Peter R. Watkins writes:

THE Revd Ronald Paterson, who died on 16 December, aged 93, was the youngest of six children. His father was headmaster in the village of Clonaslee, Queen’s County, otherwise Co. Laois, and retired when Ron was 16, forcing Ron to leave school. He followed his eldest brother into the Navy, and trained as a Boy Second Class in HMS Ganges. He was com­missioned in 1937.

In 1941, his ship was responsible for escorting convoys of merchant ships bringing food from North America, and on convoys to Mur­mansk, for which he was awarded the Arctic Star. Later, his ship supported Operation Torch, the Allied landings in North Africa.

On D-Day, 1944, Ron was assistant beachmaster on Juno Beach. In August, he sailed for the Pacific, and when war ended in August 1945, he saw at first hand the appalling physical condition to which American troops who had been prisoners of the Japanese had been reduced. It was then that he resolved to devote the rest of his life to the causes of peace, justice, and reconciliation.

He would have liked to be or­dained after the war, but, as he had a wife and young family to support, that was not financially possible. So he remained in the Navy until 1958, when he spent a year at Ripon Hall, Oxford. Ordained in 1959 by Lance­lot Fleming, then Bishop of Portsmouth, he served his title at Warblington with Emsworth. After less than three years, he was offered the living of St Bar­nabas’s, Swanmore, and there he re­mained for 23 years, until he retired at the age of 69.

He was the first Vicar of Swanmore for whom the priesthood was a second vocation. Ron encouraged lay people to take a full part in all parish activities, including Sunday worship, and appointed the first female churchwarden. His was a ministry to the whole village; he became vice-chairman of the parish council, and revived the Scouts, the youth club, the tennis club, and the cricket club. He was responsible for rebuilding, in three stages, the church primary school, which meant raising large sums of money.

The latter years of his ministry there were marked by tragedy. His first wife, and then his second, died, both of brain tumours, and his younger son, Andrew, died, having been the youngest person at that time to receive a heart transplant. Through it all, Ron’s pastoral care of the parish deepened, if anything, because he had suffered himself.

Ron retired in July 1985, but re­mained active for many years. He played golf, tennis, squash, and bridge, gardened, and was a Scottish dancer. He took services on most Sundays, and, when well over 90, attended 8-a.m. communion at St Peter’s, Bishop’s Waltham.

When he retired, St Barnabas’s, Swanmore, had just embarked on building a new parish centre to be named after him, the Paterson Centre. It took seven years to build and cost much more than had been expected. When it opened in 1992, there was still a debt of £72,000 on the centre. Ron felt that no building that bore his name should be so encumbered, and he hit on the idea of sponsored pil­grimages.

In 1994, they were to cathedrals near by, and in 1995 to local churches. In 1996, when he was in his 80th year, there was one final pilgrimage, to Alton. Ron accompanied all of them, with pilgrims from the enormous variety of places and activities with which he had been associated. The pilgrimages raised £36,000, and the debt was paid off.

His naval connections also con­tinued. He was chaplain of the D-Day and Normandy Fellowship before he retired, later adding a further six chaplaincies. Only when he was 90 did he relinquish these naval links, which meant so much to him.

At the service of thanksgiving for his life, which took place at St Peter’s, Bishop’s Waltham, naval standards were presented at the be­ginning, and the Last Post and Reveille sounded at the close.