HUGH Lindsay was four, the little girl by his side perhaps eight, when they strolled past the local Catholic priest, contentedly smoking his pipe outside the church.

"One day you'll be a priest like that," said the little girl.

"No I won't," said the four-year-old, "I'm not going to smoke a pipe."

He was ordained 50 years ago today, recalls no moment of consciousness when he wanted to be anything other than a priest, became at 42 the youngest Catholic bishop in England and Wales, and still doesn't smoke a pipe.

Four other priests ordained on the same day in the diocese of Hexham and Newcastle - Msgr Kevin Nichols of St Mary's Cathedral, Newcastle; Canon Peter Smith of Coxhoe, Fr Terence Kerr of Pelaw and Fr Gerard Martin in Sunderland - also mark their golden jubilee today.

They were Ushaw College men, some probably still curates, when Hugh Lindsay was invited to become auxiliary Bishop of Chester-le-Street after barely 16 years in the priesthood.

Five years later, he succeeded the Rt Rev James Cunningham as Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle, his installation unexpectedly featured in several national newspapers - The Northern Echo, too - after he apparently refused to sign his name for genial Joe Taffe, who travelled the country seeking episcopal autographs.

Bishop Lindsay recalls it wryly. "It wasn't like that at all," he says. "I just said I couldn't possibly sign for him at that moment.

"It took me ages to get an apology out of the Daily Mail, and even then it was just a little thing on an inside page."

Since the now-retired bishop is the most humble, charming and approachable of men, the not guilty plea seems entirely acceptable.

He was born in Jesmond, his father the organist and choirmaster at the Catholic cathedral.

At 13, long convinced that he wanted to be a priest, he was evacuated to Cockermouth, Cumbria, discovered girls - "it didn't meant I wasn't tested" - and still attended 7.30am Mass every morning.

"The people we were with weren't churchgoers but fortunately, he was a postman," he says. "It would have been easy for me to become a Sunday Catholic in Cockermouth, my parents weren't pushing me in any way, but that wasn't what I wanted." He still keeps in touch with the family.

After two years' RAF service, he went straight to Ushaw - "I left the RAF on the Saturday evening and was in college on the Monday" - and lost three stones during the strict seminarian regime.

Monastic discipline meant silence from 9.15pm until after breakfast the following morning; the food would most kindly be described as lacking. Even on July 19, 1953, the day of their long-awaited ordination, the pupils were conscious of student strictures.

"We travelled on a coach with all our luggage from Ushaw to the Cathedral, decided to put the bags in the left luggage at the Central Station across the road, and even then were escorted to and from the lockers by the college president," says Bishop Lindsay.

"Two hours later, we were to be his colleagues. It was a very different world in those days."

After five years as a priest in Byker and Ponteland, he became the bishop's secretary. One Saturday morning in 1969, there was a call from the Papal delegate in England - "I thought he wanted to speak to Bishop Cunningham" - inviting him to become Cunningham's assistant.

The delegate spoke in Latin, mentioning somewhere called Cuncacestre. Bishop Lindsay recalls wondering - "impiously" - to himself where the hell it might be.

"As if he knew what was in my mind, he changed into English and said 'Chester-le-Street'," he says. "It seemed an utter impossibility, partly because of my age and partly because I was already in post. I was totally

astounded."

His surprise may have been more understandable because Chester-le-Street hadn't had a bishop for 974 years. So many attended his installation at St Mary's Cathedral that the service had to be relayed to the Old Assembly Rooms, up the road.

"I made sure that I never made any decision or pushed things in one way or another. I was very much the in-between man, the facilitator," he says.

When he became diocesan bishop in February 1975, he spoke at his installation of a "detectable" falling off in Mass attendance and of a continuing trend. It has continued, and accelerated, but done nothing to shake his faith.

"If the church were a worldly organisation we would sell up and go into voluntary liquidation, but remember this is only western Europe," says Bishop Lindsay. "The rest of the world is different.

"For me it isn't a question of rejoicing over success or bemoaning failure, but rather being able to continue what I started 50 years ago.

"The successes aren't mine, they are His" - he points upwards, as if making the point. "You can't work in our business in the same way as anywhere else. You have to have faith in the Holy Spirit."

Serious long term spinal problems forced his retirement in 1992. Now 76, he continues as chaplain to a Catholic community at Grange-over-Sands in Cumbria, walks three miles a day, swims five times a week and takes other regular exercise.

"I have to do it to hold my back together," he says.

For both church and family reasons, he returns frequently to the North-East and will join the four other 50th anniversary priest for a Mass in the cathedral today.

"My only ambition in life was achieved exactly 50 years ago, and I want to continue as an active, serving priest for as long as I can," he says.

"I still can't think of anything better you can do with your life than that."

BISHOP Lindsay has been back to Ushaw College, west of Durham, for Grand Week - a sort of old boys' reunion.

We attended Mass there last Sunday, at first unable to get past the security system. "It's the dangerous Mike Amos," said the chap who finally opened up, as if explaining cause and effect.

One of the readings, coincidentally, was from the Old Testament book of Amos. "Amos," said Fr Jim O'Keefe in his homily, "was a prophet, a truth-teller, a provocateur and also a carer."

No danger of any confusion there, then.

There were about 40 people in St Cuthbert's Chapel, dressed for a scorcher. "You will, of course, remember that the weather was always like this," said Fr O'Keefe "- except", he added, "from November to May."

Ordained by Bishop Lindsay in 1972, he has spent much of his ministry at Ushaw, the last seven years as

president.

Yesterday he left, and will take a year's sabbatical - "chilling out" he said - before probably returning to parish ministry.

"After 30 years of fairly intensively doing things it will be good to learn to sit still again," he said. "I want to let the spirit catch up with the body."

His office is piled high with packing, mainly books in potato crisp boxes. A card on the back of the door says: "Jesus is coming: look busy."

For a little while, said Fr O'Keefe, he wants to look a bit different.

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