INTERVIEW: Roger Quick

Roger Quick, chaplain at St George’s Crypt, Leeds, and author of Entertaining Saints, discusses his new book about living with and looking out for the homeless …

In what ways has the ongoing pandemic affected life at St George’s Crypt?

We stayed open.  In addition to our fifteen separate bedrooms, we used to have three dormitories, each of which could accommodate ten folding beds.  On a bad night in winter, we could have over fifty residents.

As soon as Lockdown began, we had to close the dormitories.  Central government funding provided rooms in hotels, which we staffed.  At its height, we had about 200 residents. 

Our usual sit-down three-course lunches had to change to a walk-through take-away service.  This meant that only the briefest of conversations was possible.

Close to the start of the pandemic, many staff - including myself - contracted Covid. Many were furloughed.  Our residential hostels continued. 

We eventually changed many of our meeting rooms into additional accommodation, and were delighted when it was possible to welcome people back to our usual lunch.

The story of some of this is told in the episode Coming Back. 

The dedication in your new book, Sheltering Saints: To Those Who Heal.  Can you elaborate on why you chose this?

Entertaining Saints, the predecessor of Sheltering Saints, bears the dedication To those who hurt.  Like the title itself, this is capable of two interpretations, and is thus dedicated both to those who suffer and those who inflict suffering.  We believe that change is possible; that pain, and inflicting pain, is not an irrevocable state of being.  

The dedication To those who heal thus refers both to those who are being healed, and those who enable that healing.  All these groups are not exclusive: we are in this together.  Healing is a constant refrain: it’s what we’re here for.

What do you say to those who think and/or assume homelessness is self-inflicted?

I generally ask them, And are you responsible for everything that has happened in your life?  No one has ever said yes.  (The episode Real Miracles talks about this.

How can we learn from the suffering of others?

Compassion comes from a root meaning suffering with.  In order to do that, we have to be vulnerable.  This is costly and painful, but eventually liberating and healing.  The beginning is to put yourself in someone else’s place, which is another way of saying Love your neighbour as yourself.  

For the vulnerable, what part can forgiveness play in improving their wellbeing?

We accept and love them; they forgive themselves; they forgive those who hurt them.  Sometimes.  Often, maybe.  Nurtured resentment is bitterly destructive. The story with the Hebrew title Emeth – Truth – talks about forgiveness.    

Are there particular episodes in the Bible that you often relate to your work and what you see on a daily basis at St George’s?

The constant compassion of Christ to those who are outcast and despised.  Those people come to us; they come to the Crypt because there is nowhere else to go. So when I read the story of Dives and Lazarus, or hear the revolutionary hymn which is the Magnificat, then I know God’s bias for the poor.  We are given the opportunity to live out Matthew 25: I was a stranger and you invited me in. 

Sheltering Saints: Living with the homeless is out now in paperback, priced £9.99. It is illustrated throughout by Si Smith.

You can read a sample here: https://www.booksonix.com/dlt/PressRelease/Sheltering%20Saints%20-%20sample.pdf 

Roger Quick grew up in Leeds and London. He first arrived at the Crypt forty years ago, too drunk to be let in. When he sobered up he became a volunteer, and eventually worked as a musician, lecturer, writer and broadcaster. After ordination, he served in parish ministry in Leeds and Scotland, where he was chaplain to Strathallan School for seven years. His series Talking Saints was regularly broadcast on BBC Radio 2. Since 2013 he has been chaplain to St George’s Crypt.