Thanksgiving for the life of Ken Newman
Died 11th June 2010 aged 69 years.
Dearly loved husband of Susan, proud father of Joanna, Richard and Michael and a loving grandfather of eight.
Ken revealed a new heaven and a new earth to many people. His time as captain of the bellringers, either formally or informally, has spanned four decades. When he and Sue came to the village in 1970, there were no ringers. And so he started teaching and Judith Scott, who still rings, was in his first class. This last year, he calculated that he had taught 63 people and that a third of them were still ringing, a rich gift to the world of ringing, to the church and to the individuals and their families. When my family and I came to Kimpton in 1977, Tuesday evening practice soon became part of the lives of our two children, Jane and Timothy. As Vicar, it was a great gift to have a tower captain of such expertise, in his time among the best ringers in the country. He had been a member of the team at St Martin-in-the-Fields and he had rung by invitation at Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s Cathedral. In Kimpton, he was at the centre of great activity, great respect and great affection. He taught young people, ringing every Sunday and for special services was guaranteed, there were quarter peals and there was the Kimpton Cup. In addition, there was the summer outing. Mary and I usually went along on the Saturday. There were patronal festivals with barn dancing on the Vicarage lawn, where Ken organised the bar. There he was, always at the centre of a group of people who were enjoying life, who enjoyed being with him and, to put it plainly, who loved him. In those days, he had his pipe but not yet his beard.
In the late 1970s, he came to me with a proposal to add two new bells. With eight bells, he said, you can do so much more than with six. The bellringers, with an extended team of helpers, had the expertise to do it, a replacement iron frame was available from a redundant church and the sale of the oak frame would pay for the new bells. Thus began an adventurous project, which he said to me recently, no local team would now be allowed to do. The six ancient bells were lowered through the ringing chamber, the mediaeval oak frame was dismantled and sold at a high price, outside Church House the replacement iron frame was assembled and generally a host of people got involved. Along with others, Bill Watts raised money by carving oak artefacts which still grace many of our houses. Then the time came for the team to go and see the new bells being cast.
At some late stage in process, probably long after the deadline for the faculty, it was remembered that the bells needed naming and inscriptions. To name a bell is a very rare privilege for a Vicar. I can only liken it to the point in the baptism service where a father is asked to name his child. It is an indelible moment. Deciding on the names of the two bells was not difficult. The church is named after St. Peter and St. Paul and there was no Peter or Paul among the existing bells. The inscription for Peter was also straightforward. It had to be that moment where Jesus says to him, “And you, who do you say that I am?” Peter replies with the words which were subsequently seen as the foundation of the church, “Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God.” Paul was more problematic, for there was not one phrase that was obvious to me. I read through his Epistles and immediately recalled that he wrote about “putting off the old man”, that is the person who we are in this world, the person we are before conversion. He goes on to speak of “putting on the new man”, the person we become in faith, the person who is renewed by grace, the person who is the image of what we shall be, when we shall see face to face. The phrase was a gift, just as Ken was a gift. And so the inscription on the second bell reads, “I am the new man.” Within the words of St Paul, Ken’s name is inscribed. The oldest bell in the tower dates from the 1300s. There is no reason why our bell, embracing the name of our dear friend, and by extension the names of all those who have served like him, should not live another 700 years, ringing out each Tuesday evening, every Sunday morning, for every wedding and funeral and every time a visiting team rings a quarter peal.
The second way in which a new heaven and a new earth was opened up to me was through sailing. Having done a few training courses, I found myself receiving invitations to join Ken’s extended crew. For me and for my family, as for so many people – from the bell-tower to the Golf Club, from his sailing crew to the Bridge Club which he founded, Ken opened up a door into a new life.
For 12 years now, we have known that a shadow has hung over Ken. Many times we have hoped. Some times we have feared. But we have always kept on hoping. However, the past year has been threatening, the past months have been anxious and the past weeks have evoked tears. But Ken throughout has been himself: the same voice, the same easy way, the same determination, the same courage, the same humility and the same generosity.
When he was in hospital last year, apart from seeing him, I wrote to him a few times and treasure his replies in which he signed himself off, “With very great affection, Ken.” Now that he is no longer in this world, there seems no reason why I should not continue to write to him. Perhaps there is all the more reason for doing so.
“Hello, Ken,
Thank you for telling us not to be gloomy. It’s hard, but it sometimes works. I hope you weren’t around the other evening when they tried to ring you a quarter peal. The rope broke. But maybe you knew that. Or maybe even you had a hand in it. When it happened, I was hoping that you had found your way to the local golf course. In your newly found Elysian fields, there must be a good links course, a championship one.
We’re all a bit cut up here, of course. We know what stormy seas you’ve had to weather this past year. But being Ken, you’ve shown us a bit of the other side of things. New heaven, new earth, wiping away all tears – all that sort of thing. So we’re afloat, not run aground. Not like that time when … Oh well, that’s something for another conversation.”
But to go back to that quarter peal. It wasn’t missing at all. I actually heard it. I heard it all. I took my coffee outside and went up on deck. Most extraordinary quarter I have ever heard. They were ringing along quite merrily, at full gallop I would say. You’d think they were chasing the Gold Cup, when they suddenly stopped. Froze on the hoof. They all shied at the same fence. Except the tenor. He didn’t flinch. Took it at a single bound. Then rang on and on, all by himself. On and on he went.
Then I realised what was happening. They’d stopped to let him ring the years of Ken’s life. 40, 50, 60. And then I gave up counting, for the years don’t count now, do they. Then they started ringing down but there was one bell missing. It was the tenor and he was behind them all, keeping his own quite different time. And when they had rung down, the third above it rang and then the tenor. It happened twice. I heard it quite distinctly. They were saying, “Good bye. Good bye.” Then the tenor continued ever so gently. Never heard a tenor rung down so gently. It was so natural. And then there was silence. But in the silence I could still hear it.
It was you, Ken, wasn’t it. You were saying you had put off the old man and you had put on the new.
And you’ve been saying something like that all these years. It’s just I didn’t realise it. But now it’s now clear. Clear as a bell. I heard it, I saw it and I understood.
Revd Canon Dr Peter Liddell
Vicar of Kimpton 1977-82
