As 2008 drew to a close, it was with great sadness that the ringing fraternity learnt of the death of Ken Rider who had been a ringer at St Mary’s Stafford since 1973. Ken learnt to ring at St Mary Redcliffe Bristol in 1961, the city where he was born and educated. When he left school he worked as a surveyor for the Ordnance Survey in Southampton. After a period in the City’s Architect’s Department back in Bristol, Ken headed off to the South Wales coalfield as a mining surveyor and inspector. It was here that Ken joined the Baptist Church and became a lay preacher.

After his time in the Welsh coalfields, Ken had a total career change when he began psychiatric nurse training at the Barrow and Glenside Hospitals in Bristol. It was there that he met Sue, and in 1965 they were married in the Jesuit Church of St Mary-on-the-Quays. He went on to London to continue his nursing career and then moved into the education and management side of the profession, becoming a registered nurse tutor, first in Doncaster, and then in Stafford where eventually he was appointed Director of Nurse Education for the Mid-Staffordshire Health Authority. After retirement he undertook medico-legal work and quality control.

Wherever Ken moved, he always took an active part in ringing in the area. Whilst in London Ken joined the College Youths and started to compose quarters and peals. His excellent 3 part composition of 5,093 Grandsire Caters (Father Ken’s Big G) was composed here. Ken’s most prolific peal ringing period was in the1980s and early 1990s often taking part in peal tours. It was during this time that Ken rang in two long length peals: 10,080 Treble Bob Minor at Brathay in May 1983 and 10,080 Plain Bob Triples at Hawkshead in December 1988. This latter peal still stands as a record for the method.

Ken loved to go on tower grabs and would eagerly seek out open days in The Ringing World to obtain those towers he still needed. He enjoyed the whole range of towers: from Liverpool Cathedral to the nearly unringable 3s and 4s. More recently, he ventured further afield, going on ringing tours to America and Australia.

As part of the Stafford band Ken was actively involved in all aspects of the ringing. He was tower treasurer for a while, organized outings and introduced new methods to the band. The band would particularly enjoy his company in the pub after the practice when he seemed to have an exhaustible fund of anecdotes and amusing stories.

Apart from bellringing, Ken was an active freemason, a lover of English Church music who managed to fulfil his ambition of attending choral evensong in every Cathedral in the United Kingdom. He was a collector of ecclesiastical antiques and church furnishings; a bibliophile whose private theological library and antiquarian collection would be the envy of many an Oxbridge scholar, and whose love of books led him to do a course in bookbinding and conservation.

Ken’s passion for railways was well-known. He was a mine of information about timetables, about railway lines past and present and a seasoned railway traveller who went on numerous rail tours both in the UK and abroad. He travelled on the Trans-Siberian Railway where he took innumerable photographs which resulted in some (but fortunately not all) his film being confiscated by the authorities. Ken also had an interest in model railways with an enviable collection of locomotives.

As Ken was drawn further towards the ministry he chose to take a Theology degree at the University of South Glamorgan, and last year to register for a Ph.D. at St David’s College, Lampeter. He was ordained in September 2007 and he became parish deacon for the Stafford Team Ministry.

Shortly after his ordination, Ken was diagnosed with lung cancer. The treatment appeared to be successful, and early in 2008 he was back on duty as deacon. By the beginning of December it was known that the cancer had returned. Ken died very peacefully in Katharine House Hospice on 29th December surrounded by his family. Throughout his busy life, Ken was a devoted and loving husband, father and grandfather, who was always there to support his family.

It was appropriate that Ken’s funeral, officiated by the Bishop of Ebbsfleet on 9th January, took place at St Chad’s Stafford. Ken was instrumental in the church’s revival in the 1970s and he served there variously as chorister, server and deacon. Ken was finally laid to rest in a plot that had sight of the West Coast main line railway. Local ringers rang a half-muffled quarter peal on New Year’s Eve and a peal of "Father Ken’s Big G" was rung on 31st January 2009. A memorial service will be held at St Mary’s Church, Stafford at 3pm on 29th March 2009.

S.G.J.

Kenneth J. Rider – appreciation

Ken Rider arrived in London in 1965 and left for Stafford in 1971. This short appreciation covers those years only and I do hope that somebody who knew him before and after will be able to make a contribution.

I remember first meeting Ken in the summer of 1965 prior to one of Monty Meyer’s unsuccessful Sunday evening quarter-peal attempts at Fulham, the first of several such failures until we eventually rang one together on December 2nd; Grandsire Triples at Waterloo, conducted by William D. Grainger. Ken had learned his ringing in Bristol where, probably through the influence of Albert Tyler, he had developed a love of Grandsire Caters. In the mid 1960s a collection of some of his quarter-peal compositions of Grandsire Caters was published anonymously in The Ringing World. However, after Edgar C Shepherd of Birmingham wrote in to say how excellent the compositions were, and what a pity it was that we did not know who had composed them, Ken wrote in to say that they were his.

His love of Grandsire Caters enabled Ken to fit easily into Monty Meyer’s Sunday evening roving company. Several of his compositions were rung at Fulham and he soon joined up, also, with the monthly Sunday evening band at Southwark and the London County Association.

For a short time he held a minor office in the LCA, during the course of which he often declared that the duties allocated to him by the Hon. Sec. were aptly summed up in the title of his office which was "Assistant Secretary No. 2".

Through these various connections, Ken soon found himself in the company of Chris Dalton, Richard Jones, Laurie Way and Robin Collis, becoming a founder member of ASUR – the Ancient Society of Unauthorised Ringers – which came into being one night around midnight some 40 odd years ago at a four bell tower in – let us say – the mid-west. The illicit "grab," so legend has it, was brought to a premature conclusion when one member of the party (the publication of whose name would almost certainly precipitate a complaint to the Ringing World Board) took fright and fled into the night with the only torch, leaving the remainder of the party to get the bells down, ropes off and make their own departures in pitch darkness.

Ken vowed early revenge and an opportunity offered itself shortly afterwards during a Chelsea ringing week. One of his prized possessions was a bunch of keys acquired through – well – various means. At the end of a day which had included ringing at Bath Abbey, he showed one of his keys to the culprit, with whom, as good fortune (?) would have it, he was sharing a room. "Look man," said Ken, "I’ve stolen the key to Bath Abbey."

He hadn’t done, of course, but he knew the declaration would have the desired effect. At Chelsea practice on the Friday following the trip, John Lott said to Ken "I’ve had a letter from the Vicar (sic) of Bath Abbey complaining that the tower key went missing after our visit there. I don’t suppose you would know anything about it, old cock?"

"Don’t you think you should be asking NN?" replied Ken. John’s face upon receiving this response was a picture!

During his time in London I rang several peals with Ken which included one at Isleworth which was my first peal there, Richard Jones’ first peal (at Streatham) and John Pladdys’ first peal of Stedman Cinques (at Croydon) so he was a very capable ringer.

For most (if not all) of his time in London, Ken lived opposite St James’ Bermondsey, (working at the nearby St Olave’s Hospital) so that, when we came to restore to ringability the old peal of ten there, we would go over after an evening’s work and have a bath, soup and coffee which Ken’s delightful wife, Sue, had prepared for us. Ken, himself would scarcely go any higher than the ringing room but was happy to stand and set the ropes to the correct height when we were roping the bells; "happy," perhaps, being a bit of an overstatement. As patience ran out those above would be reminded of the passing of the minutes with a clipped " ‘Urry up, me fag’s burning away!"

Ken moved away from London, shortly after this to take up the post of Director of Nursing Training for the County of Stafford and I did not see him again until Chris Dalton’s memorial service in Hereford Cathedral this time last year. This was a great pity because Ken was delightful company. You could always anticipate his lovely Bristol burr coming out with some outrageous or impish comment.

One such. Ken was also a great lover of the Ceremonial at High Church occasions. Leaving the Church of All Saints’, Margaret Street after the Stripping of the Altar one Maundy Thursday evening he bumped into the dustmen, emptying the overflowing bins from the back of some of Oxford Street’s fashionable stores.

Catching one of them by the eye he said, "You’ll have to stop by the church, man! They’re having a bit of a turn-out there!"

M.J.U.