Page 50 - IT'S A RUM LIFE BOOK FOUR Volume 1 "Northcote 1984 to 1998"

Nottingham and leaders of the United Reform Church, Baptist Church, Methodist Church,
Salvation Army and the Society of Friends.

After 1980, it just so happened that I not only represented the Anglican Church community
for the entire diocese of Lincoln but also those members of our own recently formed South
Lindsey Ecumenical Partnership.
When I first attended, Bishop Simon had been installed at Lincoln for some considerable
time and a kinder more gentle man you would be hard put to find.

David had me there ostensibly as assistant Secretary to take all the meeting notes as the
arthritis he suffered in his hands was giving him considerable discomfort.
We travelled together to each meeting, David collecting me initially from Ivy House, New
Bolingbroke and latterly from Northcote.

Those initial meetings were progressive and well founded with good continuous input from
the Ecumenical Officer for Lincolnshire the Revd. David Pink, then Vicar of Canwick
st
(Lincoln) and an ex Padre to my own 1 Boston Sea Scout Troop in his early days as an
ordained Vicar in the Boston District in the late 1950’s!

David was an excellent ambassador, a confirmed ecumenist and we all thought he was
destined for much greater things. (The Ecumenical Officer for England had been
mentioned).

It was during Bishop Simon’s time in office that a semi-national Ecumenical Conference for
all the religious Diocese’ in the centre of England was proposed. It was to be held over a
long week end at Nottingham University.

By this time I was now living at Northcote and still working for Morton’s the Publishers,
getting time off was not easy. The conference president was to be the Archbishop of York
and every member church was represented by their Principals and a number of
ecumenically minded ‘workers’.