Our dad was born OTD in 1925 - traditionally we had to have strawberries and cream to celebrate. Back in the 1960s this would be early in the season so these would be our first and sometimes only strawberries. 
He was born in Wales near @kivetonwales eldest son of a #YorkshireMiner who was determined that none of his children would follow him into the pit, and they didn’t. Dad won Miners’ scholarships to @KingsPontefract and from there to @Kings_Cambridge a two year degree in wartime
His closest brush with sport was to keep score for the school cricket team - he found God (or perhaps it was the other way round) at Uni and started off a theological career which took him to @SCM_Britain and a conference in India where he met our Aussie mum from @australianscm
After the conference they wrote up the report, we think mum actually wrote it up, and headed to their respective homes and were married in Manchester about 18 months later. No email, WhatsApp, FaceTime in the early 50s, just letters and after the wedding they went back to India.
My sisters & I were born between 1955 & 1958 while dad traveled India speaking at Univesities & being ordained in the #ChurchOfSouthIndiaCSI. We left India in 1959 and headed to Geneva and the @Oikoumene via a short stay in Leeds. I can remember the steam train at @kingscrossN1C
Dad worked on anti racism & against apartheid - with his great friend #DrPhilipPotter @Oikoumene I remember Philip visiting us in London, dad was at work about 5 minutes away but Philip talked with mum and left saying “I’ll see Harry at next weeks conference in the Philippines”
We left Switzerland in 1963 having added @BeestonJeremy to our family in 1960, after the bitterly cold winter. We had oilfired central heating & when the tanker turned up in September and asked how much, dad said fill her up. The price was about 6months salary
In London dad worked for the @MethodistGB at the MMS responsible for missionaries in East and Southern Africa - dad’s best mate, #ColinMorris was helping a peaceful independence in #Zambia with his great friend #KennethKaunda but UDI in Rhodesia led to dad being #banned & in #SA
Dad was President oh @MethodistGB and though not teetotal - he liked a glass of sherry and occasionally wine with Sunday lunch - he went dry for his presidential year. He led mountain walks in Cumbria with many Methodists that year #SermonsOnTheMount
His next job @ChurchesEngland when it was the British Council of Churches meant a move to #SloaneSquare and the start of my time in London in the summer of 73.
Mum and dad were regulars at @royalcourt popping home in the interval for coffee, they saw the #AtholFugard trilogy
Mum and dad were regulars at @royalcourt popping home in the interval for coffee, they saw the #AtholFugard trilogy
1970s London was interesting - we heard bombs going off in the Kings Road & at Chelsea Barracks, the NF were on the rise & dad took to graffiti changing NF into DAFT, he was also part of the brokering of the IRA ceasefire at Feakle clareecho.ie/feakle-talks-l…
Dad was much in demand as a preacher as he travelled the country. Only when he left the BCC did he have his own church in Barking. Here he came up against the Met over their racism having arrested a member of his church under #SusLaws. Dad moved in high circles & this was a shock
Then one Saturday in 1980 or 81 he had a massive stroke. He’d been in his study preparing a sermon, mum was marking schoolbooks in another room, she didn’t see him for five hours & went to tell him supper was ready. He’d been lying on the floor as he often did to ease a headache.
He was 55, he was saved by the #OurNHSPeople, but he lost his speech and any movement on his left side. He spent a long time in hospitals including a stroke unit @NHSHomerton in the hot summer of 1981. I remember visiting him in my bus conductor’s uniform and talking about Botham
Ministers live in tied accommodation - if you can’t work the home is needed for someone who can, so Mum & Dad became #SpringboardHA tenants in Bow. Mum became dad’s #Carer & a receptionist at the HA. Dad spent time in @RoyalLondonHosp and attending #speechtherapy in Blackfriars
After a few years mum moved them to a bungalow in Derby, dad stayed in @StJoHospice while she headed north & then I drove him up the M1 and over the Trent. They lived together until 1988 when a few months after the birth of their 1st grandson he died. He was 63, the same age I am
Dad was an imposing personality who I never really got to know, even though I cared for him 1 day a week at the flat in Bow when I was unemployed for a few months - the loss of speech & the fight to find the right word which often came out wrong was very hard. A man of words.
I knew some of his achievements as I lived through them but still found his funeral and memorial service eye opening - it was said he had the body of an Englishman, the mind of an Indian and the heart of an African. He was our dad.
I went looking for photos, there are only copies of copies but I found this characteristically witty piece from Colin Morris at dads memorial service at @WesleysChapel in 1989
Dad used his voice and his mind to make a living and wrote very little down but I’ve found these words of his from his funeral. like dad, I’m not what I appear, none of us are.
I say @threadreaderapp please unroll there’s a good chap
Happy Birthday Dad
