God in the Life of the Godfrey Sisters

Lettice and Dorothy Godfrey were born and educated in Peterborough where their father was a vicar like their grandfathers, uncles, cousins and brothers. They live together in a thatched cottage in Dorchester.
Lettice insists she was the 'dud' of the family. She read domestic science ('a sort of brides course where you were taught how to treat your staff') at Reading University and then trained as a needlework teacher. She spent her working life in secondary modern and middle schools 'because they were better equipped' to teach domestic science ending up at Berinsfield near Dorchester. She has been on the PCC at Dorchester Abbey for many years and has also been a church warden. She started the Abbey tea rooms in 1977 and ran them until last year raising over £200,000 for charity. She founded and runs a lunch club and a Christmas Day lunch and for 17 years was Brown Owl. Lettice was awarded the British Empire Medal for services to the community.

Dorothy read French at St Anne's, Oxford before training as a social worker She worked in the Birmingham slums and in a Yorshire mining area but decided social work was not for her and retrained as a teacher. She spent eight happy years teaching French at an English school in Switzerland before returning to teach at St Helen and St Katharine's, Abingdon until her retirement in 1978. For a number of years Dorothy organised the Christian Aid collection in the village, She belongs to a French club and has been churchwarden of Dorchester Abbey where since 1979 she has been sacristan.

Lettice: One way and another I have always been a bit of a rebel. Between the age of three and four I was introduced to church. I can remember sitting on the nanny's lap towards the back of the church and I saw my father going up into the pulpit. I couldn't understand a word he was saying but I clapped him because I thought it was a nice thing to do. I was removed until the end of the service when I was taken round to the vestry door and made to say sorry to the church warden.

My father announced that the bishop was coming to our church and Dorothy and I aged 12 and 10 were to be confirmed. She was much more docile than me and just accepted it but I didn't want to be confirmed at all although they took no notice. Then I found that my mother was making me this ghastly white dress from stiff silky material with a fitting top, the skirt all gathered into the waist so it stuck out like a ballet dancer. On top of it all was a white veil hanging down over this scarlet wrathful face. If I could have got hold of the bishop's hand I would have bitten it. I always felt afterwards that I ought to have been redone like a vaccination which doesn't take.

DOROTHY: The Abbey has been very important to me. When I first came it was so sad. It seemed derelict and the average Sunday morning congregation was ten or eleven influenced by two old ladies and I hated the thought of being old. But now we are thriving in the Abbey with young people coming up with children.

I like going to church. It's part of life and always has been. The church today is not as dead as people make out. But I'm not a dedicated Christian. I'm a six days shalt thou labour and do what thou hast to do and the seventh is the sabbath of the Lord thy God.

Mine is a more contemplative faith I suppose. It is the most important thing in my life and has become more so. Some things seem less important than they did when I was younger. You don't care so much about what people think of you. I like the freedom of not having to go to work every day. I think you look on people differently when you are old. You try to see them as fellow human beings, fellow Christians.

Retirement was absolute bliss. So many people said to me won't you miss the children and I said yes I shall miss them but I am very happy not to go and teach them every day. I have had 24 lovely years of retirement and I can thoroughly recommend it. Apart from the Brownies most of my work in Dorchester has been since I retired.

I had the opportunity when I was a church warden to start the lunch club and the tea room and things like that. So many people are willing to help who are not prepared to take responsibility. Over the years I have had about 50 willing Dorchester helpers who will do what they are asked.

I know some people say I'm bossy but if you are going to organise something you've got to be bossy in a nice sort of way. In the tea room it infuriated me to find people who didn't remember the war putting a lot of butter on their plate and then leaving it. So I used to go round with the scones and say will you have another scone and then you can use up that butter that you are wasting. But people didn't mind. There were regulars who came again and again.

I don't think of myself as a holy person. At school you were taunted sometimes for being a vicar's daughter and you tended to react against that. I have been on a number of parish retreats. I used to spend hours on my knees. That's why my knees gave out and I have had two new ones since

I started the lunch club in answer to a letter in the Oxford Times from Age Concern saying what a great need there was for people to organise lunch clubs in their own part of the world and I thought well here am I and I got on with it. I started with about ten and it grew to 40 and so I had to divide them into two halves and have week one and week two which I still do. There are lots of people in Dorchester who live on their own and they all say how lovely it is to have someone to talk to instead of propping up a book at meal times.

The Christmas lunch is at the back of my mind. The pudding is already made. When my brother was alive we used to spend Christmas with them and when he died I thought we can't spend Christmas Day on our own so why don't we do something in the village. I put a notice in the parish mag saying would anyone like to come and share a turkey on Christmas Day. It's great fun and people give us bottles and there is an amazing family in the village with six children and every Christmas they come and sing carols and play something for us.

I look forward to the future. It is so terrific when you think about it what life will be like when you are dead. I think about it quite a bit. It's natural when you get to my age. I see it as something wonderful. An old man who died up on the housing estate was a bell ringer and I went to see his daughter. She said she wasn't a bit upset about it because her father had had a stroke and was on the point of death when he was brought back by the doctors. He was a very keen gardener and he told her he had been in a beautiful garden and was not at all afraid of death and then he died. I love gardening too and I think it will be something like that.

You should try and leave your patch better than you found it. I hope I have improved life for the pensioners because they love coming to the lunch club. I think I have improved life for the tourists because they flock to the tea room. Having survived 84 years I remain optimistic. 'As thy days so shall thy strength be'.

I feel that our main contribution has been friendship. I think it was the reason we got this house. There are a lot of us oldies now. I woke up this morning longing to see the sea again because I haven't seen the sea for five years but I don't feel shut in here. There is so much going on. I have always been a happy person. I think it stems from my faith. Life is such a gift, being in England and being in this beautiful quiet corner. It's serene. It's fun.

I couldn't manage without Dorothy's eyes. I can't read a thing and if I want to ring someone up I have to call her. We get on very well and we never quarrel more than once a month and by the end of the day we have forgotten what we are quarrelling about. We are Martha and Mary.

I try to see what other people are really like. There is something good in nearly everybody if you draw it out. I was on holiday once in Yorkshire and we went past a notice board outside a Quaker meeting house. On it was written something which has affected me ever since: 'God's love streams everywhere in the world and there is something deep down in everyone that responds to it and reflects it back and around'. That is true.