Pam Dodds RIP

Zoom calls have quickly become a part of the 'new normal', and I've even now participated in my first zoom remembrance service.

Pam Dodds was born in Canterbury in 1958 and she came, in 1981, to live at Faith House, the newly-opened L'Arche house in Canterbury. I moved into Faith House at the start of 1989 and in May of that year, there came L'Arche UK's first ever Korean assistant and the woman who was to become my wife, Yim Soon.

Pam sadly died alone in her flat on March 22nd, and there were 37 of her friends gathered for the service, some from L'Arche, some from St Thomas', the Catholic church in Canterbury where Pam was a well-known and well-loved member of the parish. Indeed there were about 40 people present as some of the zoom windows had two people in them. It seems that 25 is the limit for one zoom screen so that there was an over-spill onto a second screen. And how Pam would have been touched by so many people coming together to sing, to pray and to share memories of her. It was lovely to see old faces, all of us brought together by Pam.

When it got to my turn I explained how my bedroom at Faith House had been directly underneath Pam's and mentioned, rather diplomatically, that I knew well what Pam's favourite records were. The reality was that Pam would play the same 3 records very loudly: and not just the same 3 records but the same bits of the same 3 records: very loudly! I liked Pam, and I wasn't really bothered by her 'feistiness', and I suppose I must have found a way to cope with the noise coming from above (human beings are very adaptable, which we are finding at the current time of coronavirus).

Pam didn't find it easy to live with others and in the early 90s she announced that she wanted to leave L'Arche and was supported to move into her own flat. She retreated somewhat into her own (rather troubled) world in the ensuing years and I was delighted when in recent years L'Arche was approached by social services to see if Pam could be given a bit of support again. It was decided that Pam would spend a couple of hours each week with Yim Soon, so Pam came to our house on Tuesday afternoons and she and Yim Soon would drink tea and eat cake and chat and watch a few episodes of 'Last of the Summer Wine'. And Ian, one of those at the service, told of how excited Pam was when she visited him in Yorkshire and he took her to Holmfirth where the show was filmed and how they had tea in 'Sid's café'.

Occasionally I would be working from home on a Tuesday and it was special to connect again with Pam and she always asked how my mum was and she always gave me the latest news from her old friends Janet and Maurice. And I would enjoy hearing the raucous chuckles coming from the living-room as Pam watched her favourite sit-com.

Pam counted many Catholic priests amongst her circle of acquaintances, and was in regular correspondence with several bishops. I was once chatting with her outside Canterbury Cathedral following a big ecumenical service and she spotted Derek Warlock, then Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool. Pam grabbed me and pulled me over to introduce me to her old friend Derek! And she was so happy when another old friend Nick Hudson, who had been an assistant priest in Canterbury in the late 80s, was made a bishop.

I ended my sharing about Pam with a favourite memory, also on a clerical theme. My friend Richard arrived at L'Arche as an 18-year-old in April 1989 and was living at Little Ewell, another of the houses of L'Arche Kent. His House Leader Maria sent him over to Faith House one day for a visit. Richard was in the middle of his Goth phase, and so this young guy turned up wearing black jeans, a black shirt, large black winkle-picker boots, hair standing up, and around his neck a huge cross. Pam didn't always take kindly to new people but she was all over Richard: the reason, it turned out later; she thought he was a priest!

Thank you Pam. Your life was a gift. May God bless you.