The Friends of Romsey Abbey recently hosted a Desert Island Discs in the Church Rooms hosted by Dick Hewett and his Castaway being Revd Sally Womersley, The Abbey’s Associate Vicar. The evening was a sell-out and 70 Friends, members and guests enjoyed a very sociable evening with a glass of wine, good company, a fascinating personal story and an eclectic choice of music. Sally joined Romsey Abbey three weeks before Covid lockdown, when there were zoom services and an empty Abbey. People knew her but because everyone was behind masks she didn’t know them, which was very bizarre.
Her first choice of music was the hymn; Hills of the North Rejoice which she remembers Neil Dudgeon (the Midsommer Murders actor) belting out behind her in school.
Sally came was born in Liverpool, in the same hospital in which John Lennon was born. Her birth mother was 18 and her father, an Italian, was 22. Her birth mother’s parents insisted on adoption because of the stigma of being an unmarried mother. Sally was adopted by two teachers in1961 and lived in Blackpool. Many years later she traced her birth mother through social services and although they met, her mother chose not to maintain contact. She found her birth father through a DNA test and Genes Revisited. They met in 2007 and have maintained contact since. Her father and his family attended her ordination. Her second choice of music was Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, ‘The Shepherd’s Song’ enjoyed when she was a young girl.
At 10 years old Sally and her family moved to Doncaster. She hated school and became a rebellious teenager who was always late and had regular detentions. Her next piece of music, The Beatles ‘Yellow Submarine’, reminds her of summers on the sand in Blackpool. She kept changing tack, did Art & Fashion Design and Hairdressing, then became a model and met many unconventional people. She left home at 18 but still lived in Doncaster and had a variety of jobs. In her mid 20’s she went abroad, became a tour guide in Spain and an au pair in Milan. When she was in Italy, by coincidence, she was an au pair in the same town as her father’s holiday home. She felt that everything she did contributed to her broad experience of life. Her next song was music from that time ‘The Model’, Kraftwerk.
Sally’s upbringing included going to church but she wasn’t enthusiastic. As a teenager she tried various different churches. Her father trained to be a Chaplain for the Deaf when he was 40. Chopin’s ‘Nocturne in E flat’ reminded her of her father playing the piano. When she was about 34, she was in a garden feeling a bit depressed, when she felt the presence of God. She started going to church to learn and understand more.
She was working for English Heritage when she saw and advertisement for a verger at Canterbury Cathedral. She was there for 6 years. Her next piece of music invokes memories evensong at Canterbury Cathedral; ‘God is Gone Up’ by Finzi. She then spent 3 years at a Methodist Church in Colchester doing community outreach. In 2005 she became a pastoral Assistant at St, Westminster where she explored her vocation to ordination. She did her theology degree at Westcott House Cambridge and graduated in 2008. During that time, she went to West Berkeley Divinity School Yale for one semester. She completed her curacy in Essex, was Chaplain at Canterbury Christ Church University for 3 years and was invited to act as a duty Chaplain at Westminster Abbey.
Sally was a David Bowie fan, hence the next piece of music ‘Starman’ by David Bowie. She thinks that there might be a family connection as her mother’s family name was Jones as was Bowie’s real name and they all lived close together in Doncaster. She will never know! Her final choice of music was Abba’s ‘Dancing Queen’, also her music of choice for the desert island. The Friends joined in with great gusto. The books allowed on her island would be the Bible, the Complete Works of Shakespeare and Ken Follett’s ‘The Pillars of Earth.’ Her luxury item a memory foam mattress!
Thank you to Sally for a delightful evening and illuminating story.
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