Lesley Tilley RIP

For those who might be interested, this is the eulogy my sister and I prepared for Mum's funeral:

Lesley Joan Tilley 1928-2021

Lesley Base was born in Birmingham on 18th March 1928. Apart from a brief time, when she was evacuated during the Second World War to North Wales, she lived her whole life in the city.

She became adept at giving travel directions using landmarks that had been demolished, saying things such as ‘Turn left where the Bristol Cinema used to be. You know. Opposite where they knocked down that church.’

Her parents, Dennis and Janet, were lovely people although her father was somewhat strict and austere. They had to cope with several miscarriages and so Lesley was a much loved only child. She was devoted to her parents and looked after them with care in their twilight years.

She had an aptitude for art and design. Steve recalls finding his art homework much improved by her hand overnight, once.

She attended Margaret Street Art College in Birmingham where she trained as a dress designer. Some of her original drawings survive but this career was short lived. One left-over from this career was a dressmaker’s dummy which lived in an attic room for many years and scared occasional visitors if the light was gloomy.

She loved fashion and clothes and was always very smartly turned out.

She met Jim Tilley after the war when he was still in the RAF.

She was engaged to someone else at the time. But a mutual male friend brought Jim along to meet Lesley one evening. They married at Edgbaston Old Church in 1950 - the marriage lasted 49 years until his death in 1999.

The relationship introduced her to Dad’s sister Brenda, a kindly woman with what today would be described as learning difficulties. She lived with the family until Jim’s death. It also began her 50 year relationship with Jim’s family home, 107 Oakfield Road - a huge Victorian house maintained, just about. She therefore found herself looking after part, then all, of this rambling place. The existence of rooms over the garages and bells in each room in the main house suggested that the building had been used to a team of staff. She developed as a cook and did a Cordon Bleu cookery course. Jim was a very traditional eater so pasta and curry never got a look in. But meals were always great.

It was an exciting playground for Steve and Jacquie to be born into in the 1950s and Lesley admitted that she loved being a mother.

She was one of the few people to have hated the day when the kids went back to school at the end of the summer. Steve and Jacquie’s school friends speak of her kindness and welcome.

She loved having young people around her and Steve and Jacquie were encouraged to invite friends round and they were always greeted enthusiastically. Jacquie remembers endless school holidays spent with friends running around in the attic rooms and playing French cricket in the garden. Steve's football skills spoiled many fine flowers and shrubs.

As the children grew up and became independent she gave herself to entertaining and charity work, hosting many fund raisers for various causes. She was particularly active raising awareness and funds for Kidney Research; at the time a not very fashionable cause.

She was a keen supporter of both children’s chosen careers, vocally and emotionally supporting Jacquie when she went away to Art College and Steve when he was ordained.

When grandchildren came on the scene in the 1980s she threw herself into being a grandma. Ben and Jon recall how excited she always was to see them. Spending holidays with grandma and grandpa involved many days out and, of course, that house to explore.

She was part of the fellowship at St Stephen’s, Selly Park and much in demand as a baby-sitter, not least by the clergy.

She also enjoyed occasional travels - especially a trip to see her cousin Doreen in Los Angeles.

Jim died after a stroke and she was devastated. It took sometime to persuade her to downsize but she made a new home in Kelton Court. She made friends and joined the community here at St George’s for a few years. She was happy here until it became clear that her increasing confusion was the onset of dementia.

She was first cared for in her house by regular care visitors and fine neighbours. Eventually she needed residential care and Neville Williams have looked after her for the last few years, patiently dealing with a client who insisted on being known as Mrs Tilley, not Lesley.

Grateful thanks to all, paid and unpaid, who have rallied round. After having her two COVID jabs she tested positive although remained symptomless. She seemed somewhat indestructible but then on June 13th she fell asleep in her chair for the last time. Let’s face it; it’s how we’d all choose to go.

Steve Tilley and Jacquie Clinton

June 2021

Billy Franks - an Appreciation

Whilst it seems disgracefully tardy to write an obituary four years after someone's death this will be as much about me as about the deceased. Also, which is a tough thing to admit about someone I admired so much, I didn't know Billy had died until last week.

Back to the beginning of the reason for writing this, then back to the beginning of the story.

On Easter Day, often a day when I get out of bed and step onto a conveyor belt of ministry delivery, I was in lock-down. The coronavirus COVID19 had caused the country to isolate its citizens and ban public meetings, including church services. I had put all necessary services online the previous day and I had nothing to do. From somewhere this quote arrived:

'What I would give
For what it could be
Touching or touched by
A far more tender glory'

As quotes do it resonated with me more than any words I could conjure myself. Taken from the Faith Brothers song 'That's just the way that it is with me' the lyrics reveal a person comfortable in their own presence:

'How in sweet solitude I listen to my soul singing...'

The song is on their 1987 second album 'A Human Sound'.

I put it on Facebook, adding Billy Frank's name. Later that morning, but still early, a clergy friend asked if she could use the quote in a sermon and might I attribute it, which I did.

So that whole process got me reminiscing a bit and I listened to some Faith Brothers music on my morning walk. What a joy it was. Returning home I realised that I had never utilised the full force of Google on the Faith Brothers. So I did. And discovered that Billy had been dead, since 2016. His death disappeared in a year that claimed so many big names. I also discovered his solo work, previously missed by me in Q reviews, newspaper reviews, radio airplays or simply gossip. And I also began to feel that Billy had sound-tracked my ministry from the sidelines. I have many little memories of the last thirty five years attached to Faith Brothers songs.

Right. Back to the beginning of the beginning, which is Nottingham, Rock City October 21st 1985 and, ordained a year, myself and a mate, curate in the next door parish, have a night off to see REM. Two supports are described on Wikipedia for that night but either Pleasure Device were completely forgettable or we arrived too late. But we did see the Faith Brothers.

I don't think I'm reading too much back into the story; I wouldn't have gone out and bought their first album if I wasn't impressed. So my memory is of a crisp sound, a very small drum kit making a remarkable noise, a tight band and, unusually in 1980s rock, a brass section of trumpet and sax. Also the songs. The songs. Short. Crafted. Some enigmatic aspects to the lyrics I could discern. Whether I discerned or not they started that tour with Eventide, the first track on their first album of the same name. It is a quiet, acoustic ballad on the album; a joyful and gloriously uptempo song live:

'History handed down like big brother's clothes
Madmen and giant's cast-offs
Stretched and frayed or tailor-made?'

There is a gig from BBC In Concert 1985 on Spotify which gives a flavour of what I would have experienced that night.

REM were great later, but that support band. I needed to know more. And the only way to have done that, I conclude, would have been to go to a big record shop and browse. So that I must have done.

At home I played that record a lot and also bought A Human Sound, their second album, which came out in 1987. It included a critique of traditional church:

'In an old place for the first time
I heard the fed talk about hunger
Telling tales of loaves and fishes
I heard the wealthy read the book of common prayer.'
(You Can't Go Home Again)

In a period where Conservative politics had no real opposition Billy didn't so much shout from the left as stick up for the voiceless whoever they were.

I inflicted both those two albums on a church youth group around that time and, when I found out that the band were supporting Julian Cope at Rock City, took one of them with me to see them. Remember when that was not thought to be a stupid thing to do? Anyway that young member is now the Archbishop's advisor on Evangelism so hey.

Back at Rock City the Faith Brothers gave me one of those rare occasions where the support blew away the headline. One of only two gigs where the support act has got an encore. The other, should you care, was when I saw Genesis supporting Caravan in 1972.

And now we have an intermission. No more albums but I played those two regularly. In the days when you had to record your albums onto tape to play them in the car I had A Human Sound on one side of a C90 and a metal band called FM on the other. Junior Tilley, borrowing the tape aged about 8, managed to press 'record' in the middle of the album when listening to it in his bedroom and never owned up until we all heard the evidence on a long car journey.

In the late 1980s I read Mark Ashton's' Christian Youth Work' a seminal book at the time. I wrote in the margin, next to a section where he had been lamenting the lack of protest songs (recalling the days of Bob Dylan and his own youth) and I noted that the Faith Brothers did so. There was no lack of protest songs; they simply didn't get played.

The albums survived a move to the north-east from Nottingham and came back to Leamington Spa, still played regularly enough, but on arrival in Nailsea the record deck broke and we didn't replace it until my darling family bought me a new one for a significant birthday. So I probably went six or seven years without. But of course, by 2012 there was Spotify and so the vinyl could be kept but spared. There's something about holding a vinyl sleeve in your hands though. It means something.

Somewhere in the midst of this a popular author I enjoy, Christopher Brookmyre dedicated a new novel to Billy Franks. Since Brookmyre is a bit lefty in his politics it had to be my hero. I love those moments when one of your heroes declares another of your heroes their hero too.

And so to last Easter Sunday, when I Googled and Spotified Billy Franks and found he had died. RIP someone I feel close to and would have loved to have been friends with. Your words will keep me thinking about you until the day I die too.

I listened to your songs again and anew and for a moment the tears gushed. You once said 'Love is a welcome pain'. Trying to translate I hear the tales of a Catholic boy:

'As I refuse to choose between solid and heavenly thrones .. why should I go to mass?'
(Mass)

(Was there more to that Faith Brothers name then I imagined?)

...an introvert, a wordsmith, possibly a sufferer of early bereavement, coming to terms with his own personality, perhaps resigning himself to a lack of recognition which many of us felt he deserved. And everyone very quiet about the cause of his sudden death.

On YouTube is a documentary film about Billy's friends trying to persuade famous artists to record a tribute to an unknown songwriter. The film cuts back, again and again, to Billy speaking between songs at an intimate pub gig. Towards the end he confesses that we are listening to a man whose dreams didn't work out. The film is called Tribute This. One of the Executive producers is Chris Brookmyre.

But my current treat is the discovery of several solo albums and an extra live show on Spotify. I haven't listened to them all yet. Truth be told I can't bear the thought of having finished Billy's back catalogue.

My tears are for a life taken early, a world trapped in lock-down and the vaguest hint of a feeling that my dreams didn't all work out either. I'm seeking an inner willingness to own that and be all right with it.

'The true are free, the corrupt are lonely
That's my belief
Left to scavenge for scraps of beauty in this junkyard'
(Whistling in the Dark)

Yeah. Me too. Thanks Billy Franks and the Faith Brothers. I'll keep you close. He wrote a book. I've ordered it.

Jake Black RIP

Who, you may ask? He's the guy who did most of the spoken word bits and not a few cosy harmonies on the wonderful output of the Alabama 3. If you haven't been keeping up there's usually about eight or nine of them and they're from Brixton. They blend cool country, acid-house, gospel, techno blues with quite a lot of scotch and a few things less legal (in my humble opinion from row 15).

Still not there. OK the band who did the Woke Up This Morning theme tune from The Sopranos. They always included it in their live set and boasted it kept them fed.

Jake Black performed as his alter-ego the Rev'd D Wayne Love, a Presleytarian minister of the church of St Elvis the Divine. They used many Christian influences in their songs. Indeed the opening track on their first album Exile of Coldharbour Lane was called Converted and include the singalong gospel couplet:

Let's go back to church, let's go back to church
Been so damn long since we sang the song, let's go back to church

My Name is Johnny Cash, a tribute to a great influence, suggested that the country singer was around at the time of Jesus:

I was there when they crucified the Lord
I said to Jesus 'Hello, I'm Johnny Cash'

Blasphemy. Well maybe yes and maybe no but I ain't gonna take offence.

The first time I saw them, in Oxford, they supported themselves with an unplugged set of paired down versions of their best tunes. Their live gigs were fabulous entertainment and still will be without the good Rev'd. I had a bit of a personal bet then that their lifestyle would stop short of sixty years of age in many cases. D Wayne was 59. In this video he is on backing vocals. Find many live examples on YouTube.

Full obituary from the Guardian is here.

RIP Cyrille

Many words have been written today about the sad, early death of footballer Cyrille Regis. I won't add much. My memory of seeing him play is of a man who saw football as a simple game. Push the ball past your opponent and then run faster than him. If he caught up with you don't fall over; make him do so.

He was one of the few players to command the respect of four local-rival Midlands teams - Wolves, West Brom, Coventry and Villa. Although I think us Baggies got the best years of his career.

My one anecdote that others may not know is this. About fifteen years ago Cyrille played in a charity match between a Coventry All-Stars team and Leamington FC. Our diminutive, but nippy full-back, nutmegged Cyrille and ran off down the wing.

Returning to his position Cyrille wandered over to little Johnny Burgess and said, 'You only get to do that once son, alright?'

For a polite and gentle giant it was said in the single most menacing way I have ever heard something that wasn't an actual threat issued at a game. Johnny did not do it again. I have no idea what would have happened if he had. It reminded me a little of a parent saying 'I'm going to count to three...' You never let them get there.

RIP Big Cyrille. Thanks for the memories.

Martin McGuinness

One of the things I hate about modern political discourse is the failure of 'sides' to express their 'opponents' position as strongly as possible before disagreeing with it. Points scoring is cheap and nasty. Proper listening and understanding moves everyone forward.

So to Martin McGuinness. He is someone who, if forced to identify such a person, I would have said was my enemy in 1972-4. The IRA tried to kill me. They missed by a day, blowing up a Birmingham pub I had frequented the night before. I didn't lose any friends but my home city lost its vibrancy for a bit.

When he embraced the idea of politics to move things forward there was a lot of suspicion. I think rightly so. Whenever anyone has a change of heart it takes a while to be convinced. Those who suffered at his organisation's hands are clearly going to be the last people to forgive. And so we hear Lord Tebbit still expressing hate, as we might expect from a man who was seriously injured by a bomb which killed some of his colleagues and paralysed his wife for the rest of her life in 1984.

When people who once breathed out murderous threats stop threatening (Saul /St Paul anyone?) it is hard to get on board with them.

Nobody, to my mind, has touched on one thing that would have been hardest for Martin McGuinness. He had to take the IRA with him. That this was difficult was emphasised by a batch of atrocities committed by the 'Continuing IRA' as the peace process began.

I was brought up to hate Irish Republicanism. I never grasped their complaints. I did not have their case put to me as strongly as possible. They had no face in the media and for a time their words were spoken, on the news, only by actors.

It was, of all places, on the sleeve notes of an album by a fine band That Petrol Emotion, that I read the material produced here.

High unemployment, job discrimination, gerrymandering of political boundaries, a derisory public housing provision and the linking of the right-to-vote with a property qualification led in 1967 to the formation of a broadly based non-political and non-sectarian civil rights movement composed of all shades of non-Unionist opinion. By peaceful protest demonstrations, it demanded such reforms as 'one-man one-vote' (universal suffrage), an anti-discrimination act, reform of local government and the abolition of the draconian Special Powers Act.

On October 5 1968, a peaceful civil rights march in Derry (including parents and members of the band) was brutally attacked by the Royal Ulster Constabulary on the instructions of the Unionist-controlled Stormont Government. This was followed by the organised attack of a peaceful student march from Belfast to Derry by Unionist extremists setting a precedent of anti-nationalist violence in the subsequent months and culminating in the British Government's decision to draft in its troops to uphold 'law and order'.

In the face of such belligerent intransigence, it was a small step from demanding civil rights to demanding a complete severance of ties from Britain and the establishment of a socialist Irish state. The resurgence of the Irish Republican Army, largely dormant from the late '50's, heralded an age where constitutional politics went from sick-joke status to complete irrelevancy for the Nationalist community...

(End of the Millennium Psychosis Blues -  Virgin Records Ltd 1988)

For the first time I understood why Northern Irish Republicans felt as they did. I related it to the appalling sentiment expressed in Psalm 137 (the bit we rarely emphasise) that the Israelite who dashed Babylonian babies against the rocks would be happy so doing.

I am not condoning what many chose to do thereafter; merely showing a strong expression of the Republican case.

In the 1980s and 1990s, some back channel work went on, quite counter to the 'We don't talk to terrorists' sound-bite regularly wheeled out by politicians. If someone is so angry they will gladly dash the heads of innocent babies against the rocks it behoves us to find out why in any way possible. It was very brave of some people to do this.

McGuinness never revealed where the bodies were buried. I don't know, but I imagine, that at every step after renouncing violence his own life was in danger from those who didn't want to do that. Especially when they saw him and Ian Paisley laughing together and being nicknamed the Chuckle Brothers.

So, for me, he was not a good man, nor a bad man, but a man of contradictions. Some of the truth he took with him to the grave. I understand those who don't want him ever to rest in peace. And those who do.

RIP Rev'd Roly Bain

I was sad to hear of the death of Roly from cancer. I didn't know him well enough to write an obituary but I wanted to share one thing that stuck with me.

In the 1990s there was a service at Stoneleigh to celebrate the anniversary of the Diocese of Coventry.

There was a procession to an outdoor stage and robed senior diocesan clergy made their way there. Amongst them was Roly who had been a guest for the day. As the Bishop and co sat on their stage seats Roly wandered amongst them, looking deliberately confused and producing a feather duster. He proceeded to dust all the bigwigs.

It remains with me as a picture of the necessary progress required in the Church of England.

RIP Thin White Aladdin Starman Hero

I managed to avoid what might have been one of the greatest disappointments of my life. A friend of mine had agreed to purchase Bowie tickets for a gig at Birmingham Town Hall. The friend was not reliable and kept telling me he had left them at home. Eventually my friend Keith and I arranged to meet him outside the Town Hall before the gig. He never showed. It was June 1973. Last month at school.

There was a tout. Although the sums will seem odd to you, we paid 50% and 75% over the marked price; £1 tickets for £1.50 and £1.75. We got in. It was a great, great gig; a performance and a cabaret. No support. It had an interval, during which I left my Upper Gallery seat and sneaked into the standing area at the back of the stalls. At one point Bowie's all-in-one gown was pulled apart, by two roadies, revealing a skimpier garment. He wore it on Top of the Pops once. My father-in-law's harrumph lives with me to his day.

I wasn't an early adopter of Bowie. Starman was my in:

There's a Starman

Waiting in the sky

He'd like to come and meet us

But he thinks he'd blow our minds

There's a Starman

Waiting in the sky

He's told us now to blow it

Cos he knows it's all worthwhile 

He told us

Let the children lose it

Let the children use it

Let all the children boogie.

Bowie leant on guitarist Mick Ronson as they shared a mic in a pose that only asked questions about sexuality but answered none.

The other side of the vinyl single was the excellent Suffragette City, re-introducing wham bam thank you ma'am to the vocabulary of youth culture after a short break.

I met the current Mrs T shortly after that gig. She was one of a group of girls' school sixth formers who played Hunky Dory all the time. Andy Warhol was my favourite track.

Tributes today have used the word 'reinvention' to describe what Bowie did. In fact he seemed to me to write lots of new and innovative music, never restricted by the limits of any one genre, and he developed a character to show off that music on stage and, later, on video, each time.

We saw him again at Bingley Hall, Stafford in 1975 on a short tour. The sound system was so muffled it was two minutes in before we knew he was playing Heroes. The second half of the set was heard from the medical room as a hot day and a mosh pit got the better of my sister.

I guess he fell off my radar a little until the mid-eighties and then the amazing new sound of Let's Dance stuck Bowie back in the serious limelight.

From then on, every time you wrote him off he re-appeared. I heard his new album last Friday and it sounded amazing. The lyrics to one track, Lazarus, a character in John's Gospel resuscitated by Jesus, suggest that even death can sometimes be played with.

The stars of my youth were all only a little older than me. Which means that those who provided the soundtrack which pulled me from teenager to young adult are now departing.

When things like this happen, all too often, I play this song by a man who died too young about a man who died too young.

And looking for clothes to wear this morning I saw my brightest trousers. They are blue, blue, electric blue. Had to wear them. Later, pulling up at traffic lights, I heard a pedestrian whistling Life on Mars. This death is ubiquitous.

RIP Don Humphries

Sad to hear of the passing of the man responsible for my coming to faith and being ordained. This is not an obituary. It is an appreciation of someone who I was profoundly influenced by for about fourteen years but haven't really stayed in touch with. I think my story may be echoed by many others.

When I first met Don I was sixteen and he was a curate in his late twenties. He was serving his title (as the expression goes) at my home church of St Stephen's, Selly Hill. I did not go to church but responded to an invitation to a Youth Service, run and promoted by the church youth group he led called Cross Section. The week after the service Don called round to my house to follow up. He invited me to a games night and a Bible Study. He also spent most of the time watching Wimbledon on the tele, specifically asking my Mum not to turn it off, and, when he came in from work, arguing with my Dad about the proof of the existence of God. Don wore a leather jacket which made me think he was cool for a vicar and my unconvinced Dad must be wrong.

The curate's house at 114 Cherrington Road was a semi-detached with three bedrooms. I was once there for a Bible study with 78 members (we counted them). We broke into three groups - one in the lounge, one in the dining room and one in Don's bedroom. I think some people sat in the front garden and smoked. Do not read 2015 Safeguarding advice back into 1971.

In the holidays (when not doing houseparties) he got the youth group to do decorating jobs around the church and hall. We even decorated a probation hostel.

The Cross Section programme card for the summer I joined and a venture badge

 

Don managed to get young people from Selly Oak Boys School and King Edward's (direct grant, examination entry) happy in each other's company. There are probably more people in full-time ministry from a non-Christian background as a result of Don's ministry than any other clergyperson in the C of E. CYFA groups do not have to be mono-cultural.

For his thirtieth birthday the girls of Cross Section took Don shopping and bought him a second pair of trousers. He wore them for many years.

Don was an evangelist. He challenged everyone to Christian commitment. Everyone. His methodology was delightfully simple. He ran CYFA (Church Youth Fellowships Association) houseparties, now called Ventures, in the school holidays. He persuaded you to go. If you were too old to be a member he got you to help cook. He knew that on the houseparties you would hear two talks a day on aspects of the Christian life with one strong challenge to turn to Christ and a further one to wholeheartedness. He gave these two talks himself. He wanted you to reach such a stage of committed faith by age 18 that you could become a leader. He told Liz not to commit to me until I shared her faith.

Once 'promoted' to leader he trained you as a leader. After a few years of leadership he asked you to consider ordination. He did this to me in a gym equipment store room in 1978 as we were putting chairs away.

He insisted that speakers keep to a precise length but never managed it himself.

Here's the funny thing. There is a small army of us out here, who learned things under Don's tutelage and pretty-much decided never to do most of them that way. I have an image in my head of me doing lunchtime notices at Clarendon and Don snapping his fingers to make me go faster. I was trying to learn wit while he taught speed. His houseparties ran to a tight timetable. We also joked that his gift of encouragement ran to 'Steve, may I encourage you never to do that again.'

But we did learn that he hated stuffy rooms. Entering any room we could usually anticipate the command to 'Open the windows'.

He taught us wisely how to set up a room for a meeting. Chairs should face the dullest wall.

We also learned that once the houseparty leaders had got all the young people to bed those not with them in dorms went out for Chinese food.

His Bible study methodology was to ask a million questions. If he didn't agree with an answer he'd ask what anyone else thought.

The inside pages

In the leaders meeting after the morning meeting on the venture everything from the previous day was reviewed. So that we learned from all the mistakes and so that speakers learned to take criticism. It was a harsh environment but we learned not to be too defensive about errors.

Throughout his next three appointments, as chaplain at Warwick University, Vicar of Christ Church, Bedford then Holy Trinity, Cambridge, recruiting people to houseparty work continued to be the thrust of his evangelistic ministry, alongside recruiting teams to run missions around the country. Others will say more about that period of his life, his family and ministry.

Don did not enjoy good health. A nasty pancreatitis in the mid 70s required major surgery. In later life he endured Parkinson's Disease. Brandishing a knife, with a hand tremble, to cut the wedding cake at his marriage to Sarah he remarked to us all, 'There may be casualties'.

Don was a third generation of houseparty leader following Eric 'Bash' Nash at Iwerne Minster in the 1940s and 50s then Ken Habershon at Limpsfield in the 1960s and 70s. In 1985 Bob and Ann Clucas, Dunc and Gilly Myers and us Tilleys joined generation four (begun, I believe, by Steve Allen and Steve Wilcockson) when we started Great Ayton. I stopped in 2002 but Bob and Ann continue, although the venture has moved sites many times.

Don taught us to be leaders by joining in a project to do something for young people. We were taken away not for lectures and reading but to work in a team. We worked ridiculously hard and faced some unbelievably difficult situations. We learned to work out what to do because we were trusted at a young age to get on with it. In 1984 he was unwell on day one so he told (not asked, told) me to lead the venture. He had prepared me for this moment in a thousand brief conversations. I wasn't overawed. He also told the team I was in charge. I was then the same age he had been when I met him.

We discussed and prayed a lot. You will note the regularity of prayer on the term card for Cross Section.

Don's commentary on our work was often critical, but he made good people great. He ironed out the minor faults with direct words.

I am profoundly grateful to him. What Would Don Do? has been a helpful question to accompany thirty years of ordained ministry.

OK everyone. That's enough reading.

Washing up.

Don's funeral will be on Tuesday 10th November.

RIPBB

Before I heard you play at all
Your face adorned my bedroom wall
A pull-out poster which came free
With Sounds, or was it NME?

But then, with no appropriate shoes
I learnt the simple twelve bar blues
Your grimace looked down from afar
At bent notes on my air guitar

An anthem from the southern poor
Played on the step outside the door
You woke up every morning down
The dog had died; the girl skipped town

You proudly told the newsroom hoards
You'd never really mastered chords
So U2's Bono, your new chum
Did Rattle while you offered Hum

Not for you the rock or roll
The blues is meant to take a toll
So now you're gone; we'll grieve away
A slow one in the key of A

That Gibson is at last unplugged
The road crews' gear no longer lugged
The final feedback fades and falls
There won't be any curtain calls

Love came to town, you caught the train
We'll never see your like again
Your peers acknowledged you number one
Woke up this morning BB - gone

RIP Phil Hughes and some thoughts on his passing

So sad to hear that Australian cricketer Phil Hughes has died following a blow to the head by a cricket ball. A cricket ball travelling at ninety miles an hour is a dangerous thing but the huge advances in protective equipment worn by players makes such occasions incredibly rare. But if you have never cradled a cricket ball in your hand you ought to. It is a very solid projectile. One once broke my ankle. I look down at the scar between the fingers of my right hand where a ball split the webbing. I caught it though.

I have been pretty focused on the Old Testament for the last few months. Morning Prayer lectionary readings took us through 1 and 2 Samuel then 1 and 2 Kings. My church has been studying Exodus and my small home group, Genesis.

Many people observe dramatic differences between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New. I observe dramatic differences between the people of the Old and the people of the New (and the people of today). A collection of books (which the Bible is) containing stories spanning two millennia will inevitably show some major cultural change.

The sport of the Middle Bronze Age was war. You tested your strength against the neighbours in a time when land boundaries were being stretched, established and fixed.

What does Goliath say to David? Not much more than 'Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough.'

Saul has killed his thousands
David his tens of thousands

This too is a football chant.

Our leader is better than the King.

The sport of kings is a description often made of hunting pursuits. The Romans fixed combat as a sport by building huge stadia in which people gathered to watch warriors try to kill each other. Combat, jousting and contact team games are all anteceded by warfare.

We have moved on. We (by which I mean society) still like team games and one-on-one competition. Boxing and wrestling are the two where the focus is most on hurting each other but subtle rules make sure the pain is limited and the potential damage minimal. But boxers are maimed and die from time to time.

Rugby has an unbelievable care for rules and opponent. Witness the huddles after games of mutual appreciation. But when the whistle blows there is much made of the 'big hit'. Hugely perfected physiques try very hard to stop each other with extremely violent blocks and tackles. American football is the culmination of this process; guys hit each other much harder than they otherwise would because their own protective clothing becomes not a defensive matter but a shock-absorber which allows them to thud and crunch into each other with greater power, velocity and personal safety.

Football also has its nuances. It is often forgotten that page one of the introduction to the game specifies that football is not a physical contact sport but the nature of the game makes some physical contact inevitable. And we are discovering that brain injuries caused by heading an old water-soaked case-ball were more common than we thought. (See the 'Justice for Jeff' campaign re the West Brom striker who died relatively young, probably as a result of heading footballs too often.)

But cricket is complex. Much is made of the failure of outsiders to understand the rules and subtleties. But when a fast bowler has, in his armoury, the possibility of projecting the ball at great speed at the opponent's head, deliberately, you have to say that this will only serve to intimidate or unnerve the opponent if it carries with it the prospect of serious injury or death. Hard to imagine that players used to face such a barrage without helmets but I am old enough to remember the days.

So, did Phil Hughes die because of a failure of protective equipment? Possibly, and it may be the case that even more protection will be offered. But this will greatly increase the weight of a helmet and may make avoiding the ball harder.

No. Phil Hughes died because part of the game of cricket, and some other games, involves trying to kill each other. It rarely happens but it is a possibility. It is sad but true. I am sure he knew the risk. Combating a dangerous bowler who was trying to maim him was part of the attraction.

I wonder if the bowler will be wanting to try and kill again though? Because if that's not what he's trying to do, why aim at the head?

RIP Brenda Tilley

My Aunty Brenda died on Wednesday. She was 94, or maybe 95.

When I was a child she lived with my family. She was my father's sister.

Brenda caught viral meningitis aged twelve. She recovered but mentally she developed no further. I image the diagnostic skills and help available in 1931/2 were not that precise.

My mother tells of the day she first encountered Brenda on being taken back to my Dad's home to meet his family. 'How old is your sister?' she asked, 'Fourteen or fifteen?' She was looking at a girl wearing a pinafore dress and playing in the garden. She was twenty-six.

Thanks to the goodwill of her father's business she was able to work in an office, without qualifications, for many years. She did basic filing and secretarial work, retiring in her late fifties.

The house I grew up in was left jointly to her and my father after their mother died in about 1958 or so. The living arrangements, which had seen me and my parents live on the first floor as a separate flat and Brenda and her Mum live downstairs, were changed. Brenda lived in a two room bedsit on the first floor and we lived in the rest of the house, joined by my sister about the same time.

Having an Aunty Brenda, who popped her head round the door two or three times a day, was normal for me. She usually coincided her little trips to family mealtimes - she liked to see what we were eating.

She was a creature of habit. She visited her sisters on particular days of the week, joined us for meals on family celebrations, ate at the same time each day. When she went to Selly Oak, a Birmingham suburb, she was one of the last people I knew to refer to it as 'Going up the village'. She attended St Stephen's, Selly Park for the evening service each week, sitting in the same pew all the time.

I won't pretend this was an easy arrangement for my folks - there were rows about tidiness and cleanliness. She wasn't very good at cleaning her cooker so upstairs ponged a bit sometimes.

She loved the TV soaps, adored the pianist Russ Conway but beyond that was a person of simple taste and few diversions. For many years she prided herself on not eating chocolate but in later life her willpower flagged.

She was my godmother. I still have, and use, a copy of the Book of Common Prayer she gave me as a baptism gift (aged 4 months).

Don Humphreys persuaded her to come on a CYFA Venture (holiday houseparty for teenagers) at Clevedon as a cook. She did it once only though.

After Dad died my Mum and Brenda sold the house. Brenda lived independently for a year or two but then had a hip operation from which she did not fully recover. She ended her days in Selly Park Nursing Home. Her remaining family gathered for her 90th birthday, which she seemed to enjoy, but since then she has barely communicated or recognised us. My cousin Gordon, many years older than me, has been a great support to his Aunt in her last years.

RIP.

RIP Lady Thatcher

It is interesting hearing and reading the assessment of the Thatcher legacy. My young adulthood corresponded with Thatcher. I grew up in a Conservative voting family and married a girl from the same. 1979 was the first election where I had a chance to register a vote about which I had thought. I was 18 in 1973 and so had a couple of early elections where I voted for Ted Heath. He was, I think, my sort of conservative - arts patronage, euro-friendly and willing to take on the Trades Unions. Tweaked stuff but didn't try to redesign everything. He was seen as pompous (because he was a sailor and an orchestral conductor) and lost a second election to Harold Wilson. But I voted for him because my family did and we hosted Conservative Association fund-raisers. MP Harold Gurden was a family friend in the late 60s early 70s.

There then followed five years, 1974-79 where a Labour Government tried to stand up to Trades Union power and lost. Their restriction on public-sector wage rises led to massive strikes, a three day week, the potential of petrol rationing (coupons were issued but not used), power cuts, uncollected refuse and dead bodies not being buried. It was impossible to imagine that this could be turned round without a change of government. Callaghan succeeded Wilson.

If you want to know what it really felt like to live in the 1970s political world read Andy Beckett's excellent When the Lights Went Out (What Really Happened to Britain in the Seventies). And to grasp the 1980s which followed I suggest Jonathan Coe's novel What a Carve Up.

Thatcher only got a majority of forty-three in 1979. Some were obviously prepared to continue the war of attrition against the power of the unions. But she offered no beer and sandwiches at 10 Downing Street. She blamed Trades Unions for all Britian's problems.

Her 1979 Saatchi slogan Labour isn't Working was genius but sadly the unemployment figures never came back down below the one million mark she had mocked, throughout her entire spell in charge. (The unemployment rate had five out of eighteen years when it was marginally lower than pre-1979). After three years when it almost doubled 1979-1981 inflation came down to nearer to the levels we experience today, but unemployment was part of the price. The other was interest rates which were kept high at around 10 or 11% the whole of her Premiership. Good news for savers; bad for borrowers.

I think that any change would have made a difference and what happened next owes more to luck and tipping points than anything else. Anyone who has seen the film 'Being There' in which Peter Sellers' character Chauncey Gardiner (who is a gardener and speaks in gardening metaphors) is mistaken for a wise political philosopher and promoted to high office will feel they know Mrs T's story too. Thatcher was at the right place in the right time.

She was single-minded. She took on the unions and saw the battle through. Not by allowing a fight to the death but by making their activity (such as secondary picketing) illegal and closing the 'closed shop' in which one could not work in a particular industry without belonging to a union. This allowed an employer to bring others in to do work when the workforce was on strike and thus removed a load of the union power at a stroke.

Me in late 1970s

The idea of ridiculous wage claims (the merchant seamen, I recall, put in for 90% to the Heath Government) disappeared at a stroke.

Now this was divisive and unpopular. Slowly removing state backing and subsidy from many industries, when our international competitors were not, devastated many communities, especially in Scotland and the north of England. She was heading for the out-door.
There were riots in 1981 on a scale not previously seen.

In order to be re-elected she needed another lucky break and got it with a just-about winnable war. Not many politicians would have had the arrogance to go for the Falklands and the advice from around the world was that she should not. She ignored the lot and 1982's victory saw her popularity get a short-term surge.

Max Hastings says she could only have done what she did at that particular moment in history (meaning 1979ff). So maybe if it hadn't been her it would have been someone else like her. The next PM would have been the most memorable of the 20th century because things couldn't go on as they were. That was agreed.

With deregulation of the banks a load of people who had previously been small-timers and market stall holders grasped the idea of working in the pit at the stock exchange, on which they made massive amounts of money. On the back of that they did up their houses and the wages of such as plasterers went up, on which Harry Enfield based his Loadsamoney character. What is often forgotten is that he also had a Geordie character called Boogerallmoney.

Lucky break three was not being killed by the IRA in 1984 in Brighton during the Party Conference season. If she had been in bed rather than accepting persuasion to look at one more set of papers at about 2 a.m. she would probably have died. Sadly she lost some friends and colleagues that day but her survival enabled her to go to Conference the next day on time as if nothing had happened.

Add this to the tipping point that enough people had now gained. A selfish democracy, house-owning and small business booming, voted for their own gain not for the whole country to gain, and elected her once more in 1987.

I think she was a determined, arrogant house-wife who could get things done. Some of the things were good, some were bad, some had long-term consequences of which no-one dreamt (who considered building council houses to replace the sold-off ones? who thought that market de-regulation would give us a porn industry to dominate the internet?) and some made a shift-change in the world.

And on that global stage no-one knew how to deal with her and so internationally she was able to intervene in the Cold War with a determination that, coming from a woman, was somehow not threatening. She wooed them all and got Reagan and Gorbachov to get on.

I grew to hate her political ideology. Doing something about our inner-cities for her seemed to involve architecture not community. In fact she thought there was no such thing as society and in a stroke promoted selfishness. The successful climbed over the bodies of those who had lost everything. She didn't seem to notice or care.

Fourth piece of happen-stance. In 1983 and 1987 there was no electable opposition. Michael Foot's Labour Party couldn't get the attention of the masses. The formation of the SDP in 1981 until its merger with the Liberals in 1988 divided the left. A few thousand votes leaking from Labour to the SDP in my constituency of Nottingham North in 1987 got the sitting Tory back in by a 300 majority. This was repeated around the country. Her majority became three figures for the next two victories, although never up to the levels of new Labour's landslides of 1997 and 2002.

Her theology sucked. She spoke the prayer of St Francis on arrival and didn't bring harmony out of discord. She refused to forgive those who had dumped her on her eventual departure in 1990. She floored an interviewer by saying the essence of Christianity is choice (it isn't; it's Jesus). She may as well have said the essence is selfishness for all the influence it had upon her. Her compassion was non-existent. She didn't care about collateral damage. She genuinely thought whole northern communities should pull themselves up by their own bootstraps once their pit closed. Norman Tebbit summarised her thinking at the time by telling the unemployed to get on their bikes and look for work like his Dad had.

She said no-one would have remembered the Good Samaritan if he hadn't had any money; a bit like saying no-one would have remembered Alice in Wonderland if she hadn't fallen down a rabbit hole. And missing the point about those who should have shown compassion passing the poor and destitute by on the other side of the road.

So as we listen to the discussion about her legacy we find the country as divided as it was when she led it. For every winner there was a loser. For every success a failure. It is an irregular verb:

I am determined
You are single minded
She is stubborn

Asked about Cameron's coalition government in 2010 she commented, in a rare moment of recent lucidity, 'I'm not in coalition with the Liberals.' Max Hastings comment proves correct.

Significant? Yes. Successful? Yes and no? Great? I can't agree. I'd settle for unique.

RIP Tony Nicklinson

I offer my condolences to Tony Nicklinson's family and friends should any of them encounter this. A few days prior to his death, they accompanied him to the Court of Appeal to hear the result of his action to be allowed the right to assistance in ending his life. They will probably have received the news of his death from natural causes with mixed emotions. Nicklinson was often described as having 'locked-in' syndrome although this expression used to apply to those conscious but totally unable to tell the outside world. Nicklinson could communicate, albeit slowly.

I think the court probably made the right decision in this dreadfully difficult case. It is the tough cases that give us our legal precedents in this country. This one sure was tough. Rational, intelligent and determined, Nicklinson probably ticked all the boxes of someone who, if able to, would have taken his own life without the balance of his mind being disturbed. Yet since he couldn't do more than move his head a little and blink at a key pad it is unlikely that any way could have been found for him to do so. (Could a password-activated lethal injection be possible?)

I'm sure the court, which was accused by the relatives of not taking the matter seriously, would have loved to grant Nicklinson's request. What he wanted was the assurance that anyone who assisted him would not be prosecuted. But if the courts had agreed to this they would have opened the door to relatives with fewer scruples using the precedent to get rid of old, cumbersome and deteriorating family members who still wanted to live. No way could you say the verdict was unconsidered. It was a lazy accusation (if reported accurately). A bit like telling a politician who is not going to do what you want them to do that they are not listening.

Nicklinson did not want to travel to Switzerland for an appointment with Dignitas although he could have done. He wanted to die peacefully, in his own bed, surrounded by those who loved him. As it happened he did although he had to refuse food to get there apparently.

Tragic, complicated and why we have Law Lords. RIP.

RIP Tom Smail

In the mid 1970s The Fountain Trust came to St Stephen's, Selly Park to lead a weekend. At the time this organisation was the vehicle mainly for the teaching of Tom Smail. His book Reflected Glory arose out of such. It was an attempt to put a theology and understanding of the Holy Spirit back on the agenda of a church which had lost it. It was a good weekend. One moment I recall clearly is that one of the speakers asked Tom for a brief input half-way through his session and Tom took over. 'You can sit down now' he said to the original speaker after realising he wasn't going to give the platform back up. It was taken in good spirit. Here was a team working but it was one person's work they were doing.

First lesson from Tom. It's OK for the person in charge to be in charge.

A few years later Tom left Fountain Trust which was closed down. It was set up to do a particular work and when that work was done it was stopped. He joined the staff of St John's College, Nottingham, a theological college training people for ordination, and wrote another book, The Forgotten Father. He taught Christian Doctrine

Second lesson from Tom. When you have done what you set out to do, stop.

Third lesson from Tom. If you see your mission as restoring balance you will be constantly emphasising different things.

In 1981 I went to St John's to train. Some of the lectures were hard. Some were dull. Some felt pointless. Two hours a week with Tom for the first two years, the first on Mondays at 9.10 a.m. I recall, were redemptive. He built our doctrine up from scratch, not ignoring the difficulties those of us from a conservative background would have with more liberal theologians, gently helping us through. I loved his lectures and still re-read my notes from time to time. Seminars were harder. He was smart and a good debater. Those of us who were young and timid found it hard to contribute. He liked the cut and thrust with the more academic students and was not so good at encouraging along the slow stream. But I came top of my year group at doctrine in 1983 and got a comment on an essay from him that began 'I liked this essay a lot.' It still only got 58%. But he had enjoyed reading it. Another helpful piece in the jigsaw that eventually convinced me I could write. (He had told us Barth wouldn't get 70%.)

Fourth lesson. Theology isn't beamed down. It needs building.

Fifth lesson. It doesn't matter how gifted the student; if you tell them you like their work it helps.

Tom went back to parish ministry for a few years before retiring. His congregations would have been well taught.

So thanks Tom. We haven't kept in touch but I am one of your students who is glad to have been in your presence those few short years. RIP

REM RIP

At the request of @steveclarke_ , and following the anouncement of the end of the world as we know it (gerrit?), my top five REM tracks:

All the way to Reno
Imitation of life
Losing my religion
Driver 8
Living well is the best revenge

And my three favourite albums:

Fables of the Reconstruction
Reveal
Accelerate

This was hard; tomorrow the list could be different. The band have given me pleasure over 25 years and I saw them live twice, separated by 20 years. Rock City, Nottingham in about 1987. Michael Stipe so down in the mix and almost singing with his back to the audience. He wore a masonic apron. As an encore they played Wheels (cha cha).

20 years later at Cardiff Arena they played two songs from most of their many albums and lots of Accelerate.

Thanks guys. It's been a blast.

RIP Gil Scott-Heron

I can't get the embed code to work but do take the time to click on this link to a live version of my favourite song by this wonderful artist.

http://youtu.be/0SPj8PRf9Zw

Dancing in the Street

It is fearfully depressing, when terrorists have claimed a sizeable target, to see pictures of rejoicing in the streets. I wish no harm to anyone in the world and find it abhorent to think of someone partying on my demise.

Crowds can often be sensible. Rather than being sad at the number of times there is trouble in a crowd, I often rejoice at the fact that we sociable animals manage to get along well, queueing, not walking into each other and corporately rejoicing or lamenting appropriately.

So I was sad that the death of Osama Bin Laden was met with dancing in the street outside the White House. Silence and humilty would have been better reactions. Regardless of how evil the acts of Bin Laden he has followers who will rally at the sight of a party over his death.

I found it too hard to use the post title RIP but BIH is equally inappropriate. He is gone. He was not acting single-handed. Someone innocent will probably be bereaved soon as a direct result. Be wise in crowds brothers and sisters.

RIP John 'Dazz' Rankin

About 1993 or so I was approached in a bar by a slightly-worse-for-wear guy in a leather jacket who told me a few things that were wrong with the church. That was my first meeting with John Rankin.

Over the years that followed John came into the fold of St Paul's, Leamington and brought his battles with long-term addictions into that community. So well did he do that for a while he was employed as a caretaker and odd-job-man/verger. He helped out with Alpha courses. When fit and well he worked harder than anyone I have known. I found him cleaning the church lounge carpet at 1.00 a.m. once, so it would be nice for a funeral the next day.

He would do jobs for people with pleasure. I told him that local builders couldn't find a matching piece of my small-bore, bay-window guttering and had to replace the lot. John turned up next day with an appropriate piece he'd got from a yard and did the job for £15 and a sandwich.

John could talk. He had seen the world and life. He told great true tales. I never knew if he had obtained any qualifications apart from in the navy but I somehow doubted it. I think he was the smartest and best-read unqualified guy I ever knew. He knew his Bible well and shared his faith humbly. He never said 'Nice sermon' to me but would talk about something that was good or bad. If he spotted an error he would point it out gently.

He was always good humoured with me and my family and we became friends. He called me up every six months or so for a chat after I left Leamington. Despite the fact that from time to time when we lived near each other he used to call round for a chat when it was inconvenient, at six months intervals I always cheered up when I answered the phone to him. He told me of his plans to visit the West Country (his spiritual home and roots) when he got his health and bike fixed. He never made it.

I met some of his other acquaintances and picked up tales of 'Dazz' the ex-matelot. Occasionally friends of Dazz wondered why other people called him John; and vice-versa. The identity change had been part of shaking off the past and starting over.

John came for Christmas dinner for a couple of years and we wondered which of him or my mother would crack first in a talk-off. Victory for Mum. Only time John ever got out-talked.

Two jokes he told me:

Steve I've got a computer now but it's so old windows are still being taxed.

St: Hi John where you been?
John: I'm back from 'nam .
St: Eh?
John: Sydenham

Back in 2003 or so we met for an hour a week for a term. John was aware he could be short-tempered and wanted to talk it through. He was good at disclosure and self-analysis but aware, as an alcoholic, that he was only one failure to resist temptation short of a disaster. He struggled to have sympathy for others who let petty difficulties get on top of them. We had so much in common.

I will miss him. He was an antidote to dullness in every way. My sons, who wondered what had gone wrong the first Christmas he didn't come for lunch, have both sent their condolences. RIP John. The world just got less interesting.

RIP Nicolas Hayek

Who? Well you'd be excused. I didn't know the name until I read the obituary but it was one of those cases where I knew I loved the guy without knowing who he was.

Back in the day watches worked like (excuse this) clockwork. You wound up a spring which powered the device as it uncoiled. They were a bit tick a tick a Timex tra la la dull and unless you had a many-jewelled one they were much of a muchness. The Swiss had a reputation for being the finest watch and clock makers in the world and their time-pieces were associated with leaving gifts or twenty-five years in the buying department acknowledgements. On a 21st birthday you might expect a good watch as a pressie.

Then along came LCD displays, cheap, long-life batteries and Japanese labour and the Swiss looked as if they would have to go back to chocolate making or harbouring war criminals for a living again.

Plans were actually made to wind-up (there I go again, sorry) the Swiss watch industry. Enter Nicolas Hayek. A brainwave here, a buy out there and a sense of fashion everywhere and the Swatch was born. The wonderful Swatch. Cheap but fashionable. Only one needed but collectible. Durable, efficient and cool.

Hayek understood that everything you wear, however functional, can be jewellery. Apart from a couple of gift watches I have received I have used nothing else to tell the time since the mid 1980s. He died last month aged 82. RIP.

Mark Ashton RIP

Sad to see that Mark, who I gather had been suffering from cancer, has died. He was only 62.

Mark Ashton was CYFA Secretary from 1981-1987 (two before me, although the title had changed and so had the job by the time I took it on).

He had worked as a minister in Cambridge since then.

His seminal work, and greatest contribution to youth ministry in this country, was the book Christian Youth Work. In a period when many were beginning to look down on the fellowship model of youth ministry he outlined how it was meant to work, not as a Christian clique but as an outward-looking group of young people who were disicpled that, as part of being an ordinary Christian, one looked out towards those of no faith and invited them in.

In those heady days CYFA National Conferences (usually at Kinmel Hall in North Wales) attracted so many leaders they had to be run on two successive weekends.

Asked, in my early days, to write a vision statement for fellowship model youth work, I could do no better than repeat this, which Mark had sent round in a mailing some years earlier:

CYFA aims to help churches present young people mature in Christ as appropriate for them, using Colossians 1:28 as a key verse in understanding this.

It encourages groups to take these five principles equally seriously to ensure their work is biblical and balanced:

Prayer as the mainstay of the work
Bible as the backbone of the teaching programme
Gospel as the attraction to the group
Relationships as an essential (importance of the individual not the group)
Church as the context for growth

He also, and many of you may wish him ill will for this, at a Venture Leaders training day in about 1985 or 6, taught me the alarm clock joke that has accompanied me on my teaching journey over many years since.

It might be a fitting tribute to him to reinsert some value into the name CYFA as CPAS seem to have lost interest in it. Anyone else up for that?

RIP Mark.