We give thanks today for Sandy
and the life he has lived among us: a varied life
which included extensive Christian Ministry in
this country and abroad; a life which enjoyed
many interests outside of public ministry; and a
life of devotion and commitment to Ann and their
family.
Sandy was born in Nottinghamshire
in 1923 but the family soon moved to Yorkshire
and then to South Africa where Sandy’s
father became curate of St Paul’s, Durban.
Sandy returned to the UK two
years later to live with his grandmother. Further
moves followed to Bradford, Huntingdon and then
five years in Durham, 1937-1942, for the final
years of his secondary education.
Sandy’s wartime service
began with the War Agricultural Committee before
being called up to serve in the Royal Navy.
However on the Monday before he was due to sign
on, he was summoned to Whitehall to meet a Colonel Tiltman,
who asked him to learn Japanese for military
purposes. So after Special Intelligence School in
Bedford he was attached to Naval Intelligence at
Bletchley Park. From there he went to Ceylon (Sri
Lanka), decoding and translating.
When the war ended Sandy was 22
but by this time already had a world of
experience and travel under his belt, and had put
his sharp intellect to good use. In 1946 he went
up to Cambridge and read Classics and Theology,
which lead on to his becoming a BA and MA in 1948
and 1953.
Interestingly he then worked in
the steel works set up by Samuel Fox at
Stocksbridge for six months, to
broaden his experience even further, before
training for the Ministry. He followed his father
by becoming ordained and priested a year later in
1951.
He served his title at St Thomas, Wincobank,
and then became senior curate at Rotherham Parish Church,
both in the Sheffield Diocese. Those were the
days when clergy routinely served two curacies,
rather than just one as today, before an
incumbency.
By this time Sandy and Ann had
met and were married in 1953 in Northern Ireland,
at Cairncastle, near Ballygally. Ann’s
father had recently died but the wedding was a
very happy occasion.
There was always something of the
adventurer about Sandy, perhaps his nomadic early
life shaped this and also what we would call
today, his cutting edge. It was these qualities
that lead him to be Priest-in-Charge at Manor Park in Sheffield
when the pioneering Leslie Hunter was Bishop.
Bishop Hunter
was a man ahead of his time. It was in Sheffield
that Industrial Ministry
got off the ground in this country. At Manor Park
there was, to begin with, no church, so services
took place in the vicarage, and in the local pub
at Easter … where no doubt a traditional
tipple for the Vicar would have gone down very
well.
After a time a church was built
and named after William Temple, the wartime
Archbishop of Canterbury. His widow came to the
opening. Sadly Sandy and Ann’s vicarage is
now boarded up and on the market for just
£50,000 – should anyone be interested
– which is indicative of how tough a parish
this was and how pioneering Sandy’s ministry
must have been at that time.
It was in Sheffield that Ann
celebrated her 21st birthday and it was whilst
that they were at Manor Park that family life
took off. Their first son Christopher was born
there, followed two years later by Philip.
Another big change was about to
take place when in 1959 Sandy and Ann set sail
for India at the invitation of the Bishop of
Bombay (Mumbai). Sandy was appointed Director of
Education in the Diocese of Bombay. Poona was
their home for two years and Sandy also had
charge of St Paul’s Church
(whether he wore a pith helmet and travelled by
elephant is not recorded).
They experienced quite a culture
shock on arrival in India; in those days there
was little formal preparation for such a radical
change of direction. One change was the huge
congregations prepared to come to church, and
stay. The Good Friday Three Hours saw whole
families pitch-up, kids and all, and sit tight,
from beginning to end.
It was in India that Sandy
developed his taste for hot curries and Indian
food. He loved his food (not to mention whiskey).
In this he was in a long line of clerics who
shared the same gastronomic concern. Notable
among them was the eighteenth century James
Woodforde who on October 12th 1770 recalls in his
diary:
OCT. 12 1770: ... Mrs. Carr,
Miss Chambers, Mr Hindley, Mr. Carr, and
Sister Jane dined, supped and spent the
evening with me, and we were very merry. I
gave them for dinner a dish of fine Tench
which I caught out of my brother's Pond in
Pond Close this morning, Ham, and 3 Fowls
boiled, a Plumb Pudding; a couple of Ducks
rosted, a roasted neck of Pork, a Plumb Tart
and an Apple Tart, Pears, Apples and Nutts
after dinner; White Wine and red, Beer and
Cyder. Coffee and Tea in the evening at six
o'clock. Hashed Fowl and Duck and Eggs and
Potatoes etc. for supper. We did not dine
till four o'clock - nor supped till ten. Mr.
Rice, a Welshman who is lately come to Cary
and plays very well on the Triple Harp,
played to us after coffee for an hour or two
... the Company did not go away till near
twelve o'clock ...
The Diary of a Country Parson 1758-1802
James Woodforde (OUP 1979)
Like Sandy, they didn’t do
things by halves in those days.
Of course, good dining
doesn’t always have a happy outcome. In
India there were visits to outlying villages
where hospitality was lavish and couldn’t be
refused. The advice was “don’t eat the
water melons”, but to refuse meant
you’d be insulting your hosts, whatever the
risk. Health was always an issue. Sandy and Ann
had hepatitis during their time in India. Sandy
liked a challenge and this appointment was at
times another tough call in his ministry.
Cathy was born in India before
the family returned to the UK in 1963, when Sandy
became Vicar of Bexley in
the Rochester Diocese. It was here that Richard
was born and completed their family.
Eight years later Sandy was
appointed by the Dean and Chapter of Rochester to
be Vicar of Leatherhead,
where as we know, Sandy and Ann remained until
his retirement in 1989.
And now some family memories.
Richard recalls:
My father lived life to the full, he
enjoyed travel, good food and wine, the odd
whiskey and his pipe and he was passionate
about sport, especially supporting
Huddersfield Town football team. My abiding
memories as a child were of our annual farm
holidays. One year, on a farm in Scotland we
brought home a Collie dog called Meg that was
being ill-treated by the farmer and who
became a faithful friend to my dad. This was
the start of three generations of Collies
that gave dad a lot of pleasure. The Collies
were always considered part of our family, so
much so that dad would occasionally call us
by the dog's name!
Cathy recalls:
Dad was a passionate reader and
liked his debates and was a very good
listener. He was always there for me when I
needed advice.
Philip recalls:
Dad was a warm, tactile, loving and
caring father who was supportive in
everything we decided to do. Whilst we all as
children had a Christian, church going
up-bringing, he never sought unduly to
influence or pressurise us in any particular
direction in life and left us to make up our
own minds on matters of faith, morals, career
and other key life decisions. He was always
there to offer advice and support when
needed.
He lived life to the full and
was a great mentor for the whole family. He
was able to laugh at himself (like when he
managed to hit the head green keeper in the
stomach with an errant drive the one and only
time I managed, as a teenager, to coax him to
give up a very foggy Tuesday day-off to play
golf at Tyrrells Wood [DE - I hope the
green-keeper laughed too]. He was a stickler
for time keeping and of routine – lunch
at one, dinner at six – BBC TV, good
– ITV, never on. This only added to our
sense of security when growing up. I am proud
to be his son and like all the family will
miss him terribly. He will stay in our hearts
forever.
Sandy was very proud of his
family and they of him. It now includes seven
grandchildren: Thomas, Nicola, Sophie, Samuel,
Georgina, Finlay and Lucy.
Anyone who visited Sandy
couldn’t but notice the two oars displayed
on the sitting room walls. He had earned these
whilst rowing for Jesus College Cambridge:
Head of Heats in 1947 and Head of River in 1948.
He also sang at Cambridge and music was something
that meant a great deal throughout his life. In
retirement he sang with Dorking Choral Society
and some members of that Choir join our own
church choir today, as well as from St
Martin’s Dorking where Sandy served in
retirement. All the music at this service has
been chosen by Sandy and reflects his taste. The
family were promised that if we sang Crimond
today he would come back and haunt them. Too many
funerals. So we’re not.
With his interests in music and
rowing and sport in general we see that Sandy
wasn’t a priest narrowly focussed on
‘religion’ or ‘church’ but
embraced all of life with relish and interest.
He also had a keen sense of
social concern and responsibility. In retirement
in Dorking he was chair of Age Concern.
Before that, whilst Vicar here, he had chaired
the Diocesan Board for Social Responsibility. He
was made a Canon of Guildford Cathedral in 1986.
He preached a social gospel. He had a keen sense
of history. He looked at God’s involvement
in our lives from a social and historical
perspective. He lived out his social awareness in
the places he chose to minister.
But he wasn’t a
head-in-the-clouds social theorist either. He had
a warm heart and affection for people as people.
He was attentive to personal need. It was sandy
who introduced here shaking hands at the door
after service. And, whereas The Peace in
Communion had been an exchange of glances, and at
best a smile of recognition, it became under his
ministry, a moment to actually greet and press
the flesh; from where it has advanced to the free
for all barn dance and jamboree that we know and
love today …
He nurtured ministry in other
people. Carol Coslett and Robert Jenkins were
Readers here under Sandy’s ministry and are
now ordained and incumbents of their own
parishes. Robert recalls how it could be a
dangerous thing to say to Sandy that you wanted
to get more involved. A tentative “Can I
help?” on Thursday of one week lead to
Robert starting on a Readers’ Course the
following Wednesday.
Sandy had high standards, in
worship and liturgy; don’t you dare be late
even if you are a bride; he brought the church
into the community; he developed the church as a
community so that there was a greater sense of
being a family and of being welcome.
Following Sandy here as an
incumbent I was particularly grateful for the
foundation he had laid, and for his sensitivity
to my ministry. He didn’t look over my
shoulder and gave me space. A good example I
intend to follow myself.
So, we give thanks today for
Sandy: for his life and for his ministry. The
reading he chose for today is full of hope and
reassurance for the future. Jesus says:
“I will not leave you
bereft. I am coming back to you; he who loved me
will be loved by my father. Peace is my
particular gift to you; set your troubled hearts
at rest.”
Any parting from those we love is
a source of great sadness. Jesus’ words give
hope of both: a life yet to come beyond what we
presently see and know; and also of peace for our
own hearts when left behind with uncertainty and
emptiness.
Our eternal hopes are not best
expressed in any scientific or matter of fact
way. Another clerical diarist, Francis Kilvert,
offers us a picture and metaphor in words that
speak eloquently of resurrection and new life. He
wrote this on the Sunday next before Lent, which
this year was last Sunday, but when Kilvert wrote
was March 3rd and the year 1878:
Quinquagesima Sunday, 3 March
1878
As I walked in the Churchyard this morning
the fresh sweet sunny air was full of the
singing of the birds and the brightness and
gladness of the Spring. Some of the graves
were as white as snow with snowdrops. The
southern side of the Churchyard was crowded
with a multitude of tombstones. They stood
thick together, some taller, some shorter,
some looking over the shoulders of others,
and as they stood up all looking one way and
facing the morning sun they looked like a
crowd of men, and it seemed as if the morning
of the Resurrection had come and the sleepers
had arisen from their graves and were
standing upon their feet silent and solemn,
all looking toward the East to meet the
Rising of the Sun. The whole air was
melodious with the distant indefinite sound
of sweet bells that seemed to be ringing from
every quarter by turns, now from the hill,
now from the valley, now from the deer
forest, now from the river. The chimes rose
and fell, swelled and grew faint again.
Kilvert's Diary 1870-1879 - A Selection
Edited and Introduced by William Plomer
(Penguin, 1982)
A picture of Spring in a country
churchyard, a picture to us of new life beyond
the grave that Sandy preached and lived.
We commit him today to his
eternal rest. May he rest in peace and rise in
glory.
