Anthony Eric Kemp

We first met Tony, Valerie, Alison and David when they came to live in Wokingham in 1974 and began to worship at All Saints’ Church. We found them to be very friendly and Janet (my wife) shared a deep interest with him in church and organ music, while he and I shared an interest in DIY matters as well as in theology and the community aspects of church life. We also reflected on our mutual lives at Reading University – he as a lecturer in Music (initially at Bulmershe College) and as a researcher in the psychology and personality of musicians (about which he wrote a remarkable book, derived from his studies for a DPhil in 1979), while I was a research scientist and lecturer in physiology and biochemistry. Past students of his have told us of how much they valued his teaching and his supervision of postgraduate work.

Tony and Valerie and their children became close friends with us, often sharing meals together and social outings. They became Godparents to Rachel our daughter and later Alison and David became Godparents to our son Matthew.

I quickly realised that Tony was a very thoughtful and prayerful person, with an original, compassionate and sometimes quite off-beat way of looking at life. In 1975 Tony was appointed Director of Music at All Saints and quickly showed his gift in encouraging and training the choir which grew rapidly. Janet was his deputy for around ten years. In addition to singing at the principal church services on Sundays the choir also spent a week every summer singing at various cathedrals, as well as at Westminster Abbey and St George’s Chapel Windsor.

Tony’s professional life developed extensively during the 1970s and 1980s and he travelled far and wide to lecture at conferences and academic institutions, including in Baghdad and Helsinki, where he was awarded an honorary doctorate in music in 2003.

One of Tony’s many gifts was as an artist. He painted a beautiful picture of Lindisfarne for my ordination and he also trained to write icons, and completed quite a number.

Tony and I often reflected on the particular ministry and pattern of life at All Saints’ in Wokingham, and late on one Saturday night we moved many of the oak pews in the church into new and more friendly positions (as we thought!), with the tacit agreement of the rector. Thus we were seen as rebels, but the move was gradually accepted.

During the 1980s several members of the congregation began to perceive a vocation to ordained ministry and Tony was one of those who encouraged me to pursue this. We met regularly during my training and afterwards during my ministry from 1992 in the Diocese of Chichester. During the 1990s Tony also perceived a vocation to ordained ministry and trained in Oxford on the St Albans and Oxford Ministry Course and was ordained in 1998. He ministered at All Saints Wokingham until 2005, and then at St Paul’s Wokingham, where he valued the greater sacramental emphasis in that parish. In 2013 Tony and Valerie moved to Hayling Island, where he continued ministry for some time.

Tony’s spiritual life was often contemplative, and he was supported over the years by the Sisters at the Community of St Mary the Virgin, Wantage, and also by the Sisters of the love of God at Fairacres in Oxford, where he was a priest associate and author of one of the community’s publications: With One Heart and Mind: Contemplative Prayers. At the same time Tony was a spiritual director and offered wise counsel to many people over the years.

I shall remember Tony as a good and reflective friend, as husband and father. His wide range of interests was always stimulating. At heart he was quite often restless, sometimes unhappy with people and the world, and often looked for change, particularly within the deeper levels of humanity. At the same time he had a gentle and engaging sense of humour, and compassion, and was a relaxed conversationalist.

I join many people in thanksgiving for having known Tony and for all that he did for me and Janet, and for so many other people. May he rest in peace and rise with God in glory.

Graham Low