Sr Gwyn Richards
In the early 1970s, the Catholic Hierarchy asked leaders Religious Congregations to release sisters to work full time setting up Diocesan services for deaf people. I was asked, and although it was not easy at first, this really was a major step forward in my religious life, trying to bring the Good News to people, many of whom had little knowledge of Jesus Christ. I had a year's training and then in 1978 began the pioneering work in Brentwood Diocese for nearly twenty years. I was employed and supported by the Diocese and also by our network of workers through the national Catholic Deaf Association. I soon found out that profoundly deaf people were not only left out from church but also from society in general, so it was challenging to set up appropriate services. The Ursuline Community, kindly gave the ground floor of a house in Ilford and St Angela’s Centre for Deaf People was established. I organised church services in sign language and tried to get deaf people involved in their local parishes, which was very difficult. I got grants for a few deaf people to be trained as sign language tutors at Durham University. I trained catechists to teach children their faith and support the parents and some of these have remained friends for many years. I also campaigned nationally for local authorities to put on sign language classes and to get interpreters trained for work in courts and some hospital consultations as a start and then in society generally.
Fr Gerald Gostling was inspired to train and although he was a busy parish priest we worked together. He signed masses at which I gradually trained a deaf choir. Deaf people signing while the hearing ones sang. Together we took children on catechetical residential holiday camps with at least one teacher of the deaf and accompanied deaf adults to Lourdes. An especially memorable occasion was when I joined the Brentwood Catholic Youth Service on their pilgrimage to Lourdes by coach, taking a few deaf teenagers at a time, serving the sick. A young girl in a wheelchair remarked about a deaf helper “He’s never heard a word his mother has said!'' and the young helper responded saying he was lucky because he could walk and run. It was a very good experience for both the hearing and the deaf youth.
Lunch clubs for deaf people flourished, and we had a similar lunch club for hard of hearing people, as well as a lip-reading class for them. Day camps were enabled by the Ilford Ursuline School providing their playground and dining hall. We worked with people of all cultures and faiths for the social activities. All this was only achieved through the hard work of many workers and volunteers, some of whom were experts at getting funding from various sources, notably BBC Children in Need. It was a most enjoyable life and I learnt a lot from the experience.