Sunday, March 06, 2005

DEEP REFLECTION .....


shepdavidSH
Originally uploaded by Pip Wilson.



.... when Joan and I run a Hells Angels type youth club some er ..... 35 years ago ....... Ann was born when we lived there above the club, I know about this Cricketer called David Sheppard - a right posh bloke who had gone to live in a tough Inner City and was doing the same sorta stuff as us. He published journals out of it. I contribute some reflections too - but learned so much from the thinking and frontier work which came out of this place called The Mayflower Family Centre in the East End of London.
That was the same place that I was called to some thirty years ago. Joan me and the kids spent ten years there - the toughest job I have ever done. Well tried. I gave all I had as Senior Youth Worker to about forty youth workers and thousands of kids over that periods. The book, my first book, Gutter Feelings came out of that experience. David and his wife Grace both contributed the foreword to it.

He died yesterday.
He had suffered long with cancer.

I could write sooo much about this man. Take a glance at some of the words in the press and on websites over the coming days. A great man. He was a major influence on me before I knew him and a beautiful human when we met over the years.

He said in his most recent book, and in other works, that the toughest job he ever did was the youth work job. See my comment above. The toughest for me physically emotionally and spiritually.

The BBC We-site says this;
"Lord Sheppard had intended to be a barrister, but while at Cambridge University decided to go into the Church, and he was ordained in 1955.

After a curacy at Islington, he became the first warden of the Mayflower Family Centre at Canning Town in London, and stayed there 11 years until his appointment as Suffragan Bishop of Woolwich.

At the age of 46, he became the youngest ever diocesan bishop when he moved to Liverpool.

Lord Sheppard never sought to avoid controversy. Protesting against apartheid as a cricketer, he refused to play against the South African team in 1960, and opposed the sending of a team to that country in 1968.

The outspoken bishop later called for a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
He was equally critical of the British Government during the 1980s."

He ................ Championed the poor ...........

Hmm ....... I will reread the intro to the book ........ go to the Memorial Service if it is possible ............ and give thanx eternal ......

bhp David Sheppard.

www.pipwilson.com