The Coventry Society invited the Dean of Coventry Cathedral, the Very Rev. John Witcombe, to be the guest speaker at its annual general meeting last week (April 8). Peter Walters reports.….
As he prepares to leave Coventry after thirteen years as Dean of the cathedral, John Witcombe looks back with a wry smile to the day he arrived for his interview.
It was raining and in the drizzle the city did not look at its best. The cathedral, then charging for admission, did not feel like a welcoming place, and as he sat in a coffee bar gathering his thoughts he wondered what he might be letting himself in for.
But what followed, he told society members, has been thirteen unbelievably happy years, the longest period he has spent anywhere in his career as a priest. As a place, Coventry may not be easy on the eye, but it has a warmth about it that comes directly from its people. Rarely has he walked across the city centre, he said, without meeting people he knew.
In a wide-ranging talk, both impassioned and humorous, the Dean touched on contemporary issues in Coventry, notably the over-provision of student housing in the city centre. From the Dean’s house in the shadow of the new cathedral, it has sometimes felt, ‘like they are stealing my sky.’
But he returned again and again to what brought him to Coventry in the first place – reconciliation and the part it plays in both the cathedral’s ministry and in the way the city sees itself. In the popular imagination Coventry may be associated with negativity, he conceded, but it has always shown that impulse to heal division, from the foundational story of Lady Godiva to the example of the Cross of Nails he had brought with him to the meeting. It was retrieved from HMS Coventry, sunk in the Falklands War, and is now inscribed and dedicated to both British and Argentinian dead from the conflict. It’s that spirit he will carry with him.
John Witcombe has himself played a full part in the business of reconciliation, not least in becoming a key figure helping to resolve some of the bitter divisions surrounding Coventry City football club some years ago. His tenure as Dean has been marked with a determination to make the cathedral a place open to all, whether it was The Specials playing four nights in the cathedral ruins or his initiative in bringing together representatives of different faiths during conflicts in the Middle East.
There’s no doubt that he’s going to be a hard act to follow.