A correspondent writes:

THE Revd Gerald Alfred Reddington was a late ordinand, who, in 1990, at the age of 56, gave himself unsparingly to St Barnabas’s, Ealing, in his one and only incumbency. The churchwardens had been thwarted in appointing an experienced parish priest in mid-career. Instead, the parish was to benefit from Gerald’s leadership, intellect, and inspiring example of spiritual discipline and Christian living for the next nine years.

During his previous 28-year career as a successful stockbroker in the City, Gerald had undertaken the challenging part-time Southwark Ordination Course. After ordination in 1976, he became an NSM at St Vedast’s, Foster Lane, Chaplain to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and then an honorary assistant curate at All Saints’, Margaret Street. From 1974 to 1986, he was also chairman of Centrepoint, the charity for homeless young people, and, for many years, he was a voluntary helper one night a week.

The seed of his vocation was sown in adversity during his early life. The youngest of three boys, he was five when their mother died from ovarian cancer. Their father, a Harley Street gynaecologist who married twice more, died when Gerald was 16, and Gerald had to leave Repton for lack of funds. In his retirement, he was invited back to preach in the school chapel, where he expressed his debt and gratitude for the support and strength that it had given him.

His salvation was, first, National Service in Gibraltar as a handsome, charming, and socially confident subaltern in the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment; and, second, his stepmother, Lady Colwyn, who introduced him to his future wife, Valerie, and whose husband gave him his first job in stockbroking.

Gerald brought the parish together at the outset with an ambitious production of the musical Godspell, directed by Valerie, who had been a professional actress of some distinction. He then addressed, in turn, the deficiencies of the church heating and sound system, extended the chancel platform to facilitate a nave altar, and installed a striking new triptych in the Lady chapel.

Before he retired, his energetic and inspired leadership of a dedicated parish team delivered a new church hall with the aid of a Millennium Lottery Grant. The hall was linked to the church, in keeping with it, and was regarded by its architect as his proudest achievement.

At an early stage in the movement for the ordination of women, Gerald chaired a debate in which outside speakers from both camps objectively and constructively presented their case. A straw poll at the end indicated a majority in favour, which Gerald later honoured by appointing and mentoring two women curates over the next six years. Two other women members of his congregation became ordained after he left. When women priests were still a rarity in the Church of England, Gerald could see the growing need for women clergy and the increasing part that they would play. In this shared experience, Gerald learnt from them, and they from him.

As a qualified psychotherapist, Gerald brought to his ministry a mature understanding of human nature, recognising people’s qualities and limitations, including his own, and diffusing tension by his willingness to listen and exercise sound judgement. He often quoted Carl Jung, and his sermons, available in print, provided fresh insights into, and concise analysis of, current affairs and contemporary issues.

Gerald’s strength and stamina lay in his deep faith in a loving God and his determination to serve him as his absolute priority. It had supported him after the death of his and Valerie’s nine-year-old son and in supporting Valerie after she developed Parkinson’s disease.

In 1999, on reaching retirement age at 65, Gerald retired, as he had promised Valerie that he would do when she changed from stockbroker’s to vicar’s wife. He continued an active personal ministry, however, and was permitted to continue to officiate in both London and Portsmouth dioceses.

Valerie predeceased him in 2016. His surviving son and two daughters were with him when he died peacefully at home on 17 June, aged 85.