THE
P RTAL
September 2016
Page 12
Here am I Lord
Jackie Ottaway and Ronald Crane met
with Hugh Pratt
N
ot all Ordinariate members were card-carrying
Anglo-Catholics. Some former Conservative Evangelicals
are Ordinariate members too. We met with Hugh Pratt in the
Battleaxes pub in Wraxall on the outskirts of Bristol. Hugh is
an old friend from the days when we were all on the Forward in
Faith National Council. He began with some life history.
“I was born in the wilds of Dorset; in fact if you go
to the middle of nowhere and go twenty miles further
on that’s where I was born! It was in one of the very
first redundant vicarages. My father wasn’t a priest but
at the bottom of our garden was a Norman Church.
We moved into the farm next door. Every Sunday
we’d walk across the fields into the church yard to this
Norman church.
“I was baptised at six months and confirmed at
twelve years. I attended boarding school; a Protestant
boarding school with services twice a day. But like
many young people I fell away and wasn’t really
religious at all in the sense of attending any building
but I carried the ethos and the innocence of a child
of God.
“It wasn’t until I was thirty, when I’d been quite
successful in a worldly sense, that I retired having built
a yacht and sailed to New Zealand and then to China
with my first wife and daughters. It was in New Zealand
that I was in a business meeting with two other people
and one of them said ‘Oh Jesus Christ’ and the other
person rebuked him and said ‘Please don’t speak about
my friend like that’.
church, in China, the underground church in Tonga,
in America, Canada, in the rebellious church in all
these places that we attended as we sailed, I began to
understand the orthodoxy and common life which has
put me in good stead for this moment in time when
I’m slightly more mature.
“Coming back to England after the seven years of
sailing I was told strange things. The first was that in
England there was no church, and yet other people said
there was a brand new church movement in England.
When I came back, I entered the buildings and was
slightly disappointed in what I saw. There was little life
compared with some countries like Tonga. But there
was Spring Harvest which was a new sort of life. I just
got involved and stuck in.
“It was the Anglican Church which I’d been brought
up in, and the diocese of Bristol, where I remember
being slightly disappointed having been sent to St
Mary Redcliffe and hearing Barry Rogers preach about
Islam.
“I challenged him afterwards and said, ‘I can’t
“I was impressed because I thought that in a business remember those verses being in the Bible.’ They
meeting you don’t normally challenge someone; weren’t; they were from the Quran, I found that
you may not get the business and that wasn’t wise. uncomfortable. I didn’t know what was going on. Then
Secondly, and more interestingly, he had a friend. As I heard him again speaking about the requirement for
I walked away from the business meeting I reflected women’s Priesthood, now…which he propelled.
on that and thought that probably God exists (51%)
and probably Jesus is who he claims to be (51%) and
“It was challenging because I saw the people on both
if that’s the case it’s so important I had better get my sides of the divide of women being ordained to the
act together and find out; so I spent the next few years priesthood. There were good people and bad people
seeking.
on both side and it was a huge puzzle because I wanted
to do what was right, but I was confused because
“I immediately stuck a cross on my lapel and claimed my background and my church practice were broad
his colours. The Lord was gracious in showing me church or evangelical charismatic and yet you had
something that only now today I’m beginning to see. people who were quite ugly and nasty who were on the
The Lord laid plans for that sailing ship which I thought Anglo-Catholic side and people who were quite ugly
was just a worldly success but he showed me the world and nasty on the liberal side.