Guyana Venture

When Fr Allan Buik and I first arrived in Guyana April 1986 we were placed in a Cottage beside the Deanery across a very busy road from the magnificent Cathedral. Thus began a friendship with Fr Derek Goodrich that was to last half my life. He used to say I was his only friend to attend his 70th, 80th and 90th birthday celebrations. More than that I was to hear his last confession and preach at his funeral. When I arrived in Guyana Derek was Dean of St George’s Cathedral where he demonstrated fine stewardship of allegedly the largest wooden building in the world. I had come with Allan to exercise stewardship of a humbler edifice - the Church, Library and mud houses of Yupukari that made up the Alan Knight Training Centre for Amerindian priests in the Rupununi. As we came and went from the interior to Georgetown Derek was our anchor man - confessor, spiritual director and mentor - along with that other great expatriate priest Canon John Dorman. Later on his return to the College of St B