• Home
• Fr Laurence Mayne RIP

 

 

Laurence Joseph Mayne was born in Liverpool on All Saints’ Day 1929, one of four children of Joseph and Ivy Mayne, his siblings being Stella, John and Peter. Shortly afterwards, he was baptised at St Michael’s, West Derby Road. The family moved to St Francis Xavier’s parish, where Laurence was an altar boy until he was evacuated to Llangwnnadl on the Llŷn peninsula, Gwynedd, during the Second World War. 

By the time he returned to Liverpool, the family had moved to St Clare’s parish because their previous home had been bombed. Hence, he was educated at both St Francis Xavier School and St Clare’s School. He won a scholarship to St Elizabeth’s Central School, Breckfield Road, run by the De La Salle brothers, before being accepted as a student at Upholland College in 1943. He finally completed his seminary formation in the early summer of 1956, and he was ordained priest by Archbishop William Godfrey in the college chapel at Upholland on 26^th May.

Following ordination, he served for just five weeks at St Marie’s, Southport, before going on to his first full appointment at St Joseph’s, Liverpool, with Mgr Denis McDonnell, where he remained for the next seven years. In September 1963 he moved to St Dominic’s, Huyton, where he was assistant to Mgr. Peter Whitty for ten years. His final appointment as a curate was at St Elizabeth’s in Litherland, where he served from September 1973 until June 1978. Thus he served 22 years as a curate. 

His first appointment as parish priest was at St Swithin’s, Gillmoss, in June 1978. Though the church only dated from the late 1950s, records showed that Mass had first been celebrated on that site in 1425. He ministered happily and faithfully there for the next 13 years. In September 1991, he left the environs of Liverpool to move to St Oswald’s, Coppull. St Oswald’s was to be his home for the next 30 years, and he served the parish with great fidelity and zeal. His dedication to the priestly ministry was such that he continued as parish priest, well beyond the usual retirement age, until at 90 the frailty of old age finally took its toll. He lived in retirement for three years at St Mary’s, Chorley, and then for twenty months at Marley Court Nursing Home, Heath Charnock, Chorley. 

"When I was just a little boy, we didn’t have a TV, we only had wireless and listened to Children’s Hour at 5pm each day after school. The larder was empty on Fridays until Dad came home from work and gave Mum his £10 week’s wages, to go out and buy milk, bread, margarine, sugar, rice, apples, potatoes, vegetables, eggs and candles. We knitted scarfs sitting under the stairs during the air raids in the war.  We got into trouble with ‘the Parkie’ for climbing trees in Sefton Park. We never went on holiday until we were evacuated to Wales and learned how to milk cows and try to drink sour buttermilk. 

We once went to New Brighton on the ferry, across the River Mersey, and it rained all day while we had our picnic. The doctor came when we had measles and sent me to hospital for 6 weeks. When I had scarlet fever, my Dad took me to the market and bought an old bike for 5 shillings, and he put brakes and tyres on it back home. We went to bed carrying candles upstairs. There was no electric light in the bedroom. We all 4 kids slept in the same room. Mum would read a story from a book called ‘Jesus for little children’ and say prayers with us in front of the fire after our bath. 

When I was 7, I made my First Holy Communion and became an altar boy in St Francis Xavier’s Church.

When we came back from Wales in the War, our house had been bombed in Liverpool. 

I won the scholarship to De La Salle High School and then went to Upholland in 1943 until 1956.  The seminary was very strict and most of the boys left over the years. But the football, cricket, tennis and sports were very enjoyable, and singing in the choir and playing the French horn in the orchestra. Life in the seminary was tough but it was worth it in the end with Ordination after 13 hard years there.  The years passed on in parishes in Liverpool some (not all) under very harsh parish priests until I became a parish priest after 22 years as a curate and after 14 years was moved to St Oswald’s Coppull in 1991 and my lovely Mum is still looking after me. Yes, when I was a boy we did not have a lot but we did have the best of God’s gifts and a lovely Mum and Dad and sister and brothers. All the faces have faded and the smiles have gone with them back to God. And now I am just a lonely orphan boy waiting to join them when the Lord calls. They were all good to me and God has been good to me.”

Fr Laurence J. M  (2019)