Tributes February 2020 - MISSION PARTNERS' FELLOWSHIP - Church Mission Society

MISSION PARTNERS’ FELLOWSHIP

Tributes February 2020

Dr (Lilian) Stella Walters died July 2019
Nigel, Stella’s son, writes:

Stella was born Lilian Starr Underhill in 1925 in Peshawar on the north west frontier of British India,
in what is now Pakistan. Her father was an officer in the Indian Army and mother a nurse with
the Church Mission Society, who, at the age of 39 and being of small frame and carrying a large
baby, did not expect to survive the birth. So, she wrote a very moving letter to her unborn child,
dedicating her to the service of God; the simplest way of describing Stella’s life is as a fulfilment of
that commitment. Her mother did survive, the following year her brother Harry was born, and then in
1929 the family moved back to Britain, to Farnham in Surrey, where Stella and Harry both grew up.

In 1943, Stella was accepted to study medicine at the Royal Free Hospital in London. In February
1945 she was injured in a V2 rocket attack; she had been working in a basement laboratory, and
suffered acid burns to her head and neck. She had skin grafts, and plastic surgery to remake
her ear. After a year’s convalescence she returned to medical school, going on to qualify as an
obstetrician and gynaecologist. Having trained at Foxbury from 1953, she went to Pakistan in 1955,
with CMS like her mother and grandfather before her. She learned Urdu and some Pashtu and
worked briefly in Quetta and Multan, before moving to Bannu in the north west frontier province,
where she worked until 1963.

And then our father, William Walter, enters the story. My parents had known each other in Farnham
as students. He had subsequently emigrated to Canada, becoming a chaplain in the Royal
Canadian Navy. In July 1962 his wife, Pat, was killed in a road accident, leaving my two brothers,
Alan and David. William made contact again with Stella’s parents, and began corresponding with
Stella in Pakistan. They got engaged by aerogram, on the basis of that friendship from some 15
years before, and married back in Farnham in August 1963. They then returned to Canada, where
Stella swapped the heat of Pakistan for the near Arctic. Stella became mother to David and Alan,
who by then were 9 and 10, providing a firm foundation for family life after a very turbulent time for
them and giving them a sense of stability and security that endures to this day.

William became chaplain to the forces base in Churchill on the Hudson Bay – polar bear country
– and Stella was the medical officer. When she was expecting me she was already 40, and I was
expected to be born by caesarean. As the only person in Churchill able to perform a caesarean, she
thought it wise to travel the 2,000 miles by train down to Winnipeg – but took scissors and twine
with her just in case she went into an early labour.

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A few months later, the family moved to Britain, settling back in Farnham. In due course, our father
became a Royal Naval chaplain, and his first posting in 1967 was to Malta. It was a happy time of
life for Stella, and it was great fun when we took her back there to mark her 90th birthday; at that
stage Stella still had extraordinary stamina, for example walking around Valetta unaided for an
entire afternoon. After Malta, we returned to Britain in 1969 and moved into Khyber Cottage, the
house her parents had lived in Farnham, which is where Stella continued to live until she moved
to Histon in 2017. For most of that time she had a prayer and counselling ministry with her good
friend Ione Carver. Their friend Peter Horrobin describes Stella and Ione’s friendship and ministry
as “something wonderful to behold – so much fun and seriousness all rolled up into a friendship
which impacted many lives”.

Stella’s mother, Lilian, lived with us in Farnham until she died in 1977. Later that year, Stella was
asked to return to Pakistan, to the hospital in Bannu, to do an eight-month locum. Having by then
been a long time out of medical practice, she found the prospect daunting; but she met with the
local GP to help her re-skill. Since the hospital closed during the summer, I was able to spend my
summer holidays with my mother, travelling in the hills of northern Pakistan – Abbottabad, Murree,
the Kaghan valley, Swat, Nathia Gali – a trip that made quite an impression on a 12-year-old
schoolboy. Stella was able to return to Pakistan again in 1988, while I was working in Islamabad,
and again in 2000 with Alison Blenkinsop and her late husband Tony.

So, Stella’s was certainly a full life. But you cannot understand this life well-lived without
understanding what came before it. Since Stella moved from Farnham – where seemingly nothing
was ever thrown away – my brother Alan has done a great job of sifting through personal papers,
and transcribing letters, particularly those of Stella’s mother, Lilian. Stella and Harry are the children
of Lilian’s second marriage; Stella was named after Lilian’s first husband, Harold Vernon Starr, who
was killed in March 1918; that death, and Lilian’s response to it, form part of the big story into
which Stella was born and which has given shape to her whole life.

Among the many letters that Alan has transcribed are two written by Lilian in the days immediately
following her husband’s murder, one to her own mother back in England, and one to the local
church community. My daughter Isabel read both letters to Stella just a few weeks ago, one Sunday
before lunch. For Stella, those letters offered a vivid reconnection with her mother, and with the
family story; it was profound and very moving.

In those letters, her mother describes the circumstances of her husband’s murder; how he was
stabbed in the night and how she nursed him through to his death the following day: She wrote:
“We were conscious that Christ was present as he never had been so fully before. He looked so
happy at the end, was only one short moment unconscious – and then had gone to God. I had
never seen him look as he did after, perfectly restful and almost a smile. Death had no sting. It
simply was not death.”

Those letters help explain how Stella understood what you might call the geography of death.
For her, death was not a surprise, nor an injustice, nor a failure of medicine, but a completion, a
drawing near to her life’s goal, stepping into the presence of Christ. Her mother wrote this of the
moment of her husband’s death: “The awfulness had passed – the afterwards transformed it.”
I believe that much of what people have so kindly said they admired in Stella – the love, the sparkle
of humour, the friendliness – were there because she carried that “transformative afterwards”
with her.

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One baby photo was captioned by her mother “Stella enjoys a joke”. That was certainly true, and
many of the cards and letters we have received refer to her chuckle or the mischievous twinkle in
her eye. There are two things about the circumstances of Stella’s death which, knowing her as I did,
would I think have amused her. Firstly, she was a woman who liked records; so, to have died on the
hottest day ever recorded in the UK would for her have been the cause of some pride. And secondly,
it is surely fitting that she was getting ready for a party – in so many photos she seems to have food
and/or drink in hand. For some time, Stella had wanted to have some friends from Windmill Grange
for tea and cake; but she was worried about who to invite, and remembering names. Her solution
was to invite everyone for drinks on the Friday evening. Of course, that particular party never
happened; but I think her timing was clever, a last joke even. From her point of view, she has moved
on to a bigger and better party.

Stella was no saint. But hers was, I think, a great life. She was, of course, a Starr. However, this was
not a life of fame, not one that will make it into the history books. But it was a remarkable life that
was lived thoroughly, intentionally, with direction, in service, with humour, in grace. And all of that
was rooted in and bound together with her faith.

The last four lines of this hymn speak well for her:
“I looked to Jesus, and I found
In Him my Star, my Sun;
And in that Light of life I’ll walk
Till travelling days are done.”

Stella’s travelling days are indeed now done. She has arrived home. She recently shared an image
with a friend from church. Death, she said, is like walking down a corridor, and at the end there’s
a nook with a warm fire, and an armchair, and Jesus. Whether or not we share her faith – and she
would long for every one of us to do so – for her, death is homecoming, and therefore the cause of
great rejoicing.

Rev H Neill Mackay died September 2019
Mrs Jean Mackay (wife) writes:

Neill was born in Beverley, Yorkshire, in 1927, the youngest of three children. His mother was a
missionary in China but returned owing to poor health. We were told she said, “if I can’t be a
missionary I’ll breed them!” True words.... Monica, Cynthia and Neill all served overseas, Cynthia
for many years in Uganda with Church Mission Society.

The family moved to Hull, where Neill’s father owned a family Irish Linen shop, then on to
Bridlington, partly to avoid the bombing raids during World War 2. Neill was 12 when war broke
out, and he found watching the war planes over the Yorkshire coast and searching for wartime
relics on the beach much more exciting than school or Bible class! Keen to leave school as soon
as possible, Neill went to farm in Ruston and had his first experience of earning money. He then
joined the army, travelling from Maidstone to India with the Queens Own Regiment. Later he was
commissioned to The Green Howards and served in Egypt before leaving the army in 1948.

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In preparation for joining the family business, Neill trained at Harrods in London. During that
time, he became aware of God’s call on his life. He trained at St Aidan’s Theological College in
Birkenhead. After curacies in Beverley and Scarborough, and having a long-term interest in the
work of CMS from his time in Hull, he was accepted for training by CMS. He was sent to Wusasa,
Northern Nigeria, working as a pastoral evangelist with the Magazawa people and also as vicar
of St Andrew’s Church. This was during the Biafran war.

Neill met Jean when she was teaching at St Faith’s College, Kaduna. Neill would often be called
upon to fix her regularly broken down VW. Neill the mechanic was his nickname! They were married
in 1971 and settled in Wawne, where Neill was team vicar. Ruth and Sarah were born there, and in
1976 the family moved to Huntington, York, where Neill was rector till his retirement in 1993.

This brought opportunities to spend more time helping with Feed the Minds, local CMS, Yorkshire
Air Museum & Allied Forces Memorial, Green Howards and serving for three years as clergy
retirement officer as well as visits to the coast, travel and bike rides. The bike was his favourite
form of transport and parishioners have fond memories of Neill cycling round the parish carrying
out his duties. Canoeing was another hobby shared with family and friends, often in Scarborough
or on local rivers.

The celebration of Neill as a family man and a colleague was a wonderful service. It was abundantly
clear the huge affection in which Neill was held. He was totally non-judgmental and accepting of
people and situations, a great listener with a faith that was hardy and rooted in daily life. Respect
and tolerance were naturally part of his makeup.

Special verses during his life were “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and… in all your ways
acknowledge him” from Proverbs and from Hebrews “I will never leave you or forsake you”.

When he was very ill in hospital an invitation for tea came. Jean replied “Neill is not up for it but he’ll
probably be feasting elsewhere.” Just after that she read, “He brought me to the banqueting house
and his banner over me is love”! We’re sure he’ll be there celebrating with his sisters and other
members of the Christian family.

Rev Canon John Gaunt Hunter died October 2019
Sheila (wife) writes:

John Gaunt Hunter died peacefully at home in Westhouse, with his wife by his side, surrounded by
the hills and fields he had walked for the last 30 years since his retirement from full time ministry.
He leaves Sheila, his wife, daughter Grace Ann and her husband Stuart in South Africa, son
Christopher and his wife Rebecca in the USA and four grandchildren: Isabelle and Jessica (in South
Africa) and Arabella and Isaac (in USA).

John lived every one of his 98 years to the full and carried memories of life few of us are afforded
today. Born in 1921, three years after the end of the First World War, he grew up in Liverpool.
He, and his beloved brother Lionel, lived through the depression of the 1930s and spoke of the
pain of seeing their father, a senior marine engineer, walking the streets of Liverpool looking for
work. It was a memory that left a lasting mark on John’s political thinking.

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Educated at Liverpool Collegiate School, at the outbreak of war in 1939 John was recruited to train
as a design engineer and subsequently became deeply involved in the trade union movement. This
fostered his decision after the war to go to Durham University to read politics and economics at St
John’s College. His vibrant, unshakable faith was forged as a young man walking the Lake District
fells and wrestling with his search for God. From Durham he went on to Ridley Hall, Cambridge, to
train for ordination. Here he learned the importance of daily Bible reading and prayer, a discipline
underpinning his long life and ministry.

Ordained in 1951, he went on to serve curacies at Bradford Cathedral and St Paul’s Efford
(Plymouth), becoming vicar of St Matthew Bootle in Liverpool docklands in 1956. From Bootle,
John went to Uganda in 1962 to serve as principal of Bishop Tucker Theological College. Here he
made lasting friendships and a lifelong connection with Uganda, as had his mother before him.
On his return from Uganda John served in the Liverpool diocese, under a succession of bishops,
as diocesan missioner and ecumenical officer while being the vicar of the rural parish of St
Michael’s Altcar in West Lancashire. In all his parishes John was a prodigious visitor and Altcar was
no exception. John’s inexhaustible energy was not reserved for his diocesan jobs, but enabled him
to become deeply involved in the life and work of this farming community. It was while in Altcar
that the concept of Call to the North was born and John became secretary to this Province-wide
ecumenical initiative, a role that would span most of the 1970s. John married Sheila in 1975, and
the gift of a drum which they received from the students of Bishop Tucker College remains in their
home to this day. They had two children, Grace Ann and Christopher, and friends from Uganda
were staying with John and Sheila when each of the children were born.

In 1978 John was appointed Team Rector of Buckhurst Hill in the Chelmsford diocese, a multi
church parish reflecting both Evangelical and Anglo-Catholic traditions of the Church of England.
Here his family and his home became the centre of his wide-ranging ministry and outreach into
the community. A deep conviction that God’s love changes people’s lives and the lives of whole
communities fired John’s relentless visiting and tireless devotion to ministry.

John retired from full time parish ministry in 1989 and the family moved north, where Sheila had
been appointed to an academic post in Lancaster. Home was the tiny hamlet of Westhouse in the
Yorkshire Dales and John soon became deeply involved in the Christian communities of the area.
He was appointed as part-time adviser in mission in the Bradford Diocese and, in semi-retirement,
spent three days a week living in the house where he first lived as a curate in Bradford! After three
years John retired again but his retirement was far from idle. In subsequent years he was awarded
an MA in political theology from Leeds University, an MA in history from Lancaster University and
an MPhil from Lancaster University. He published articles in referenced journals and was a sought-
after speaker in many contexts, bringing the energy and dynamism of his working life into his
retirement years. John celebrated his 98th birthday with the publication of his book on Call to the
North. He travelled widely, read avidly and was a familiar figure striding around the countryside
visiting parishioners, often accompanied by the family’s springer spaniel. John saw himself as a
pastor and loved the people among whom he lived.

Even in his final weeks, his presence impacted those around him. Those who helped Sheila care for
him wrote:

“John Gaunt Hunter is without doubt the nicest, kindest, fun loving, humorous, thoughtful and
respectful man we have ever had the pleasure of caring for. On each visit he was there with his

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ready smile and his welcome of the day with whatever quip he felt appropriate. He made us feel
valued and greatly appreciated. He never once complained. His sense of humour whilst discussing
any manner of interests was just extraordinary.”

During a long ministry John served on many diocesan committees and on General Synod, he was a
governor of the local hospitals trust and a keen supporter of local interest groups, but his enduring
passion was always the command of Jesus to “go and make disciples of all nations”. This he sought
to do to the very end of his long life. Christopher, his son, said at his funeral:

“He was driven by a deep sense of the awareness of Christ that he wanted to share with others.
The last question I asked my father was what this awareness of God in his life was like. He answered
without hesitation in the words of a hymn:

“Loved with an everlasting love,
Bought by Grace that love to know,
Spirit breathing from above,
You have taught me it is so.
Oh, what pure and perfect peace,
Oh, this transport all divine,
In a love that cannot cease, I am his and he is mine.”

Christopher went on to conclude: “This was Dad’s reality; and one that he wanted to be everyone’s
including all of ours.”

Dr Selwyn Baker died November 2019
Vaibhav Londhe, Secretary, CMC Alumni Association Vellore India, writes:

Dr Selwyn John Baker joined the Christian Medical College as a missionary supported by the
Australian CMS in June 1955. He had completed an MD in General Medicine from Melbourne,
Australia, and a year’s training in haematology at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School in
Hammersmith, UK, with Prof John Dacie. The contacts he established then with Drs Chris Booth and
David Mollin helped him to obtain a research grant from the Wellcome Trust to study nutritional
megaloblastic anaemia and the role of vitamin B12.

Dr Selwyn joined Prof P Kutumbiah in Medicine Unit 1, who gave him the freedom to develop his
research interests. Dr Selwyn was able to show that nutritional megaloblastic anaemia in non-
pregnant adults in southern India was associated with a chronic malabsorption syndrome similar to
Tropical Sprue, which until then was considered to be a disease affecting only expatriates to certain
tropical countries. The grant from the Wellcome Trust enabled him to build a small laboratory and a
ten-bed metabolic ward, W Ward. Dr V.I. Mathan joined Dr Selwyn in 1961 to initiate field studies on
a large epidemic of Tropical Sprue in Vandavasi, about 80 kilometres from Vellore. From 1962, with
grants from the Wellcome Trust and from PL480 funds, Dr Selwyn built up a research team with
Prof. A.N. Radhakrishnan as biochemist, Prof Prema Bhat, as microbiologist and Prof V.I. Mathan, as
clinician and epidemiologist. Many graduate students undertook PhD research with this group.

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Dr Selwyn was instrumental in obtaining funds from The Research Corporation in New York to build
the Williams Research Building to honour the memory of Dr Robert Ramapattinam Williams, who
had the commercial patent for synthesising vitamin B1. Dr Williams was born in India to missionary
parents at Ramapattinam in Andhra Pradesh. This purpose-designed building, the first of its kind
for research at any medical college in India, is a lasting tribute to Dr Selwyn Baker. Professors B.K.
Bachawat, A.N. Radhakrishnan, Prema Bhat, Sheila Pereira, Mary Dumm and V.I. Mathan, working
together with Dr Selwyn in the building, placed CMC Vellore on the biomedical research map of the
world. Many of the research priorities were decided over dosa and coffee at lunch in the Andal Cafe
(alas no longer there). Dr Selwyn gave freedom for his colleagues to develop their interests and was
a good mentor.

Dr Selwyn was an outstanding clinician and haematologist and inculcated in his students the ideal
that they were totally responsible for their patients. His pioneering management of a staff spouse
who developed catastrophic post-partum bleeding will long be remembered by all on the staff of
CMC in 1972. Dr Selwyn resigned in 1975 for personal reasons following the 1974 strike and joined
the University of Winnipeg in Canada from where he retired to UK. Mrs Elizabeth Baker, his wife,
was the first Principal of Vidyalayam and generations of children remember her with gratitude.
Later he married Dr Elisabeth Jacob of the class of 1950.

Dr Selwyn John Baker was an outstanding clinical researcher who spent 20 years at CMC Vellore
and was instrumental in CMC gaining a place on the medical research map of the world. He was
honoured with the FRACP for his work. He had four children. We thank God for a life well spent.

Rosa Jane Pelly died November 2019
Sheila H Davis writes:

Jane was born on 14 February 1931, the second daughter of Canon Richard L Pelly and Dr Salome
Pelly (née Wordsworth) and granddaughter of John Wordsworth, Bishop of Salisbury. Her aunt,
Faith Wordsworth, founded Queen’s College Lagos in 1927. After the war, Canon Pelly became the
Warden of St Nicholas’ Hospital, an almshouse in Salisbury, and on his retirement the family moved
to the parish of Harnham. Jane lived in the cottage with them during her bi-annual leaves from
Nigeria and after her own retirement. After a short illness, Jane died there on 7 November 2019
at the age of 88. She is survived by her sister Robina Hattersley, her brothers Richard Pelly and Dr
Hugh Pelly, and many nephews and nieces and their offspring.

Jane went to Oxford University to read zoology and started teaching in Nigeria at Queen’s School,
Ede, in 1956. Three years later, she was proud to be asked to be the founding principal of Fiwasaye
Girls’ Grammar School, Akure, and it was very much her school: she designed the buildings, planted
the trees, chose the prefects and made the timetable. The entire school, which meant Form I, one
teacher, the Matron and the Principal, went to Lagos for the celebration of Independence Day in
October 1960.

From the very beginning this school was marked out as a Christian community, respecting and
serving others, living under strict discipline, seeking high standards of study and behaviour,
learning about life and what they might achieve. Its population increased by one new class each

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year and the Nigerian staff were joined by a succession of British volunteers, and by Miss Stephanie
Shurland, who left to become principal of a school in Trinidad, her homeland.

Jane led her school by example. She was faithful to God, hardworking and self-disciplined, and
expected the girls to be the same. “You must be in the right place at the right time,” she told
them. She cared about their health, their progress and their problems, and trained them to take
responsibility. They had the opportunity to choose their own extra-curricular activities, and were
encouraged in sports and athletics, art, drama and music. They had excursions and organised the
Saturday night entertainment. Those who wished to be confirmed were given sustained teaching
so that they understood they were making a lifelong commitment. They had been given much and
from them much would be required. When the first set left, they all became founding members of
the Fiwasaye Old Girls’ Association and are now women of influence in amazing ways.

In 1972, Queen Elizabeth awarded Jane the MBE for services to education in Nigeria. When she felt
that she had laid a strong foundation and it was time for a change, she moved to the north to serve
in Federal Government College, Kazaure, from 1973 to 1975. Then she was sent to the Federal
Government College in Benin City from 1975 to 1979. But Fiwasaye remained her first love.

She returned home and became a reader in Salisbury Diocese. In 2003, she went to Arua, Uganda,
for three months, and in 2004 to Yei, Sudan, for four months. She became a Christian Aid teacher,
travelling to inspect projects in different countries and then telling Salisbury children during their
morning assemblies what she found. In 2011 she wrote a tribute Bishop John, the grandfather she
so much admired for his passionate interest in education, on the centenary of his death.
She loved being a guide at the cathedral, taking services at Harnham Croft care home and hosting
a U3A group. Sometimes she was frustrated because she could not do even more to support
various campaigns and excel in everything. Other people can tell the story of her later years better
than I can, but I know she was very hospitable and generous to many charities and individuals in
need and relentless in trying to persuade others to do likewise. She was faithful to the end. We are
offered a glorious opportunity to thank God for her life in a memorial service to be held in the New
Year 2020.

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