Correspondents write:
BORN in poverty in the Rhondda Valley in 1926, to a father marked by the ravages of the First World War and a mother who had lost so many babies that she closed the bedroom door to her husband, it was not an easy family situation for a boy to enter. Malcolm’s mother was determined that her sons would not become “cannon fodder” during the Second World War; so Malcom had a reserved occupation as an apprentice moulder. Not many clergy follow so closely in St Paul’s footsteps, although moulding work, on heavy anchor chains for ships, was far more dangerous than tent-making. In the late ’40s, he was called up and served in the RAF, reaching LAC2, serving in supplies.
After some serious issues in his childhood and youth, Malcolm found joy in Christ Jesus. He began preaching, unable to understand why every Christian did not want to do this work. He mostly preached in English, but sometimes in Welsh, as the occasion demanded.
Apparently, he was often compared in his looks to Orson Welles. He and his good looks attracted Barbara, who was in his congregation one Sunday. He fell headlong in love with her with a lifelong passion. They married in 1949 and, early in 1950, had the first of their four children. After a few years as a costings clerk in a prominent Valley factory, Malcolm was recruited as a land agent to an ancient estate in North Norfolk. Barbara and their first two children travelled right across country, not knowing where they were going or what they would find when they got there. They left “civilisation” in the Valley and descended into Norfolk with no running water, pump in the front yard; and a netty. It all worked very well.
Malcom’s preaching ministry continued to develop, this time in the Baptist tradition. Soon, he was seeking full-time appointments. He moved from Norfolk to the Fens, and studied part-time at Cheshunt College. His stipend was so small that he felt ashamed for the Church and actually lied about it on his tax return, claiming that it was larger than it really was — not a usual state of affairs.
Over the next five years, he wrestled with issues of authority and tradition, eventually going to see the Bishop of Ely, who gladly sent him off to Ely Theological College for four terms. The family, now with three children, billeted with his younger brother back in the Valleys. The transition from Nonconformity to the Established Church posed some unexpected challenges. Malcolm took the Anglo-Catholic tradition of Ely to his heart. After a happy curacy, providing much affirmation, he took a living in the north Cotswolds, in Blockley, where the television series Father Brown is filmed, which makes nostalgic viewing for his children. The bishop then, unusually, asked him to swap with another incumbent, going to his new living in Churchdown, just outside Gloucester. He retired from there in 1991.
Back in Wales, in Tywyn, where he had had a home for many years, he gave 20 years’ service to the local churches, never once taking fees or claiming expenses. After a couple of comparatively straightforward surgical procedures, he failed to regain normal cognitive process. He remained delirious for six years before he died peacefully in his sleep on 7 December, aged 94, without ever realising that Barbara had predeceased him by several months. They are buried together in sight of sea and mountain.
