Finty Williams reminisces about her father at Catholic actors' Christmas celebration

Finty Williams with Michael Slater

Finty Williams, daughter of Judy Dench and the late Michael Williams was guest of honour at this year's Catholic Association of Performing Arts Christmas celebration at the recently revamped Concert Artists Association in Covent Garden.

Among the guests last Tuesday was actor Richard O'Callaghan KSG, chair of CaAPA, Michael Slater, Vice Chair and Master of Ceremonies, Fr Alan Robinson, National Chaplain to the Association, Fr Chris Vipers, Associate Chaplain, Mgr Vladimir Felzmann, Chair of CaAPA Trustees, actor and director Kenneth Michaels, Jane Garioni, now Lady Hilliard, actor and administrator of the Alec Guinness Award for drama students, Jane Spencer Prior, DHS, actor and choreographer and Fr Dennis Touw, Lourdes Pilgrimage Director.

Michael Williams chaired the Catholic Stage Guild (later renamed as CaAPA) for about ten years. Finty said it was very important to her father. "His entire reason for being was the fact that he was Catholic and he had his faith and he had his family," she said.

The day before he died, Michael was given the Knighthood of the Order of St Gregory. Finty said: "We were all in his bedroom and we'd organised a party for him. He was actually very sick. So we had the party downstairs. As I had a very small child at the time, we had baby speakers so I turned them round so people downstairs could hear the service that was going on in his bedroom… I got a letter from the Macmillan nurse about three months later, saying 'we've now actually adopted that idea for other patients so they can talk to their grandchildren. "

Finty said her Dad was "very proud of his knighthood. "One of the last things he said was 'I won something'."

She went on: "I feel him really strongly in this room, He died 19 years ago next January and he's very very present here. So I'm not going to take up much of your time but I thought I'd tell you his favourite story about when I was very little.

"I used to go to a Quaker meeting in the morning with my mother and I would go to a Catholic service in the evening with my father. It was just at the time you know, when you teach children 'what does the dog say' - bow wow, what does the cat say? Meow. What does the bear say? (ferocious look). What does the squirrel say? Nuts. So, I was about two and a half and my father took me to church on this particular Sunday and our priest was very … he quite liked the sound of his own voice. And he used to get very very impassioned and during one of his sermons he shouted: 'And what did Lazarus say on the road to Damascus?' .. and from the back of the church I shouted Nuts! My father was very red faced!"

Finty said: "I want to share the best piece of advice my father ever gave me. . He was a good man my father. .. like I said my mother was Quaker my father was Catholic and when they wanted to get married they wanted to get married in a Catholic church, but they didn't want there to be a division between them from the very beginning. .. so that my father would take Communion but my mother wouldn't be allowed .. So they actually got married a week before and they had a Catholic priest and a Church of England priest and a Jesuit .. so they had this ceremony there together. A very very special friend of my parents called Tom Corbishley who was a Jesuit sat my parents down and said: 'always remember - we may have different lines on the pages but if we follow them off the page they will reach the same line.'

"We live in a time where there is division we are encouraged to look for the differences between people. We are encouraged to look and comment on things that we don't understand. My father would be the first person to say: 'the lines all meet off the page.'"

For more information about the Catholic Association of Performing Arts visit: www.catholicassociationofperformingarts.org.uk/

See more more pictures from the evening on ICN's Facebook page: www.facebook.com/Independent-Catholic-News-ICN-195368037167900/?ref=bookmarks (Scroll down to see the pictures from this evening)

Kenneth Michael is directing six plays on homelessness on Wednesday, 6 February at the Concert Artists Association, 20 Bedford Street Covent Garden, to raise funds for the Passage. More details to follow soon.