Peter Young Custos and Head Verger

The word CUSTOS means a keeper or a custodian. Another office familiar to church goers is, VERGER. This is an officer carrying the verge or staff of office before a bishop or other dignitary; an official in a church acting as usher or pew-opener. Yet another office is that of SEXTON, meaning someone having the care of a church, its vessels, vestments etc, and frequently acting as parish-clerk and a grave digger.

Back in April 2001 I applied for the position of Custos. Although we as a family have been coming to The Priory for the last sixteen years I didn't really know what the Custos does all day, and I'm sure most of The Priory family are with me in that. It felt the right thing to do and since August, (2001) when I started, I have not regretted that decision.

So what do I do? All of the above (Custos, Verger, Sexton) and more, apart from the grave digging, although I'd gladly swap that for changing light bulbs, but then every job has its down side.

Responsibilities of the Custos

In a nutshell my responsibilities are that of the day to day running of The Priory and the churchyard, and seeing they are maintained and kept in good order. When I first applied for this position I was sent a double sided sheet of A4 listing the duties of Custos/Head Verger. I'm not going to bore you with regurgitating all that but what follows is just a flavour of my duties.

Believe it or not the part of the job that is most visible, services, weddings, funerals, concerts etc., take up the least amount of time. I've learnt very quickly to be organised. It may not seem a long distance from the vestry to the altar but if you do it four or five times, in the space of fifteen minutes, because you have forgotten something, like the keys to open the reredos door or the keys to the safe, then you soon make sure you have everything.

Maintaining records

Part of my job is to maintain the records for services, baptisms and marriages. Not burials anymore-if you want to be buried in The Priory you're too late as it became a closed churchyard in the 1920s. Occasionally we will get a request via letter or e-mail asking us if a certain person was buried or a couple married in The Priory. This can be very interesting but also time consuming as I find, if I'm not careful, I start looking at other information in our archives. Do you realise on a Sunday when the sides-people are taking the collection they are not just doing that but counting how many are in the congregation?

This isn't a new thing for those of you interested in statistics-take a look at the congregation for Christmas Day at the turn of the last two millennia.

Christmas Day 1899

 7.OOam 101 communicants £2 lOs
 8.OOam 138 communicants £5 19s
11.OOam 131 communicants £14 11s 3d
 4.OOpm Carol Service £2 12s lOd
Total 270 + (only communicants were recorded) £27 2s 1d

The main sermon for the day was entitled "The Prince of Peace" given by Rev'd Noel Paterson

Christmas Day 1999

 8.OOam 45 communicants £79.00
l0.30am 566 family worship £539.56
11.45am 25 communicants £5.00
Total 636(attended services)£623.56 + £237.00 (stewardship)

The main sermon for the day was "God's Last Word" given by Rev'd Marjorie Stanton-Hyde.

One advantage I note from the above is that at least I get half of Christmas Day off!

It's a people thing

Welcoming is very important; being visible to people who come into the priory: Some just want to wander around at their leisure, pray quietly on their own or with you, others to stop and talk. Not just visitors or past members of the Priory but those in the present congregation. I have met a number of people who have come back to The Priory after many years. They may have been in the choir and remember their time here and want to tell you all about it, is so and so still around? It all helps to build up a picture of what The Priory used to be like. It gives you so much of a feel of The Priory, not just of people who are in the Priory now but those who have spent and enjoyed their time here.

Cleaning, now there's a dirty word, this place gets pretty grotty with all the regulars and visitors traipsing around it, plus the natural accumulation of dust. It's like working on the Forth road bridge once you've cleaned it someone walks in with muddy feet and gets it dirty again or if it doesn't move it's got a cobweb on it the next day.

We have an open and living church that anyone can come into and feel comfortable in. Being a part of that is very rewarding.

Do I enjoy what I do? An emphatic YES is the answer.

Peter Young