Colin was born 30 June 1946 in Farnborough, Hampshire.
His father was a scientist; his mother was a housewife who later taught domestic science. He was one of four, with two older brothers and a younger sister.At eleven Colin followed his brothers to Farnborough Grammar School. He could easily have opted for maths and science A levels but chose to do languages. In his mid-teens he started to attend the local parish church youth club, not really out of interest in religion but because, being at a boys’ school, it was somewhere where he could meet girls. But in fact this youth club was something of a hotbed of evangelical and charismatic enthusiasm and Colin became a Christian himself.
His subsequent spiritual journey was an erratic and sometimes troubled one. Having heard a talk from someone from the Red Sea Mission team he decided to read Hebrew and Arabic at London University with a view to becoming a missionary in the Middle East. But by the end of his first year’s study he had abandoned this ambition and he did not return to university. For the next year or so he took a series of dead-end jobs, acquired a maths A level and lost his faith. But still hankering to discover the meaning of life, he applied and was accepted to study philosophy at Newcastle University.
Colin was brilliant at philosophy, particularly at the most challenging aspects of logic and linguistic philosophy. He was awarded a first class degree, and this in the days when Firsts were very much a rarity. While at Newcastle he met and married Jenny and regained his Christian faith. He went on to study for a D.Phil at Oxford, after which he obtained a one-year temporary post teaching philosophy at the University of East Anglia in Norwich. Stephen was born in Colin’s last year at Oxford and Ruth in his first year at UEA.
Colin was a successful lecturer and his post was extended for another year but the UK had entered a period of recession, universities were not recruiting and Colin was unable to find another permanent job. He continued to teach philosophy part-time but finally decided to retrain as a maths teacher. He accepted a teaching job at Aylesbury Grammar School in 1979 and stayed in the post until retirement. In his last few years of teaching he became involved in union activities, eventually becoming NASUWT county negotiating secretary. He very much enjoyed this role, worked hard at it and was notably good at it.
When he and Jenny moved to St. Albans in 2008, wanting to be nearer to their children and grandchildren in London, he was very open to all that St. Michael’s had to offer. Colin’s first priority in a church was always the preaching and teaching, in which St Michael’s excelled, but he had also moved from his former puritanism to a place where he embraced the beauties of the building, the music and the liturgy. Colin was for many years Gift Aid Secretary, a member of the Stewardship Committee, and more mundanely on the coffee and cleaning rotas. But he will be best remembered as a member of the intercessions rota. He was conscientious in preparing his intercessions, always managing to link the Bible passages for the day to the most pressing issues in current Church, national and international situations.