Uncle Peter

UNCLE PETER - A Tribute from Gordon Mursell at the Memorial Service

+Tribute at Memorial Service
St Peter’s Wisborough Green
Monday 10: xi: 08

I am one of the small and exclusive elite (some others of whom are here today) for whom Peter was always Uncle Peter - and that despite the fact that, when we became teenagers, Peter insisted on us nieces and nephews dropping the “uncle” and calling them plain Peter and Dil. That was typical: he wanted an equal relationship, not a paternalist one. Which only made him all the more impressive as an uncle. When my father (Peter’s younger brother Pip) died very suddenly, while my brother Ian and I were still in our early teens, Peter made no attempt to take our father’s place (he couldn’t have done that anyway). Instead he became an even better uncle: a rock-like source of stability and wisdom and encouragement and fun and - especially as we grew older - friendship.

Among the many reasons that Peter was such a good uncle were these three: he never stopped learning, he never stopped listening, and he never stopped laughing. Peter was fascinated by both people and things, and was learning new insights and tricks right to the end of his life (which is surely the secret of a happy life). As he got older, and being tall, he found it harder to bend down and put his socks on. So he tracked down on the internet a kind of sock putter-onner and made one for himself; and when I confided in him that I was beginning to experience the same problem, he made one for me too. Equally striking: he was a marvellous listener. He made you feel you mattered, because to him you did. For two young fatherless teenagers like me and my brother, that was unimaginably important. And he never lost his wonderful sense of humour, essential for all good uncles. He wasn’t demonstrative, or emotional; but he was fun. And underneath you knew he loved and cared as well.

Peter, together with his brother (my father) and his sister Peg, was a pupil at Bedales School in Hampshire; and it must have been there that all three seem to have inherited or developed characteristics they all shared: a restless creativity, an intelligence that was more than narrowly intellectual, a practical and artistic wisdom, and a hatred of cant and humbug. Later he was to spend a total of twenty years as a governor of the school, a longer period (according to Denis Archer) than any other individual. He helped to steer the school through some major changes while never losing its essential and distinctive charisma. An example: Denis writes that “in particular he was a guiding, guardian angel to the reviving Outdoor Work department. He offered detailed practical advice and even physical support in the form of trees. His expert knowledge was invaluable in regenerating a department which has become increasingly important in the school's public image and [in these environmentally sensitive days] is now a key, distinctive feature in its marketing.” More generally, Jean Gooder, who was Chair of Governors during much of Peter’s time on the board, writes of Peter’s “unswerving sense of justice, quick appreciation of issues and the pragmatics of planning, fearlessly open in stating his views but without aggression or the slightest hint of pressure. A Socratic nature that worked from rational principles in the spirit of true disinterestedness (in the old and correct meaning of that word). Not for nothing was he a political Independent. He knew what he valued about the school but was completely open-minded about the re-thinking always required by current developments, both financial and educational.”

Let me end by returning to Uncle Peter. When I was made a bishop, three years ago, Peter insisted on coming to the service and reception, and presented me with his shepherd’s crook, which I have treasured ever since. Afterwards he wrote to me about the occasion, and said “I lost count of the number of total strangers who came up to me afterwards and said ‘You must be Uncle Peter!’” That remark brought home to me just how much I owed him, because it showed how often I must have spoken about him to friends and colleagues alike, and how intensely proud I was (and am) to have known him, not because he was a “Sir” but because he was an extraordinarily good uncle, and (even more, as I now realize) an extraordinarily good friend.

Thanks be to God.