October 1978.

In October 1978, Father Whatmore retired on medical advice following a major heart attack the previous year, and left the parish to live in Pevensey Bay aged 66 years, and in his place, and only four years his junior, came Canon John Grant.

A very meticulous man, he was highly respected by the St Wilfrid’s congregation. His organisational skills were highlighted in 1975, when as Administrator at Arundel Cathedral, he arranged the complicated funeral service for Bernard Fitzalan-Howard, 16^th Duke of Norfolk. For this event he was widely applauded.

He was inducted at St Wilfrid’s, on October 21, 1978, by the Rt Rev Cormac Murphy O’Connor.  Also present was Father John Sullivan, Dean of Eastbourne and parish priest of St Agnes. Altar Boys’ on the day were brothers Gary and Robert van Breda, with Stefan Jung.

John Grant was born in Norbury, London on June 11, 1916, (where Father Trew had died in 1938), and educated by Jesuits at Wimbledon College. He studied for the priesthood at Wonersh Seminary, and was ordained there four days after his 30^th birthday on June 15, 1946.  His first posting was as assistant at priest at St Dunstan’s in Woking where he stayed for five years until 1951.

St Dunstan’s is now enjoying its third church.  The first church was a simple iron building with a small spire, situated in Percy Street, built by the Rev W D Allenson, in 1899.  In 1923, a Father Plummer arrived, and immediately set about building a far more substantial church for a growing congregation, and two years later, in 1925, opened the new St Dunstan’s Church in White Rose Lane on December 8. The parish grew, and since then the present ultra modern church replaced the old church, erected on the former St Francis School site in Shaftesbury Road, and was dedicated by Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor, on October 22, 2008.

From St Dunstan’s, Father Grant joined the staff at Mark Cross Seminary, where he stayed for 17 years before being appointed parish priest of Our Lady of Lourdes in nearby Rottingdean. After a spell of four years, in 1972, he took the post of Administrator at Arundel Cathedral. Six years later he moved to Hailsham, arriving in 1978, aged 62 years. He retired to St Anne’s Convent, Burgess Hill, in 1991, and died on September 1, 1994, at St Francis’ Nursing Home, Littlehampton, aged 78 years.

September 1991.

Canon Grant’s successor was the very congenial Father Kenneth McCarthy, arriving in Hailsham during September 1991.

Kenneth McCarthy was born on July 30, 1929, at Walworth in the borough of Lambeth. When aged four, the family moved to Purley, where Kenneth attended the local Catholic School, St John Fisher, leaving when aged sixteen years to try his vocation at St Joseph’s College, the junior seminary at Mark Cross.  At eighteen, he moved on to the senior seminary at Wonersh and was ordained at St Gertrude’s Church, South Croydon by Bishop (later Archbishop) Cowderoy, on May 31, 1953, when only 23 years of age.

There followed a series of appointments, the first being a very junior assistant priest at St Augustine’s Church in Tunbridge Wells.  Here he told me, he received his very important fundamental training as a priest.  Four years later, in 1957, he was moved on to St Agatha’s, Kingston-on-Thames, where he stayed for three years before being sent to St Paul’s in Dover, in 1960.  Father McCarthy spent seven happy years there, prior to his move in 1967, to St Mary Magdalene’s Church in Brighton. This move suited him as his father had retired to Brighton some time earlier. It was in Brighton that Father McCarthy got involved with the BBC’s local radio station Radio Brighton (now Radio Sussex) appearing on air regularly as a speaker on the daily Religious Broadcast program. This proved a very successful and exciting venture, taking up much of his time. Father McCarthy spent only two years on the Sussex coast before accepting his first appointment as parish priest at Our Lady Queen of Heaven, Langley Green, Crawley, in 1969.  Whilst in Crawley, he helped build Broadwater, and actually supervised Rory Kelly as a student a few months prior to his ordination.

Eleven years later, in 1980, he was given his second parish, St Thomas More, Seaford, where he spent eleven contented years. His final posting was as parish priest of St Wilfrid’s here in Hailsham, arriving in September 1991.

Father McCarthy was a traditionalist in certain aspects of church liturgy, but was a kind  pastoral priest and never judgemental. A good preacher and an accomplished artist, he was one of those rare men who never drove a motorcar. During his ministry at St Wilfrid’s, Father McCarthy was responsible for partially rebuilding the Church Hall (the first church), reconditioned many of the church’s statues, and installed the Allen Organ.

Father McCarthy retired in September 1999, living locally in Hailsham before moving to Eastbourne. Although retired, he helped out at Our Lady of Ransom for a time, moving on to his current address in Tadworth, where he continues to act as a supply priest to a number of local churches.  At time of writing he appears in good health.

September 1999.