The Ven. J. H. C. Laurence writes:

THE excellent obituary for the Very Revd Christopher Campling (Gazette, 22 January) omitted mention of his enrichment of the C of E liturgy with the publication in 1974 of The Fourth Lesson, two volumes of readings outside scripture for use with the Daily Office. I have just been re-reading it with profit. He was a demon in the squash court, by the way.

Canon M. C. S. Bever writes:

I THANK Bishop Holloway for his obituary for Canon Barney Milligan (Gazette, 5 February), and would like to fill one gap, Barney’s time in St Mark’s, Portsea, one of the great training parishes of that time. Barney came to one of the parish’s daughter churches, St Francis’s, called by one of the vicars “the black hole of the parish”. This was quite unjustified, as it was a flourishing place, if perhaps socially inferior.

Barney (we believed that he was called Barney as he was born on St Barnabas’s Day, but this may be quite wrong) followed two very good parish priests, one of whom was later Archdeacon of Stow. Barney was a quite different character. He had great confidence and vigour. He was capable of being outrageous, or so it might seem to others. But he was very able. He moved us on liturgically very successfully. This was the late 1950s and we had a parish eucharist and nave altar. He could fill this church every Sunday. At Christmas, the Midnight was bursting at the seams. He also helped to nurture vocations, four ordinands in one year.

We all loved him. He could inspire and infuriate, it appeared, in equal measure. And I was told you entrusted your life to the Almighty if you travelled in the car with him.

Much of our progress we owe to Barney. He was a one-off and we thank God for him.

Shobana Jeyasingh Evans writes:

ANY obituary of Fr Allan Scott (Gazette, 5 February) would be incomplete without the view from the pew. He was simply an inspiring priest who invested the liturgy with a sense of urgency and purpose. The opening of the Gloria was always delivered with an instinctive rise to the toes. He was a celebrant in every sense, of life and especially of people. He often said that his church should look like the queue of the number 73 bus which stopped outside — a mix of ordinary folk of many races. He had the passion and the skill to achieve just that.