Questions and answers with Andrew
Questions and answers with Andrew Tremlett
From the All Staff meeting on the 28th September 2022
What does it feel like to be back in London?
I’ve had 6 years up in Durham, and 6 years before that in Westminster Abbey as Sub-Dean and Rector of St Margaret’s Church. It’s fabulous to be back in London. The life and the vitality of the capital is always energising and that’s great. One of the differences is, Westminster is a different city of London, and it’s not called the ‘two cities’ for nothing. Actually, one of the things that I have to learn is a different culture and way of doing things, so actually I’ve got a bit of learning to do. It’s coming back, but it’s different.
Why do you want to be the Dean of St Paul's?
There is nowhere like St Paul’s, is there? I mean, this is the capital’s Cathedral; the nation’s Cathedral. In my profession, who wouldn’t want to be Dean of this great Cathedral? I’ve walked alongside you at a distance for the past 12 years, so I was in London when Occupy happened, and I’ve seen how you came through that. I’ve walked alongside David during the recovery from that. I’ve run a cathedral in the middle of COVID and gone through exactly the same sorts of things as you have, so for me this was a bit of a no-brainer as far as I was concerned. This is cathedral number five: Portsmouth, Bristol, Westminster Abbey (not really a cathedral!), Durham and then here, so it’s in my blood and I hope to serve you well.
What are you most excited about as you begin your time here?
You’re on a roll. It’s really interesting, just over the last 9 months that I’ve been directly in contact with many of you. Your spirits seem to me to have lifted and the place feels like it’s emerging from COVID. The picture Jo has painted of being a good step ahead of where you were expecting, the fantastic Platinum Jubilee service that was just a joy to watch, and then what you did a couple of weeks ago for the Queen’s death – I think these are all things that should give you great pride.
What is your favourite thing about churches, and what is your least favourite?
I was vicar of a parish in Sussex, a place called Goring-by-Sea; lovely parish. We had 600 people on the Electoral Roll, which is a big church in Church of England terms. We had hundreds of children and young people involved, two church schools, I had three or four people on staff. It was a wonderful thing. What I realised was that the next door parish was practically moribund, practically dead. Nothing was really going on, and even though in my own parish everything was whizzy, actually I had almost no impact even a mile away.
One of the things about a cathedral is you have the chance to paint on a bigger canvas, so you’re not just impacting this area here, but as you know, you have an impact on visitors from all over the world, and for those key moments in the nation’s life, you’re there, people look to you. So thousands of people came into sign the Book of Condolence, millions of people watched you on TV: that’s a fantastic opportunity for me as a Christian minister to share something of the love of God, and to do it not only on the basis of ‘does somebody believe the same things that I do?’ but to share it in an attractive way in a fantastic building with brilliant music in a way that then draws people in – and then they say, ‘Ooh, I want a bit of that’. That gives you the opportunity to share something of the love of God in Jesus Christ.
Why are you a Christian?
I grew up in a Christian family, so for a lot of us it’s what you breathe in, so I think if I were being honest that has a lot to do with it. But at a particular stage when I was 19, something like that, I went to spend 3 months in India and I was working in a leprosy hospital in a predominantly Hindu area. It struck me that if I had been born there and grown up there, I would most likely have been Hindu, and it is one of those accidents of life that where you find your origins is often where you end up. But you also have to go through another process, which is, ‘Is this just something that I’ve inherited, or is this mine?’ And I think this was the process that I went through in my 20s. This wasn’t just something that I learned at my mother’s knee, or my family’s practice, but also something that I inhabited for myself.
For me, the business of praying every day; gathering together every day for Morning Prayer and for Evensong is really important because it bookends the day and gives me a bit of rhythm, when in the middle of the day all chaos may rain down and all sorts of things may happen. The solid bits of my life are praying each day.
Do you think there is anything we can do at St Paul's to be more supportive of Ukrainian refugees?
It’s right for us to be concerned. I grew up in the 1960s, 70s, where the possibility of Cold War and some terrible things felt like a real possibility. I was saying to my children the other day that this is the first time in my life that I’ve ever felt a shadow of that world that I thought we’d left behind when the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War ended. As an adult, to feel that, really took me back to my childhood days. I grew up in Plymouth, where Plymouth Dockyard is, and it’s one of those places that you knew was targeted.
The situation in Ukraine is very serious, and London has always been a place where people move through, so I wonder if there are things we can do with hospitality in the way that we do best. I don’t know whether we have opportunities for concerts, for Choral Evensong where we focus on Ukraine. I don’t know what’s happened so far, but then there will also be practical ways. My old cathedral at Durham acted as a hub for matching Ukrainian families with local families, and we had a role there. I suspect that bit of the crisis has now passed, because of the success of Ukrainian combat, and a lot of people are starting to move back.
A big year next year for us is Wren 300. What's important for you about our celebrations?
One of the unseen bits of Wren is life as a scientist, and Isaac Newton wrote a book about the first principles of science – and the second edition has a little insert in it which says, ‘Why is science important?’ and to justify science’s importance, he wrote, ‘Because it points us towards God.’
So this building when it was first built was partly a laboratory (you probably know this much better than I do!) but the two West towers were due to house telescopes, and from the Dome was meant to be suspended a pendulum so that you could measure gravity and the movement of the Earth. So I rather like the idea of exploring, as part of this season, Wren’s impact on trying to marry together scientific endeavour with religion and theology.
Do you have a vision for how St Paul's can be an ally for the LGBTQIA+ community in the future?
I think this is a really important issue. In my own family, I have several lesbian, gay and trans members within my own family and the most important thing for me – the most important thing for me – is that we are family and we are together. Unconditional love, that’s really important.
I also work alongside Christians from all over the world, who are operating under very different circumstances, and one of the tensions I have to hold is how you put those things together. Where Christians are operating in cultures where these things are not just a matter of social law, but a matter of life and death for them. So we also have to hold that together and that’s a real challenge for a global church.
What do you think are the biggest challenges St Paul's faces in the short and medium term?
The process Jo has described over a five-year recovery plan – you’re on track and doing fantastically well, even maybe a bit ahead of where you were expecting, and this just gives us great hope and confidence for the future. The thing that does is enable you to plan ahead, and it gives everybody confidence and trust in the future. One of the big things coming in for me is people expect that St Paul’s has a big endowment behind it, that there was a big pot of money, a property portfolio, an investment portfolio, and the tourism part was the day to day stuff that kept things going but there was something big behind it. I think one of the big challenges is that actually, that’s not true.
I’ve come from the North East of England, which in financial terms is just in a different place. We developed a 15-year programme that would bring in £100 million to our property portfolio and endowment. St Paul’s isn’t there, and I think that’s a big challenge – not the day to say stuff – because actually, international tourism will get us through that day to day stuff. It’s the longer term, big picture stuff that’s really a challenge.
The second challenge is for St Paul’s to reclaim its place on the national stage in terms of debate and a place that matters. A lot of my work has been around Westminster around getting politicians to think about faith and what that means in practice; how we can be a society of faith, open and diverse. I’d love to see that within the City and institutions here, and St Paul’s holding a leading place – and Paula is absolutely all over this, and I’m really looking forward to working with her on it.
What do you hope to accomplish during your time here?
Girl choristers. I think that is an absolute non-negotiable. It absolutely has to happen. We cannot have a situation where we’re only offering choristerships to boys. It’s going to be a complex thing, it will take us time, with careful negotiation – but it’s so symbolic of our equal access.
There will be lots of other things along the way. I think if the Bishop were here – and we’re really blessed that Bishop Sarah prays regularly with the team here, this is her home church and she really feels very passionately about the Cathedral – I think she would say, ‘How do we reconnect to Londoners?’ Obviously a lot of people walk in through our doors, are people from all over the world and all around the country, and that’s wonderful. She’ll be saying, ‘Well, how do we connect to Londoners?’ Not just Church of England Londoners and parishes, but Londoners more generally. So, those two things are on my agenda.
Quick fire questions: This or that?
- Tea or coffee? Answer: Coffee
- Cake or chocolate? Answer: Chocolate
- Android or Apple? Answer: Apple
- Cats or dogs? Answer: Dogs
- Summer or winter? Answer: Winter
- Book or movie? Answer: Movie
- North or South? Answer: Well, I’m a West Country boy – so West!