Vicar and Curate St Matthew's Parish
 | Vicar and Curate St Matthew's Parish - courtesy of Ron Vickers
It's been a long time coming but we now have some sort of picture of St Matthew's Church door and the incumbents in the fifties:
Rev Eric Franklin who was a very good friend of Father McEldowney by all accounts says my good friend Gwen Wadwell nee Watson.
This picture shows Curate Eric Franklin with his vicar The Rev.Travers outside the vestry door of their church. The priest in charge, the older of the two, rode his bike around the town shouting "Ice cream" whilst ringing his bell.
Rev. Eric Franklin
Geoffrey Eric Franklin came from High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire to be curate at St., Matthews, Grangetown, after taking his degree at Oxford where he was a close friend of Marcus Morris later to become the Rev. Marcus Morris, founder and Editor of the new Eagle comic that came out 14th April 1950. Several Grangetown lads waited eagerly for the first issue on the strength of Eric’s enthusiasm.
Eric Franklin lodged very near to the church in Bolckow Road with Mrs Gladys Smailing who was a devoted churchgoer and President of The Mothers' Union. He possessed a small old Morris 8 and frequently took lads from the choir on outings. I recall on one occasion “flying” down the dip at Lockwood Beck on the A171, the little car rolling about and Eric shouting, “Look, look at the speedometer, we are doing a mile a minute!” Heady days for lads, whose parents didn’t own cars, like me for example, had only ever been in a taxi to an uncle’s wedding. After he sold his old motor he became the tremendously proud owner of a new Austin A30.
Eric was to be ordained as a priest at Grangetown and eventually as The Rev. Franklin got his first Parish at Lingdale. He had been so popular at St., Matthews he had a following of parishioners, who would catch a bus to visit him at his new church on special occasions like Christmas. He was later to leave Yorkshire and took the parish of Christ Church at Carnforth in Lancashire.
Ron Vickers 2004
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