Turvey Abbey: Brother Herbert celebrates 100th birthday

Br John and Br Herbert

We had the privilege and great joy recently of celebrating Brother Herbert's 100th birthday. Cards and presents arrived from all corners of the globe and the festivities lasted for several days. The highlight was a zoom meeting on the day itself, the 25th January, with some 50 members of his family, the furthest away in Sydney and Melbourne, with others in South Africa, New York, Morocco and throughout the British Isles, including the Shetlands.

Br Herbert recognised nearly all of them. These were all descendants of his mother's family. We have yet to trace all those on his father's side, it's a work in progress. Suffice to say that Br Herbert's father had a rather interesting history and many on the maternal side were unaware of other relations on the Kaden side.

We now know that there are at least two half-brothers and one half- sister in this lineage, two now living in Germany, and one in England who, after many years, made contact with Br.Herbert in Cambridge.

We even have an Angela Merkel connection through one of them! His father, Gert, left Br Herbert's mother Lallie, soon after he was born and it was over fifty years before father and son were reunited. Lallie was the daughter of Felix and Anna Bondi from a distinguished Jewish family in pre-war Dresden. This is where Br Herbert eventually tracked down his father, now living in retirement after a long career as a Communist!

Br Herbert has a great facility for bringing people back together and perhaps it's time for the two sides of the family to be reunited too. This has indeed been one of his great charisms at Turvey, and as a monk at Prinknash in Gloucestershire, as a gardener at St.Edmund's House, Cambridge and even as an interned alien on the Isle of Man. All these connections still kept now so many years later and keeping us very much on our toes at the monastery.

Perhaps more of this history later, but thank you Br Herbert for being such an integral and integrating presence here in Turvey and elsewhere, and an inspiration to so many people.

Ad multos annos.

LINK

Turvey Abbey - www.turveyabbey.org.uk/