Local GPs invited patients from the priority group over 80 to visit the cathedral and take the first doses of vaccine.
More than 3.23 million people had received a first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine in the UK on Saturday, according to news agency PA Media.
“It’s been absolutely wonderful to walk into this wonderful building and enjoy this shot,” Godwin said in an interview with PA Media news agency. “I’ve had many blows in my time, especially in the RAF. After the war, I was sent to Egypt and I had a couple of stabs that knocked me down for a week.
“This one, the doctor told me ‘Well, it’s over’ and I thought it hadn’t started. So he has no problem or pain,” he added.
Godwin said World War II was “completely different” from the pandemic “because that has divided people.”
“You see each other virtually, but I have a very large family, now I have 12 great-grandchildren, from four months to 23. I don’t see them and they all grow up,” he explained.
The cathedral organist John Challenger said in a tweet that he would “play Handel’s Largo and much more organ music,” as the cathedral became a vaccination center.
“This is the place where daily prayer is offered for the healing of the city, for the healing of the nation. To be able to come here today to receive these life-saving vaccines, I am delighted to be able to do the our role in this, “Very Rev. Nicholas Papadopulos, dean of Salisbury, told CNN-affiliated ITV News.
There have been more than 3.3 million cases of Covid-19 registered in the UK and the country has the highest number of deaths in Europe, with more than 87,000 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.