It was a privilege and a joy to have known Ian, when we were at Oxford together on the Master of Theology course at Regent's Park College. Ian went on to study for his Doctor of Ministry at King's College, University of London.
He had a great sense of humour, sometimes dry and droll, and sometimes he enjoyed teasing me and pulling my leg. I remember, during Formal Hall on Fridays, some of his anecdotes and amusing tales of life in the Winchester diocese, where he served faithfully. Ian told his jokes with a great sense of timing.
The tale of the late Bishop John V. Taylor and the sherry party really appeals to my sense of humour. Ian told it so well, and the punchline had me in stitches of laughter.
I am glad to hear that his work as part of his D Min has now been published (posthumously by SCM, edited by Dr. Percy). I will read it next month when I go to the Bodleian Library, or perhaps the Pusey Library at St Cross College.
He had a great sense of humour, sometimes dry and droll, and sometimes he enjoyed teasing me and pulling my leg. I remember, during Formal Hall on Fridays, some of his anecdotes and amusing tales of life in the Winchester diocese, where he served faithfully. Ian told his jokes with a great sense of timing.
The tale of the late Bishop John V. Taylor and the sherry party really appeals to my sense of humour. Ian told it so well, and the punchline had me in stitches of laughter.
I am glad to hear that his work as part of his D Min has now been published (posthumously by SCM, edited by Dr. Percy). I will read it next month when I go to the Bodleian Library, or perhaps the Pusey Library at St Cross College.
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Ian died on the same day as my mother, so I was not able to attend his funeral. My mother, had she lived, would have been a hundred this year. I understand that Ian died of the same cancer that killed my father in 1996. My father was a good club cricketer, but not in the class of Ian's son, James, also a bowler.
It came as no surprise to learn than there was a cricket net on one of the rectory lawns for James to practise his bowling.
The sherry party story. When Ian was a young curate in the Winchester Diocese, Bishop John V. Taylor invited all new curates to a sherry party.
An archdeacon came to the Bishop in a state of anxiety and agitation. "My Lord Bishop," he exclaimed, "we have no fruit juice or beverages for the Evangelicals", who were often influenced by the Temperance movement and even considered drinking alcohol to be a vice.
Bishop Taylor nonchalantly commented, "No matter. It's not a problem at all. They can pray for the miracle to be reversed!"
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