Sister Frances Dominica

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 8 February 2004

⏱️ 36 minutes

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Summary

This week Sue Lawley's castaway is a nun and a pioneer of the hospice movement. Sister Frances Dominica says she had always felt she was born to be a nurse and as a child would line up her dolls and teddies in pretend hospital beds and tend to them. But a dramatic revelation during her early 20s diverted her and, to the horror of her family, she abandoned her career for a contemplative life. She took her life vows in 1972 and, in 1977, at the incredibly young age of 34, was elected to be the Mother Superior of her community. The following year she met a family with a sick child and offered to give her respite care. It was that relationship which gave Sister Frances the idea of starting a children's hospice and, in 1982, Helen House opened. It was the first children's hospice in the world.

For the past four years she has been fundraising for another hospice - which she calls a Respice, a mixture of respite and hospice – Douglas House, which is geared up for the needs of adolescents and young adults. Like Helen House, it is named after a patient who made a particular mark on Frances, although he did not survive to see it opened.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Skye Boat Song by Elinor Bennett Book: The Earth from the Air by Yann Arthus-Bertrand Luxury: Chaise longue with a mosquito net attached

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.
0:05.0	For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.
0:08.0	The program was originally broadcast in 2004, and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My castaway this week is a nun. Her devotion to God is matched only by her
0:36.0	devotion to her fellow human beings because she's also the founder of the world's
0:40.3	first hospice for children. She opened its doors 21 years ago in the grounds
0:45.2	of the Oxford convent in which she lives. There children with illnesses that mean they
0:50.0	won't achieve a full adult life can spend time often over a period of many years in a rewarding
0:55.5	way.
0:56.7	The woman who's created this unique protective environment wasn't much of a success at school
1:02.0	and found her calling on a weekend pilgrimage
1:04.7	when she was 22. It was all quite sudden, she says, I fell in love with God.
1:09.2	Faith she believes is court not taught and she got hers from her Scottish grandfather. Of her work
1:15.4	with children she observed simply the church must be a pioneer. God is always one step
1:21.4	ahead. She is Sister Francis Dominica.
1:25.0	Francis God certainly been one step ahead of you all of the way, hasn't he?
1:29.0	Because you didn't have any idea when you were growing up, I think, as a young girl that you'd be a nun did you?
1:34.0	No no idea at all I grew up in the Church of Scotland if I grew up in any church and
1:38.9	that was because of the grandfather I adored who was an elder of the Church of Scotland, and nothing and no
1:46.1	one would persuade me to go to Sunday school or children's church or anything like that.
1:49.6	I just used to sit beside him like a little leech through the quite long services, understanding
1:55.8	nothing but just I suppose caught up in the awesomeness of it all.
1:59.4	But in terms of your personal ambition, you did not think at all that your life would be in the church
	...

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