Pilot Profile: John Sydney Norman

From 1965, a piece on John Sydney Norman.

Pilot Profile: John Sydney Norman
April 1965

Although St Saviour is now in the broader sense a more urban than country parish, it is appropriate that its Rector is the son of a farmer. John Sydney Norman, senior Vice-Dean of Jersey, was born at Crossbow, Trinity on the last day of January in 1885, a son of John Norman, Connétable de Trinite and a Major in the Royal Jersey Light Infantry, the mother being Elizabeth Jane Corbel.

After an early kindergarten spell, education was commenced at Ollivier's School in Charing Cross which many readers of The Pilot will remember, and then to Davey’s School at Oxenford House, St Lawrence. He then spent three years in France at the Wesleyan-Methodist School of Theology and for the next seventeen years he worked for the Wesleyan-Methodist Church in Guernsey and Jersey during that time becoming a good friend of Dean Falle.

Mr Norman recollects the day when he was walking along David Place and was hailed by the Reverend George Balleine, the then Rector of St Saviour, who was sitting in his Ford car.

"Norman”, he said, "we want you in the Anglican Church. Cousin Samuel has told me to ask you”. Following this, there was an interview with Bishop Theodore Woods in Guernsey, which led to seven months intensive study and then ordination as Deacon at Winchester in 1931, with the appointment as Curate as All Saints, Bournemouth.

Soon after the death of Bishop Woods, Dr Garbett, the new Bishop, asked Mr Norman to spend the day with him at Winchester. He told him that he had had a request from his great friend Samuel Falle; the latter was getting an old man but wanted to die in office and would be pleased to have someone whom he knew well to be his curate.

''How can one say 'No' to Samuel Falle. What will it be, Norman?"

The decision was made and Mr Norman commenced a three year period as curate at the Town Church in December 1932, his first duty being the funeral of' Mr Jack Vibert, a popular and respected member of the gents' department staff of A. de Gruchy and Co. In due course the living at Trinity became vacant, but actuated by the sentiment that it would not be wise to take over the cure of his native parish, this was refused. However, with the illness of the Rev John Pepin, St Ouen's became vacant and Mr Norman went there for ten years: although his appointment to St Saviours dated from 1940, at the start of the German Occupation it was not taken up until August 1945

There is an explanation for this. It was because St Saviour could be adequately served by several ministers, including Canon Cohu who was to die In a German concentration Camp, and in those difficult days St Ouen's was "a long way off"!' In addition, during the occupation the Rev. G. R. Balleine was taken ill and Mr Norman administered St Brelade's for three months.

With the resignation of Dean Le Marinel, Mr Norman was appointed Doyen Substitut and presided over Le College des Recteurs, being appointed Vice-Dean by Dean Giles in 1959. What he considers one of his greatest honours, however, was being made a Canon of Winchester in 1961 by Bishop Alwyn Williams.

Secular pursuits are mainly connected with Mr Norman's love of the Jersey-French language. He has been president of the French Elocution Section of the Eisteddfod and as adjudicator at a Jersey-French session in 1937.

One son – John - is serving with the R.A.F. in Singapore out his wife's long illness has clouded Mr Norman's latter years. His sense of humour, however, has always been a prevailing quality and as a raconteur of things present and time past, a serious demeanour is often countered by that little twinkle in the eye!

Postscript

Alan Perchard, who remembers him well, sent me this picture. Reverend Norman in the background, and choirboys in the front: Alan Perchard, Chris Queree, Gwyn Maguire, Charles Bois, Thomas Maguire, John Barnes and Philip Lempriere.

And Sadie Rennard tells me "When I got married in 1965 he was our minister . A wonderful kind man"