Revd Preb Duncan Ross

By The Revd Preb Andrew Wilson

Duncan Ross was an important person in the lives of many people. He was in mine.

I met him in 1986 in Hackney Wick. I stayed in his Vicarage for a week when I was seventeen and worked in the Hackney Archives Department writing a short history of his parish.

When I started to think about ordination a few years later and was tasked with writing about the people who had shaped my life, I found myself writing about Duncan and what it had meant to me to meet him and witness his ministry in Hackney Wick. He was incredibly kind to me from the day of that first meeting up until his death last year. Like many others, I loved him dearly. I shall be forever grateful for having known him.

I attended Duncan’s funeral last year at the Charterhouse and then his Memorial Service at St Paul’s, Bow Common. On both occasions everyone who spoke about Duncan did so beautifully and powerfully. I wrote to each of them later, asking permission to gather together their wonderful words so that they could be placed on the Stepney Lives website, in the hope that others keen to remember Duncan could find those tributes easily.

Rereading them, another thought comes to mind. There are lots of ways to learn about ordained ministry. Some of that learning takes place at Theological College, some as part of post ordination and ongoing training, and a great deal is taught us by those we are called to serve.

Our colleagues shape us, as do the lives of the people we most admire. I think there is a great deal to learn from Duncan’s life, ministry and character, so richly described below. I would be so pleased if someone starting out in ministry, who had never even met Duncan, read these tributes and felt inspired. And importantly there are things to learn from Duncan’s life, not just about ordained ministry, but about Christian life, and life in general. There are lessons here about the joys and challenges of a life that spanned two continents, about what it meant to grow up in Calcutta and East London, and those of course are open to all and have nothing to do with whether or not someone is ordained.

Duncan was an intensely reflective person. Often, I worry that people don’t reflect enough. In his case I worried, for the sake of his own wellbeing and sanity, that he might be reflecting too much. He was also highly self-critical. I don’t think he would have liked anyone to suggest he was perfect, or that he was the be all and end all of what it means to be a priest in East London, or anywhere else. Neither I, nor anyone below, is suggesting that. This is a celebration, however, of the life of someone who was very dear to many, many people, and whose life and ministry were very special and remarkable. Thanks be to God for Duncan Ross. May he rest in peace and rise in glory.

Further information about the life and work of the Revd Preb Duncan Ross can be found at Stepney Lives website here.