Yesterday Clive Rimmer died.
He was a great man.
I name him as one of the most significant humans who came into my life.
He gave me chances when I didn't deserve them.
He gave me responsibility when I had no response-ability.
He was my first influence on my faith journey.
He was a solid example of humanness
when I was in adolescent turmoil.
I remembering first when he was talking to kids in the street. He was on his bike during his lunch break from work. There he was just chatting to the older boys who seemed to like him. Later on I joined the Boys' Brigade. He was the leader.
It changed my life.
This is an extract from my first book 'Gutter Feelings'.
"During these exiting adolescent year I had kept contact with my local Boys’ Brigade (B.B.) company run by a local man, Clive Rimmer. He didn’t just welcome the ‘nice’ kids – he had street kids as well, the ones who liked sport and a good game of mat rugby in the church hall (mat rugby involved tow teams, tow mats, one ball and no rules!). Even during the days of little or no attendance at B.B. during my excursions to Butlins Holiday Camps, rugby training and games, I remained acceptable and accepted at B.B. That was flexibility of leadership in action! So often workingclass kids are ‘kicked out’ of Christian organisations because they don’t’ have the commitment, consistency or regularity! Clive was the one who put so much spadework in on me and my mates, although I guess without much joy or apparent ‘success’.
One night at B.B. I was pulled into the kitchen/office in the church hall. The vicar, Rev Frank Llewellyn Jones, was there, and Clive, the Captian.
‘Pip, we’ve had so much disruption and trouble from you – we’ve got to kick you out . . . or . . . or promote you to some position of responsibility in the organisation! Other NCOs in the B.B. tell us that you wouldn’t accept a promotion to Lance Corporal – so we are offering you a promotion to full Corporal.’
That was the beginning of leadership for me. I was introduced to leadership, within structures, with support but nevertheless I was responsible for and to a group of young boys. And I was only fifteen myself!
During my time as a Boys’ Brigade N.C.O, Warrant Office and Officer, it seems to me now that I was being trained, experiential training mainly. I learned the basics of small group leadership: speaking, handling a large group, organisation and the benefit of monthly team meetings, which I have continued ever since. Most of my leadership was intuitive because I was indigenous in that culture. But I will always be grateful for that early opportunity for leadership for, to quote from one of our local young people;
‘Ain’t it true that if you treat people responsibly they do things responsible?"
