The Revd Bill Rowell writes:
ELVET OWEN RICHARDS was a farmer and a quiet and faithful churchman who lived all his life within a few miles of his birthplace in 1928, on the Long Mountain, which straddles the boundary between Shropshire and Montgomeryshire, England and Wales.
In 1942, Elvet bought the organ that he played throughout the rest of his life, with a particular love of the sacred songs of Moody and Sankey. At the age of 17, to help out, he took over as the organist of the little half-timbered church St Mary’s, Trelystan, high on the Long Mountain and reached by a track through pasture. Over the years since then, he missed very few services, and he had just made it into his 75th year as church organist when ill health confined him to his home.
Elvet served church and community in many other ways, too. He was churchwarden for some years, and remained an active and thoughtful member of Trelystan PCC for the rest of his life. Because, as churchwarden, he didn’t feel comfortable signing a cheque to pay himself as organist, he remained unpaid for his playing from then on. He was awarded his “back pay” as organist as a gift to mark his 70th anniversary, at a service attended by the Bishop of Hereford at that time, Richard Frith.
In 2018, the year of Elvet’s 90th birthday, his service to church and community was marked by the award of the British Empire Medal. This was a source of great pride to him, always to be worn on special occasions.
A previous incumbent, Robert Leach, describes Elvet as a man “who made the Christian message part of himself and lived it out in his day to day life: kind, gentle, forgiving and patient, and always with a twinkle in his eye”. It is hard to improve on that description.
Elvet was a man who asked little of life and gave a great deal; farm and family, community and church were always close to his heart, and his faith, dedication, and service will remain an object lesson to us all, along with his unfailing good humour. He was also pretty much unbeatable at draughts.
His beloved wife, Lil, predeceased him in 2012. He died on 2 August, aged 92, leaving his children, Edwina, Ted, Yvonne, and Sam, and their families.
