RODERICK WRIGHT and Joanna Whibley first met when he was a curate at Fort William in north west Scotland. She, a non Catholic, was engaged to be married to a Catholic and the young, handsome curate instructed her in the faith.

A sexual relationship between the two developed after Ms Whibley moved to England, and almost 16 years ago Ms Whibley became pregnant. The young curate was horrified. At one point he told Ms Whibley that he would leave for Peru if the pregnancy became public.

"After a few days he asked me what my plans were. He said he couldn't acknowledge being the father of Kevin", an emotionally distraught Ms Whibley told the BBC yesterday from her home in Sussex.

Kevin was born in 1981, shortly after the then Father Wright moved from Fort William to become the parish priest of South Uist, the Catholic island of the Scottish Western Isles.

For almost 16 years Ms Whibley and her son, Kevin, have kept the secret. As Roderick Wright moved up the Church Hierarchy, becoming Bishop of Argyll and the Isles in 1990, he kept in sporadic contact with what Ms Whibley refers to as "his family". Occasionally there were letters, more recently there was even the odd cheque.

"I haven't seen him for more than two months all put together in my whole life", said Kevin. "And it's been useless then, because I was really awkward talking to him. I could not speak to him and he did not speak to me particularly much.

"I realise I have lost a lot through not having a father here. It wasn't necessary, and it should not happen to many children, as I am sure it does."

THE only obvious reminder of the couple's love affair and of Ms Whibley's continuing hopes that one day all three might be reconciled is the key fob she uses. A photo of Bishop Wright appears on one side and a photo of her much loved son as a baby on the other.

"It was the only way to keep them together", she said, adding: "I have lived a lie and so has he."

Her hopes finally seemed to be materialising when Bishop Wright called her just before his disappearance and told her that he was planning to resign.

"He told me that he would try to make amends for the hurt that he had caused us and if he would resign and come to live with us we could try to salvage something."

To Ms Whibley's horror, newspapers began to link his disappearance two weeks ago with a woman she had never heard of a divorcee named Kathleen Macphee, with whom he had been close friends for almost 20 years.

This was a terrible shock to Ms Whibley.

Things got worse when she heard Bishop Wright's resignation statement. "In Roderick's statement he apologised to his family. Perhaps he was referring obliquely to us, but I suspect he was referring to his other family. He apologised to the Macphee family, but he didn't mention us. Kevin feels his existence is being denied again."

WHAT followed was clearly several days of extreme emotional turmoil as Ms Whibley struggled to know what to do. When interviewed by the BBC, her eyes were red from crying, her face puffy land her hands plucked nervously at her clothing.

"I made up my mind in the night that I must unburden myself and start my life and put an end to Kevin's feeling that he should not even exist.

"Although Kevin knows it's his dad, I know it's his dad, and Roddy knows he's his dad, although he has been an absent father, Kevin still needs the fact to be known."

Ms Whibley insisted that revenge had played no part in her decision to speak and that she hoped only that some good could come of it all.

"I would not want this trivialised, this pathetic story. I would want it to serve some purpose. I am quite sure there are other women in relationships with priests who would want to end the secret lives", said Ms Whibley (48).

Kevin was angrily defiant towards the father he has never known. "I feel angry at the loss of a father and it's too late now. I don't even want him if he comes now, it is too late.

"There's not a lot it can really do for me - the actual publicity, really. I'm glad when people ask me, because people ask me at school. I am tired of being awkward about answering."