I was born in the Parish of St. Marie’s in Sheffield on the 18^th March 1924. We lived in a flat of three rooms on the top storey of three, but moved to a new estate in 1928 to thirteen weeks of frost, there was no church, no school, no shops or transport at first, then the priest’s house and school were built. Mass was offered in the school hall every Sunday until a church which would later become a hall was built named after the “Little Flower”.

I went to thank God for the birth of my brother when I was 11, hoping that he would become a priest – if not then I would go. I joined the Navy in 1942 to ‘46 but was land-based. Demobbed and wondering what to do with my life I went on retreat. The parish priest had asked me the year before if I had thought of being a priest. I said not but then remembered my prayer when I was 11.

I was accepted at and entered Campion House - a house for late vocations a year later. There were more then 90 students there for different dioceses and religious orders. I heard of the Verona Fathers, Sunningdale  and asked to enter and was accepted, going there in August 1947 as a postulant (which means asking).

On Sept. 9^th the same year we were clothed with the religious habit as novices. The noviciate lasted for two years. The first year was occupied by prayer and spiritual studies but we started philosophy in the second year of the noviciate. In October ‘51 I took my first vows and became a scholastic and finished philosophy in 1953 when I went to Venegono Superiore, Italy, for four years of theology.

I was ordained a deacon in December 1956 after taking my final vows. I was ordained a priest on the 15^th of June 1957 by the then Cardinal Montini who became Pope Paul VI. I hoped to go to the missions but  was assigned to the London province, but the next year I was sent to Gulu, Uganda in October 1958 at the same time as Pope Pius XII died.

I was sent to the diocesan seminary at Lacor Gulu to teach  “O” levels in ordinary subjects. Then as the new diocese of Arua  was formed I was sent to the minor seminary there,  half a mile from the Congo border, where I stayed until June ‘65 when I returned to the London province. After a holiday at home I went to Sunningdale to teach English to some of our brothers and priests before they went or returned to the missions. 

I helped to make our work known by mission appeals and supplies in different parishes. I was sent to Dumfries Scotland about 1973 but was called back to teach again at Sunningdale. I went back to Scotland in 1988 and we soon opened a new house in Carmyle. The Scots are generous and good people but I am still learning the language.

My vocation is a great grace which I thank God for as I celebrate my golden jubilee and ask you to rejoice with me. But there is the other side of the picture as they say, what I have done or failed to do with this great gift and the help I need for the future. Please thank God with me and pray for me and our missions as we strive to build God’s kingdom in the missions and at home.

 May God bless you all

 Fr. Anthony Wolstenholme