| The Revd Roy Davies writes:
CANON Russell Robert Acheson, who died on 20 April, aged 91, was born in the middle of the First World War, and served throughout the Second World War as a Captain and later Major in the Queen’s Royal Regiment in Palestine, Ceylon, and India; and then, as one of General Wingate’s Chindits, he took part, under appalling conditions, in the march into Burma.
His father was the local doctor at Berkeley in Gloucestershire. Edward Jenner, the pioneer of smallpox vaccination, had been a predecessor, his home later becoming the Vicarage, and eventually the Edward Jenner Museum. During Russell’s childhood, the families of the doctor and the Vicar in Berkeley were closely bound together both through friendship and marriage.
After home tuition by a governess, he went first to the Dragon School in Oxford, and then on to Repton, during Geoffrey Fisher’s headmastership. A scholarship took him to University College, Oxford, where he read Classics.
His privileged beginnings never made him aloof. He seemed, rather, to have inherited the best characteristics of the country doctor and country parson. Many were touched by his totally unassuming character, and by the way in which he wore his learning so lightly. His army discipline always stood him in good stead; and, throughout his life, he retained a gracious and generous recognition of the qualities of men and women who came from very different backgrounds.
In his final year at university, he and his friends were debating whether they should fight if war were to come. He had spent several summers in the 1930s exploring Germany and the former Yugoslavia; and it meant so much to him that he was able, after the war, to resume a lifelong friendship with one of the Germans he had come to know on one of these visits.
Having deferred his theological training, he went to Wells after the war had finished. His particular blend of experience and skills was quickly recognised by Bishop George Cockin, who invited him to be Youth Chaplain to the diocese of Bristol in 1952, and then Vicar of St Paul’s, Clifton, in 1954. He was given the task of pioneering the University Chaplaincy from this new base, which was very much in the heart of the university community.
He married Richenda Vale, a musician, in 1957. She was wonderfully supportive throughout his ministry; and, it was during their time at St Paul’s that their three children (Frances, Barnabas, and Eleanor) were born. In 1966, he was appointed Vicar of Much Wenlock in Shropshire, and given the task of pioneering the Wenlock Team Ministry; and his successors have continued to benefit from the fruits of his administrative skills, and his understanding and respect for country men and women.
He inherited from his father a life-long love of gardening, and, throughout his life, his love of classics never left him: he was reading Latin, Greek, and Hebrew until the end. He also had a great love of 20th-century music, and one of his joys in moving to Hereford Cathedral was the quality of music there.
In 1978, he was appointed Canon Chancellor, in recognition of his theological understanding and his teaching and tutorial skills. Both in this post and in his retirement, he energetically involved himself in the work of the Gloucester School for Ministry, where his Hebrew and Greek scholarship were invaluable.
He was a liberal, courageous, and challenging thinker, inclusive, scholarly, mature, urbane, and careless of ambition. He was an early supporter of the ordination of women, and was no doubt delighted that his funeral service was conducted by the Revd Sheila Fisher.
His spirituality is summed up in the final words of the passage from William Law which was read at his funeral: “I exhort you to this method in your devotion, that every day be made a day of thanksgiving, and that the spirit of murmur and discontent may be unable to enter the heart.”
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