Vocations Spotlight: Canon David Bagstaff

As the Diocese of East Anglia continues to celebrate its 50th Jubilee Year, we are shining a spotlight on the people who live out their vocations in service to our diocesan family. Each month, we meet a member of our clergy or someone in formation, reflecting on their call, their ministry and their hopes for the future.

This month, we hear from Canon David Bagstaff, Vicar General serving at Our Lady & St Peter, Aldeburgh, who reflects on his ministry, the experiences that have shaped his priesthood, and why fostering vocations continues to be vital to the life of our diocese. This year also marks a special milestone for Canon Bagstaff as he celebrates his Golden Jubilee of priesthood alongside the diocesan Jubilee.

I was recently in conversation with a retired primary school headteacher who shared with me this wonderful story. She had invited her class to write just a few words on each of the seven sacraments. She then asked a particular child what he had written about Holy Orders; the reply was, “It’s not a proper job, but you get a car”.

I was born into a typical Catholic family in Cambridge in the early 50s; my mum became a Catholic shortly before marrying my dad. I have one younger brother. I attended St Albans Catholic primary school (at that time named St Andrews) and then went on to the newly opened St Bede’s Catholic Secondary Modern school, which was just down the road from where we lived (now the very successful St Bede’s inter-church school). Each Sunday we went as a family to one of the early Masses at the church of Our Lady and the English Martyrs. This continued until my brother and I were invited to become altar servers, and we then regularly served at the 10.45am sung Mass and often cycled back in the evening for sung Vespers.

I remember in the 1960s attending two National Vocation Exhibitions – one in London and one in Birmingham – where every religious order you can think of had a stand, and I visited them all, collecting their promotional literature – no websites in those days! Coming towards the end of my fifth year at St Bede’s, I clearly remember Mr Kent, the headteacher, asking me what career path I was going to follow. I replied, “I think I’d like to be a priest”. Despite all those vocation leaflets I’d collected about missionary and teaching orders a few years back, I felt the only path for me was to be a diocesan priest. The positive influence of the many priests we had had over the years had rubbed off on me. I spoke with our parish priest, and he got the ball rolling. No psychological assessments in those days! I was sent to Campion House, Osterley for two years as I needed to be eighteen before entering St Mary’s Seminary, Oscott, Birmingham.

I was ordained in my home parish in Cambridge on 10th July 1976 by Bishop Alan Clark; the first actual ordination for the newly created diocese of East Anglia. I had originally been accepted for the diocese of Northampton. My parish appointments have included St Peter and All Souls, Peterborough (twice); assistant priest at the cathedral; St Mary’s, Woodbridge Road, Ipswich; Sacred Heart, North Walsham; St Henry Morse, Diss; St Edmund’s, Bury St Edmunds; and now Aldeburgh with Leiston, Suffolk. I’m frequently asked: “Which has been the best parish?” I’ve learnt that it is always the one you are currently in! I’ve also been privileged to serve the diocese in various roles – Vocation Director, Diocesan Administrator after the death of Bishop Michael Evans, and Vicar General. As I look forward to my Golden Jubilee and that of the diocese, I give thanks for those countless people whom I have been privileged to walk with, sometimes at the most joyful and sometimes at the saddest and most difficult moments of their lives. Do I miss not being married and having a family? – yes, there are times; but back to my opening story – it may not be “a proper job”, and yes, “I have a car”; but much more than that, it is a vocation, a way of life, in which I have been supported on the journey by family, friends, parishioners, brother priests, deacons, and above all by the grace of God which has got me through the ups and downs of the past 50 years. For this I am eternally grateful and give thanks.

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