Professor Nigel Tubbs writes:

THE Revd David Howes will be remembered as a man who carried the love of God as a profound sense of shared humanity, embracing the difficulty of care and kindness to friend and stranger alike. This love found its expression in his life-affirming spirit, his generous humour, his gift for storytelling, and his inspiring preaching.

David was born in 1930 in London’s East End. As a child, he was evacuated to south Wales when war seemed likely, only to be brought back to London at the start of the Blitz. This early experience shaped his view of war as well as his intellectual curiosity about the world. Wartime exigencies meant that his formal education was curtailed, and he was among the last children in England to leave school at 14 before the Butler Act.

David had a deep love of learning, which he pursued throughout his life with determination and delight. During his time in the Royal Air Force, he studied for, and passed, the Civil Service Entrance Examination and the RAF Education Certificate. He was posted to an intelligence section at Hendon Aerodrome, but later joked that he did little for the RAF except study.

He completed a degree in divinity through the archbishop’s special ordination examination, and later gained an Open University degree, also. At theological college, he included New Testament Greek in his studies, and he was still learning Greek at the age of 92 before his eyesight failed him.

David was ordained in the C of E in 1962, having been brought up as a Methodist. Over the years, he held several parish appointments and gained a reputation for taking on difficult or neglected parishes. In 1980, he was responsible for building the first ecumenical church in Great Britain at Roundshaw, just outside Croydon. Built on the site of the former Croydon aerodrome, St Paul’s supported all five main denominations and became known as the Propeller Church, because its cross was made from an aircraft propeller.

In 1982, David was invited by the Bishop of Southwark, Mervyn Stockwood, to take on the inner-city parish of St George the Martyr, near London Bridge. This was a particularly special period in his life for the bringing together of his faith and politics. It was here that he collaborated closely with Sister Nannette French to help her to establish the Manna Centre project for the homeless.

He took part in numerous marches against the increasing presence of the far Right in south London, worked tirelessly to get parishioners out of the still prevalent slum dwellings of Southwark, and continued to help to improve the lives of those experiencing poverty, racism, and powerlessness.

In the early 1980s, he became involved in cultural life beyond the Church, when the actor Sam Wanamaker contacted him regarding his project to rebuild Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. David worked with Wanamaker, the MP Simon Hughes, and the Provost of Southwark, David Edwards, to support and represent the benefits of the project to the local community. He took immense pride and pleasure in being the priest to dedicate the site in 1984 alongside the actor Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.

After many years in the inner city, David took up his last parish position in 1990 at All Saints’, Risley, in Derby, where he was also diocesan industrial adviser. David was regarded as both a gifted preacher and a gifted singer, helping to carry congregations through services with his loudly resonating bass line.

In his London parish, a non-churchgoing area, the congregation increased from 15 to more than 100. With his wife, Valerie, who was also ordained, he founded a Gilbert and Sullivan Society in what many thought the most unlikely of places; the venture proved to be a roaring success. He also founded the Clyst Valley Choral Society in his early ministry, which eventually became the largest choral society in Devon. Music, culture, and faith were never separate strands in his life.

Alongside parish ministry, David had a notable presence in broadcasting. He made two full-length films about his life in the Church, one for BBC 2 and one for independent television, and took part in some 300 live television broadcasts for the Epilogue programmes that once closed the day’s television schedule. He also broadcast regularly on local radio in Derby in the 1990s.

At home, humour and enjoyment of life were taken seriously. David was known for his remarkable memory, his ability to tell a great story, his generous sense of humour, and his belief in laughter as a healer in difficult times. He was also a man of letters with beautiful handwriting. Friends and family have countless treasured epistles.

His faith remained undiminished throughout his life, even through profound personal loss, including the death of his eldest son, Julian. In later years, after Valerie’s death, David continued to live fully, finding pleasure in gardening, painting, music, and writing, and in the life of the Methodist church in Bridgnorth, where he loved both preaching and friendship.

David never tired in his praise of the NHS and its care for him in his last years, when he was supported by the devoted love and attention of his eldest daughter, Sarah. Above all, David was immensely proud of his six children and his 13 grandchildren. He enjoyed a glass of wine or two and liked to attribute his long life to that simple pleasure.

David’s sense of what was owed to others in their humanity defined and determined his faith and gentle activism. He was remarkable in being able to embody for others something of where God happens undramatically but in the astonishing and extraordinary nature of the ordinary.

The Revd David Howes died on 18 January, aged 95.