Reflections on a busy first year as Dean of Chichester - video Dailymotion

SussexWorld

It has been a remarkable first year in the city for the new Dean of Chichester, the the Very Reverend Dr Edward Dowler.

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00:00Good afternoon. My name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Always lovely

00:07to speak to the very Reverend Edward Dowler, Dean of Chichester. Now, Edward, you have just

00:12celebrated your first year in post as Dean of Chichester. Now, it's been an incredibly busy

00:18year, hasn't it, with the 950th anniversary of the Cathedral. What's your sense of what Chichester

00:24is all about? Now, you've been here a year, and are you enjoying it? You must be.

00:30Yes, thank you. I'm enjoying it very much. Thank you for asking, Phil. I've found Chichester

00:38a wonderful city to live in. There's just so much going on here, so much of interest, and

00:45all within quite a short space. We've got university, art gallery, theatre, as well as the cathedral,

00:54of course, and a vibrant life in the town centre. So it's really good to be part of all of that,

01:02and I've greatly appreciated being at the cathedral and getting to know it and welcoming many people,

01:12in both local people and people from much further afield. We get a quarter of a million visitors

01:19per year, and that's such a privilege to welcome them. That's a fabulous number.

01:24So what have you learnt about the place, the position that the cathedral occupies within the city?

01:30Well, it's very good to be right in the very central position that we are in. I think all

01:40through the time that I've been ordained, really, I've always wanted to be in a church that was

01:45right in the centre of the city, and until now I have never quite managed it. So it's very good to

01:54to be there and to be right at the sort of crossroads of everything. I suppose that I

02:04do find it slightly sad that our sort of main part of the cathedral that is exposed down West Street,

02:12that West Street is still, since the pandemic, seeming to be in, although there are some thriving

02:20businesses there. It's also in other ways seeming rather moribund, and it would be wonderful if that

02:25street were as flourishing as the other main streets in the city.

02:30And that does have an impact on the cathedral, because you want to get people down there, don't you?

02:35Yeah, I think that's right, that if there were more people going down the street, then they would

02:42see where the entrance to the cathedral was, and then hopefully come in and visit us. So I think that

02:49it does probably have a bit of an impact. But that apart...

02:54How can you say that changing, turning around in any way? It's difficult, isn't it?

03:00Yes, I don't know really. I mean, we're sort of made aware at times of various possible plans for the

03:09redevelopment of the properties in West Street. And I just would hope and pray that something does

03:16come to fruition.

03:19And that's an aspect of something you say you discovered that Chichester actually is much more

03:24mixed, much less genteel and well-heeled than perhaps you imagined.

03:28Yeah, I think that is right. Before I was here, I was in East Sussex. I used to come occasionally to

03:37Chichester mainly for meetings with the bishop, and sometimes to the cathedral. And I think that

03:46the impression that I had of Chichester work was of a sort of very well-heeled provincial town.

03:52And that is part of the reality for sure. But I think one of the things that you quite quickly

04:01see when you do actually live here is that there is another side to things that there is quite a lot

04:05of deprivation. There's quite a lot of social need of one type or another. And also just quite a lot of

04:13people struggling. We had somebody from Stone Pillow who was coming to talk on Sunday at one of the

04:22services. And he said that it was one in seven families living in some sort of degree of food

04:31poverty, which is a very large proportion. And so I suppose, you know, in among the wonderful things

04:41about being here, which there undoubtedly are, there are those rather kind of salutary reminders that

04:48there is also another side to it as well. It's the cathedral's role to be very, very conscious of that,

04:54isn't it? Yes. Yes.

04:56And you've had, obviously, in the first year on a rather brighter note, 950 years. Now,

05:02that's a fantastic accelerated learning curve for you in Chichester history, isn't it?

05:09Yes. Yes, it is. And it has been a wonderful year, really. And I can't really take credit for

05:18very much of it because so much was planned before my arrival.

05:23And so we've had various events over the year to mark the 950 years. Well, we've got one concert

05:33with Sir John Rotter coming up this coming Saturday, but we've had two very high profile concerts. We've

05:39had an exhibition. We've got the forthcoming light show, which tickets for that are still available.

05:47That's coming up later in the month, later in October. And so we've had all of these very high

05:55profile events, which were all a long time in the planning. And it's been, it's been great to be

06:01involved in them. It's been something of a sort of baptism of fire, but I think that's,

06:06that's probably good. And, and it certainly enabled me to, to just sort of feel that I,

06:11when the dust settles on 950, what do you think you'll have achieved? What do you think the

06:16cathedral will have said?

06:20Well, I, I'm hoping that, yeah, in, so, well, I'm hoping that, that the, that the 950 years of this

06:33as a place of Christian worship and mission, that that will have just been shared very widely among

06:41different audiences. I'm hoping that some of the things that we've done this year, we'll be able

06:50to, we'll, we'll sort of set us up for the future. For example, the exhibition that we've had on

06:56religion, rebellion, reformation to mark the 950 year anniversary. We're, we've now got a sort of

07:02established exhibition space in the cathedral in the North Isle. And so we'd like to carry on having

07:09exhibitions. And we're planning one on John Piper to mark the, now I better get this right, I think

07:17it's the, the 60th anniversary of the installation of the tapestry. So, so there'll be an exhibition

07:26about Piper next year. And I think it would be great to carry on having exhibitions.

07:33And we, it's also been one of the lovely things that we've been able to do because the, our diocese,

07:40in other words, the sort of geographical area in church terms that we serve includes both East and

07:47West Sussex. And it's wonderful that we've had groups coming on visits and pilgrimages from across

07:53the diocese. And I just hope that we'll be able to, to carry on doing that because for some of,

08:02if you're coming from Hastings or Rye or somewhere like that, it seems a very long way.

08:07But so I hope we'll be able to, so some of the things that we've done in this 950th year,

08:10I hope we'll be able to extend into the future.

08:13Fantastic. Well, congratulations on such a busy and successful first year. Edward,

08:18as always, really lovely to speak to you. Thank you.

Reflections on a busy first year as Dean of Chichester

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