Local GPs invited patients from the over-80s priority group to visit the cathedral and receive their first vaccine doses.
More than 3.23 million people in the UK had received a first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine by Saturday, according to PA Media news agency.
“It was absolutely wonderful to come into this beautiful building and have this shot,” Godwin said in an interview with PA Media news agency. “I had a lot of jabs in my time, especially with the RAF. After the war I was sent to Egypt and got a few jabs that knocked me over for a week.
“This one, the doctor said to me” Well that’s done “and I thought he hadn’t started yet. So it’s no effort and no pain at all,” he added.
Godwin said World War II was “very different” from the pandemic “because it divided the people.”
“You see each other virtually, but I have a very large family, I now have 12 great-grandchildren from four months to 23 years old. I don’t see them and they all grow up,” he explained.
Cathedral organist John Challenger said in a tweet that he would “play Handel’s Largo and a lot more great organ music” now that the cathedral became a vaccination center.
“This is the place where people pray daily for the healing of the city, for the healing of the nation. To be able to come here today to receive these life-saving vaccinations, I am just overjoyed that we can play our part in this,” said Reverend Nicholas Papadopulos, Dean of Salisbury, on CNN-affiliated ITV news.
According to figures from Johns Hopkins University, more than 3.3 million cases of Covid-19 have been recorded in the UK, and the country has the highest death toll in Europe, with more than 87,000 deaths.