Lord Hattersley: How my
married mother ran off with the priest two weeks after he officiated at her
wedding
L to R Roy, mother Enid and Father Father |
Catherine
Pepinster THE TELEGRAPH
When a Catholic priest runs off with the bride at
whose wedding he officiated just two weeks before, it inevitably causes a
scandal.
Even more so when the priest Frederick Hattersley
and his lover Enid O’Hara became parents a little over a year later to a child
who will become one of the towering and most popular political figures of the
late 20th century.
But only now can the full story of how Lord
Hattersley’s father snatched his mother from her husband can be disclosed. In a
new book written by the Labour Party’s former deputy leader, he reveals the
astonishing family saga that eventually led to his father being excommunicated
from the Catholic Church.
Lord Hattersley’s latest version of how he came
into being is altogether racier than a slightly more anodyne tale he
first learnt upon his father’s death in 1973.
Lord Hattersley with his mother and father on a
family holiday in Bridlington 1937
Lord Hattersley never knew about his father’s past
during his lifetime. For years he thought Frederick Hattersley, despite his
extraordinary in-depth knowledge of the history of the Catholic Church and the
arcane workings of the Vatican, had been a local government clerk or else
unemployed.
But upon his death, he received a condolence letter
from a bishop informing him that his father had been a Catholic priest.
At the time Enid Hattersley was married to John
O’Hara, a miner. She told her son, then aged in his 40s, that she had left her
first husband after falling in love with the priest when he arrived at her
workplace at the local coal merchant’s to order a delivery of coal. Over time,
the two grew fond of each other and eventually Enid and Frederick ran
off.
Or at least that’s how Enid Hatterlsey, who went on
to become Lord Mayor of Sheffield, told it.
But the new version -
told in Roy Hattersley’s latest book The Catholics, a study of the Catholic
Church in Britain since the Reformation - is even more scandalous. Writes
Lord Hattersley in the book’s introduction: “My father - parish priest of St
Joseph’s church in Shirebrook, Nottingham - had met my mother after
he agreed to ‘instruct’ her for admission to the Catholic Church in
anticipation of her marriage to a young collier.
“Father Hattersley had performed the wedding
ceremony. Two weeks later the priest and the bride ran away together. For the
next forty-five years they lived in bliss - married after my mother’s first
husband died in 1956.”
O’Hara, wishing to avoid being at the centre of the
scandal, also moved on. He died intestate in Mansfield in July 1956. His estate
valued at £373 12s 10d was left to his ex-wife, suggesting he never remarried
nor had children.
Frederick and Enid Hattersley finally married a few
months later, prompting his ex-communication because in the Church’s eyes he
was still a priest and forbidden to marry.
Lord Hattersley was only told the true story after
a meeting with the Bishop of Nottingham, which the former Labour politician had
arranged as part of his research for a novel loosely based around his father’s
life story as he then understood it.
Lord Hattersley, 84, told The Telegraph: “My
parents met when he was instructing her to join the Catholic Church, they fell
in love and they decided nothing could be done about it. He officiated at the
wedding ceremony and they ran away two to three weeks later.
“My father and I were very close. It was a very
hard act for him to walk away from the church and I was very proud of him for
doing that.”
Lord Hattersley has alluded to the extraordinary
affair before, writing a new introduction to his 1983 autobiography A Yorkshire
Boyhood as long ago as 2001 following the death of his mother in May that year.
When Enid died in 2001 at
the age of 96, obituaries recorded the slightly more sanitised version of
events. “She [Enid] kept house for her invalid mother, although
she had by then married a miner called John O’Hara,” wrote The Telegraph, “When
she was 27, however, Fr Frederick Hattersley (always known as Roy, his second
name) called to order winter coal for his presbytery. After a brief courtship
conducted perforce in secret, they decided to marry.”
PAT SAYS:
This is just ONE MORE story of a priest having a child.
In the past the children of priests were as much buried as the poor Tuam Babies.
Priest's children were a cause of shame in the Church and in society and they were treated as shame ridden and a scandal.
Of course the poor child was not to blame at all. His / her only "crime" was to be born the son / daughter of a priest.
The Church usually moved the priest to a far away parish.
Sometimes the Church convinced the woman to have the child adopted.
Sometimes the Church paid the woman for a lifetime of silence.
It is good that we are living in an era WHEN ALL THE CATHOLIC DIRTY LINEN is being brought out into the open.
Thank God for the modern society.
Thank God for a free media.
You are some craic pat. You censor all comments. Free media my hat.
ReplyDeleteI censor SOME comments as readers here asked me to.
DeleteVerbal abuse is not free speech.
Goes to show that the nature of the RC Church and human nature never change. Talking about weird and wonderful have you ever checked out the Church of the Bones Chiesa degli Ossi in Rome. It puts a new twist on Christian burial. Happy hunting
ReplyDeleteSean you are one to talk about the Church. Considering the trail of devastation you left in your wake and assumed no responsibility for the people you have hurt.
DeleteI admitted my involvement. Responsibility at the time was a two way street. Sometimes the past can't be repaired fully but the future can be safeguarded
DeleteHere here. I'm glad some else is aware of the Sean's past, and the devastation. He's another hypocrite.
DeleteDefinition of hypocrite
1 : a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion
2: a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings
I have known Sean for many years and I know he has both regrets and hopes.
Delete"A saint is a sinner who kept trying".
16.13 Fair comment Pat Thank you. Yes I have to hold my hand up and say mea culpa. There is no getting away from that. There were contributing factors which would point out that others at the time had shall we say faulty judgement which also contributed to unwise actions and consequences. I am not hypocritical in my posts or attitudes. If I have please point it out. 13.12 How well do you really know me.
DeleteThat Church in Rome is Sancta Maria Immaculata on Via Venito
ReplyDeleteLoads of skulls in a wall near Carvoeiro In Portugal
ReplyDeleteLoad of skulls, too, in (former?) Cambodia: remains of dictator and tyrant, Pol Pot.
DeleteWhat's the link with Catholicism here? Macabre interest in bones.
Prob one of the first women he met after his sheltered live in a seminary.
ReplyDeleteOne child
Did he live in guilt afterward ha ha
Im glad you've feature Roy Hattersley's book Pat as I've just read it and it is a very good read indeed. I was fascinated to learn that Roy never knew his father was a priest until after his death when he received a condolence letter from the Roman Catholic Bishop of Nottingham to offer sympathy to his mother. He just mention - in passing, almost - that he and his father had been seminarians together at the Venerable English College. I thought that was such a gentle and lovely thing to do, as it helped the son piece together so much of the jig saw of his fathers life than had remained unfinished even up to his death. Thank you Pat. I hope you readers will buy the book. It is called "Catholic's" and is easily available.
ReplyDeleteCouldnt find a woman of his own, so took up with someone else's
ReplyDeleteHe could try the internet!
DeleteYou all need to get lives and proper jobs. Get a job Buckley.
ReplyDeleteI have a "job". Today a funeral, a Confirmation, a First Holy Communion.
DeleteTomorrow a Sunday Mass and more Confirmations.
That's no job - earn your own living! I bet the parents and those involved work, get their kids together, pay their bills from earned salaries and have to be present! Your raise your hands a few times, wave your supernatural fingers around, say a few insincere words - no job Buckley. Get a real one, earn your crust.
DeleteHi Pat have you any children? FLESH OF YOUR FLESH? What these nun's and priests done to the least of these, will get the reward that they deserve. HELL I might end up there myself but I am hopeful that their agony will be greater than mine.
ReplyDeleteIs there any ordinations being presided by you this year?
I have no children - except spiritual ones.
DeleteI have no ordinations planned for this year.
Wonder what funny bone set some of this lot off today. A nerve must have been touched somewhere...amazing
DeleteBONE - These lot! You people spend your day seeking out the sins of others - but when it comes to yourself - oh no, you are innocent - perhaps guilty, but a good guilty. You were sinner, saint, saint and sinner - you use language like that. However, everyone else is damned to hell, deserved public shame, deserves ridicule and even the Buckley questions - which are mostly extreme and far off the mark to be considered serious!
DeleteWhat set us lot off - you are a hypocrite one and all!
Dear Mr/s Bone. I never said anyone was damned did I. If so where? Not my decision
DeleteYou are a follower of Buckley's, you comment on every piece of malice going, personal or otherwise. You listen to the lies, the mixed up truths or half truths and give this nutter (Buckley) credence - when you yourself and your lifestyle had a lot of questions to be answered. Mrs Bone.
DeleteVery seldom buy books as new
ReplyDeleteMost can be obtained for £1 used on Amazon
So was Hattersly a baptised Catholic
?
13.12
ReplyDeleteNot for you oh critical one to take apart another's way of life
Sean is to be admired for his Christianity
More than be said of you
(((( Sean)))
Not as bad as a northern diocese here where a few years ago a youngish priest had an affair with a groom-to-be whom he was running a marriage course for. The priest is now in another parish. He took a year's leave.
ReplyDeleteTheres a priest in Meath well placed now and under his ordinary's nose who made the papers about 20 years ago by having an affair with a married woman. Not sure if had to take a sabbatical but he's fairly prominent again in the diocese. The hypocrisy!
ReplyDeleteArchbishop Michael Neary has said the Archdiocese had nothing to do with the day-to-day running of the home earlier this week. This evening he's said he hopes that the commission report will be impartial and balanced in its report no matter, no matter how bad it is for the stakeholders. Bit like a Turkey voting for Christmas. Does he seriously expect people to think that past archbisjops who lived up the road knew nothing about what was going on? His diocese and even its name "Tuam" is now toxic. He should be leading pilgrimage to the septic tank, never mind having a PP looking for dollars all over the country for Knock and advertising in parish bulletins for pilgrims to fly to america for something got to do with a 'visionary'. Isn't it weird Our Lady didn't appear near the septic tank. Have people not questioned that? People who go to Knock?
ReplyDeleteIf Tuam archdiocese bothered with its errand current hypocritical gay cabal of priests it'd be off
ReplyDeleteBishops have NO moral authority anymore. It doesn't matter what he has to say.
ReplyDeleteI so hate the hypocrisy Of the Catholic Church
ReplyDeleteWish they would shut the **** up if they can't acknowledge the past evil doing
Does this apply to the state or just the Church?
DeleteSo the archbishops then didn't know what the PPs
ReplyDeletewe're saying and telling the parishioners
to do and minding people's business
Who was pregnant of who wasn't was none of their business
Wasn't there a story of a newly married bride coming home from work to find her husband in bed with the priest who said their wedding mass
ReplyDeleteHypocrisy doesn't even cover it. When you have an active Priest being shagged by a teenage boy tells us a lot and not one word is being said about it. The Hirearchy makes me sick with their hypocrisy, no wonder why the Nuncio to Ireland is moving out.
ReplyDeleteFunny how Pope Francis has a lot to say about almost everything, but the Nuncio must have forgotten to fill him in on Tuam.
ReplyDeleteHas there been a prayer service or any service organised in Tuam or for people in the country to go to?
ReplyDelete22:21, good question.
DeleteHas Michael Neary even thought if such a thing? If not, why?
@Pat would you not go down and have a prayer service there? Tuam priests seem to be afaid. What has the Cardinal to say on the matter? We only have one cardinal now. Isn't he supposed to be prepared to shed blood for his faith? Can he not go down to Tuam and say an open air mass or something? Are priests down there afraid they're going to be lynched?
ReplyDeleteIt'd be a right kick into the teeth for the Irish bishops if Pope Francis soes say something about Tuam, or if he were to express an interest in visiting it at the expense of Knock. Perhaps they suspect as much and this is because the Archbishop of Tuam has changed his tact somewhat this week?
ReplyDeleteHow did he change it
ReplyDeleteDid I miss something ?
I think its a marvellous idea for you Pat to go and hold a prayer service at that sad place. It is appalling that no one from the Church Hierarchy has done so yet. I think that is a place in need of cleaning, healing and prayer. Pat I urge you to do that. No one better placed. I think its probably quite difficult to get at (it seems to be surrounded by wooden boards) but you could have the service as close as you can get. Worth thinking about.
ReplyDelete