My first parish priest was a little old man with pebble spectacles who looked like a gorgeously coloured beetle as he bent over the altar in his Roman chasuble. His name was Fr Albert Tomei; my family went to his tiny church – St Margaret’s, Carshalton Beeches, Surrey – on most Sundays between 1966 and 1972.
Those were the years of the great liturgical upheaval after Vatican II, but I can’t say that I noticed many changes at St Margaret’s. Admittedly, I wasn’t paying attention – but, even if I had been, there wasn’t much to see. Fr Tomei did not suddenly turn round to face the people: he flatly refused to install what he called a “kitchen table” in the sanctuary.
