasion that Abbot Patrick declared that he had been ‘outwaced’. The holiday took place.
Fr Vincent’s taste for swimming in cold water somewhat exceeded that of his companion. Moreover, Fr Symeon relates, they used to hire a motor cycle, and even when going at a more than respectable pace, Fr Vincent, riding pillion, would, like the Red Queen in Through the Looking-Glass, cry ‘Faster!’ if there was any risk of being late for something. He loved exploring, but was quite unmoved by classical remains, and not very interested in local Orthodox monasteries, unless it were to join in special liturgies, such as at Easter. In fact on one occasion he made the mistake of arriving in his habit (instead of his more usual open necked shirt), thus causing great offence and reminding everybody present of the Fourth Crusade.
Fr Vincent travelled to the Holy Land on a number of occasions, in company with some organised pilgrimage. He was interested in local details, and his curiosity not infrequently led him to make over-enthusiastic deductions which were somewhat in advance of the evidence. He collected a large number of slide pictures, which he sometimes used to give talks when he was on various parishes. Like most slides, they are now fading, and without his explanations or comments they are not of great value. If we may judge by various scribbled notes, for the most part on loose scraps of paper or old envelopes, these visits and the experience of the sites and scenes associated with the Gospel story did mean a lot to him, and perhaps enriched his prayer life more than we can easily know. He also made other pilgrimages, including Lourdes and also Compostella.
After his return to Ampleforth, Fr Vincent took a great interest in the Monks’ Wood, or, as it was more commonly known, the Hill. This provided him with monastic manual labour, and was of value to the Community since it gave some organisation to the work occasionally (or even regularly) done there by the Novices. In the course of time it improved the grounds, which were inclined to be neglected, but, as in most of Fr Vincent’s activities, an element of independent confusion intervened, not wholly generated by him, since others also took a hand in re-ordering the Hill. It is likely that the Hill will have the last laugh, since no enthusiast has yet come forward to take Fr Vincent’s place. But it was appropriate that he was buried there, in the cemetery which he had so often tidied.
In the ordinary way Fr Vincent was not an athlete, but had notable stamina, which he showed from his Junior’s holiday trips to his long tramps around the valley almost up to his last illness. But he does seem to have been competent or even skilled at winter sports, skating, or skiing. He was certainly skiing from Zermatt in 1972 and Colorado in 1974, and he must therefore have learned the skills very much earlier, it is thought from his mother. It would have suited his love of travel, exploring, open spaces endurance and speed. If he enjoyed the cold, as snow or swimming in mountain pools, he also seems to have enjoyed the heat of the Mediterranean sun, without any apparent precautions or indeed ill effects. A similar attraction took him out beagling, a practice which resumed for a time on the parishes, when he was in Cumbria and used to go out with the Bleasdale from time to time in the mid-fifties.
Fr Vincent was always active, always on the move. He was always alert to a new point of interest, a new point of information, alert to a new person, a guest, or a visiting monk. He was particularly good, and happy, as monastic Guest master, and even in his last months would cut out a guest after lunch, discover something about him and converse with him all afternoon unless a rescue operation was mounted. And this was true of all kinds of guests, and of every age. Because his eyesight was none too good – he was virtually blind in one eye – he could sometimes re-introduce himself to the same guest, but was happy to enjoy the joke. He was hard with himself: there were few comforts in life, and to the end he would kneel on the plain floor of the choir-stalls making his meditation, or saying office from one of the many well-taped psalm books which he persuaded to exceed their natural life by a large margin. He was perhaps more than anything a praying man, and it was as a praying man that he floated happily, and in the end quite rapidly, into the Kingdom. On finding himself in Heaven, his first remark was probably, ‘Oh I didn’t know’. Now there is no longer any obstacle to his seeing and knowing.
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