A correspondent writes:
THE Revd Ivor Smith-Cameron died peacefully on 20 March at Limetree Care Centre, not far from his home at the top of Brixton Hill, in south London. He had been cared for at Limetree in his final six weeks, having been in hospital since before Christmas. In the course of his 94 years, he had overcome several serious health issues — TB, bowel cancer (three surgeries), and a heart attack — none of which dented his innate energy for life and for mission. He received a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s dementia at the age of 90; the cause of death was “frailty in old age”.
Ivor was born in 1929 into an Anglo-Indian family living in Madras, but with strong roots also in the Nilgiri Hills at Kotagiri. The third of seven siblings, Ivor was only 17 months old when his mother, Cynthia, died three days after the birth of his next sister. In due course, his father, Jim, married Noreen, who was mother to three further children.
The family’s church was St Matthias’s, Vepery, and Ivor never failed to praise the clergy and people there for the spiritual nurturing he experienced.
After graduating from Madras Christian College, Ivor, aged 20, came to Mirfield to train for ordination and made a lasting friendship with Alan Talbot, who met him on the first day and looked after him so well.
Then he moved to Chichester, to be ordained by Bishop George Bell (Ivor was devoted to him), and to serve his curacy at St George’s, Wyke. Meanwhile, Ivor’s siblings gradually migrated to Australia. Three of them have survived him there. He would speak to them by phone on the first of each month, right up to the end.
The senior chaplain to the University of London, Gordon Phillips, recruited Ivor to his staff and then sent him, in 1958, to begin new work — a west-London Chaplaincy — at Imperial College and other colleges near by. Ivor did a brilliant job in establishing not only Sunday worship but also a lively network of eucharistic cells in college departments and halls of residence. Out of this setting, at least 40 people, most of them students of science and technology, eventually discerned a call to offer themselves for ordination training.
One of the highlights of the West London Chaplaincy was an annual teaching week with a visiting team. In February 1972, the team came from Southwark diocese, and, no doubt, this paved the way for Ivor’s appointment later that year by Bishop Mervyn Stockwood as Diocesan Missioner. Ivor’s energies were now directed to parish and workplace groups rather than student cells. He set up a small house church at his canon’s residence near Clapham Common as a resource for his wider work in the diocese. In this he was greatly assisted by Cecilia Goodenough.
In 1981, Ivor and Brian Pearce founded the South London Inter Faith Group. Interfaith friendship remained a priority for Ivor. The Peace Pagoda, in Battersea Park, the Hyderi Islamic Centre, in Streatham, and the Caribbean Hindu Cultural Society, in Brixton Hill, were places that he loved to visit.
In 1990, Peter Selby, onetime colleague of Ivor’s in Southwark’s mission department, now Area Bishop of Kingston, saw a creative opportunity and encouraged Ivor and members of the house-church to move to All Saints’, Battersea Park. Here, there flowered a vibrant congregation, rich in ethnic diversity and generous in hospitality, which Ivor inspired for 15 years. His tireless training of young people to take a full part in the Sunday liturgy was admirable. He also engaged with the local community through membership of the Battersea Park Rotary Club.
During these years, Ivor served on the General Synod and doggedly kept concerns about the Church’s ethnic diversity on the agenda, particularly with regard to senior appointments. He lived to see some progress in this area, after Vasantha Gnanadoss and others took up the fight.
Ivor at the Lambeth Country Show in 2017
Ivor was appointed a Chaplain to the Queen in 1995, and was proud to be the first person of Asian heritage to fulfil that position. He played a strong part in the life of the Indian Christian Organisation, London.
Moving in retirement to Brixton Hill in 2005, Ivor’s unique energy and imagination found fresh outlets in breakfast groups and themed Saturday gatherings. He kept close links with his native Madras, now Chennai, and continued to raise significant funds for Roofs for the Roofless and the Laity Institute for Transformation Education. He loved also to offer a brief experience of Madras, and promoted an annual series of group visits with the invaluable assistance of the Premraj family, who are now in New Addington, near Croydon. He was very pleased when Bishop Christopher Chessun joined one of these visits.
News of Ivor’s death has evoked grateful messages from friends who hold dear their memories of him from the various stages of his life. Many look back on their encounters with Ivor as turning points in their lives. May he rest in peace and rise in glory.