Rev Richard Le Bas Johnson

The Chronology

Richard was born in Barnes on August 12th 1922. He went as a chorister to Salisbury Cathedral School in 1929, and then he went to King’s College Taunton. He worked briefly at the Bank of England before enlisting in the army.

During the last years of WW2 he served in the Royal Armoured Corps, mainly in Mesopotamia and the Near East. He was a consceintious letter-writer and wrote home to his parents on a regular basis. His letters are now lodged in the Imperial War Museum archives. He was discharged on Nov 11th 1946 with the rank of Lieutenant. He went on to obtain an MA at Trinity College Dublin.

He decided to train for ministry in the Church of England (apparently to his father’s dismay) and trained at Salisbury Theological College. He was ordained Deacon on Dec 21st 1952 and served as a curate at St John the Baptist Hugglescote. He was at Hugglescote as curate for three years, before moving, again as curate, to Hinckley, where he served a further two years. In 1957 he took up a position as Precentor at Peterborough Cathedral. Towards the end of five years at Peterborough Richard gave some thought to going overseas (his two brothers had gone overseas in the early 1950s). The Bishop of Peterborough had contacts with the Church of Rhodesia in the Diocese of Mashonaland. Richard took up his first parish in Hartley in March 1962. He spent five years there (his mother Muriel went with him), and then returned to England for six months in 1967. He returned on his own to the Lowvelt in Rhodesia as priest-in-charge of the district.

In 1972 Richard returned to England and took up a temporary post at Kingsworthy near Winchester where he was rejoined by his mother, who had been living in Bridport. In 1973 he was appointed as Rector of the parishes of Littleton and Crawley, and moved into the newly built rectory in Littleton. The parish of Sparsholt was added to his responsibility in the 1980s. In 1990 Richard retired from active ministry and moved with Muriel to a house in the parish of South Wonston. After the death of Muriel in 1992 Richard moved to the College of St Barnabas.

Richard remembered

I want to collect stories and reminsicences from those who knew Richard. He was a very kind-hearted and generous man, and he was very fond of his family. The way he looked after his mother after the death of Vaughan is inspirational. It can’t have been easy for him, especially as his mother grew older and frailer. However, he never patronised her but at the same time was quietly insistent that she should not become dependent when it was not necessary.

My hat!

One of the first times I met Uncle Richard was when we paid a visit to England in 1960 (my family lived in Mexico at the time). We went to stay with Granny and Uncle Richard in a large house in the close at Peterborough. Uncle Richard was out, and my brother Richard and I were invited by Granny to open a large wooden box or trunk in the attic, and inside we discovered the Hornby trains which belonged to Uncle Richard. In no time at all we had all the trains out, laid track and had the trains running. It was great fun and we were completely absorbed in the task. Suddenly Uncle Richard apeared at the door of the attic and said ‘Well! My hat!”. My brother and I had never heard the expression ‘My hat!’ before, and to begin with we wondered if Uncle Richard was angry with us. But of course he wasn’t, and then we able to appreciate the expression ‘my hat’ which we came to regard as terrifically funny, and no doubt used whenever we could for months after! [Michael Johnson]

A dishwasher

Uncle Richard bought a table-top dishwasher when he lived in Kingsworthy. He was immensely proud of it, but he was never very good at caring for mechanical objects. He steadfastly refused to rinse any dishes or pots and pans before putting them in the little dishwasher, and he forbade any visitors to do so either. The results were predictable: remnants of mustard and egg and the like got firmly baked onto the dishes during the drying cycle, and the drain function would sieze up as it became choked with bits of rind, chicken bones and the like. When Sherry and I visited at weekends we would wait until Uncle Richard was out doing parish business, and then we would wash dishes by hand and give the dishwasher some cleaning and maintenance. Uncle Richard was unconvinced that there was any point in doing this, and would actively stop us if he was around. For a while he moved the dishwasher out of the kitchen and into Granny’s bedroom, which was up a narrow flight of stairs. The dishwasher was plumbed into the handbasin in the bedroom. Taking a tray load of dishes and cutlery up the stairs was always a risk to life and limb. In the evening Granny would announce her intention to retire to bed, and Uncle Richard would leap up, saying ‘Just a tick, Mums, I need to turn the dishwasher on first.’ Now, that dishwasher was notable for being extremely noisy, and had a very long wash and rinse cycle, so we could imagine poor Granny retiring to bed and having to put up with the noise for a couple of hours. I must say, she never seemed to mind, and I doubt very much that she ever complained to Richard about it. [Michael Johnson]

Turning up unannounced

On their visit to Africa Colette and Richard drove all day and ended up at Tugela Ferry in KwaZulu-Natal The only thing in Tugela Ferry was a very large local hospital and a tenuous linkRichard had with a trainee doctor. They literally pitched up just as it was getting dark, with absolutely nowhere else to go, with no forewarning… Richard was of course sure that they would be looked after, and indeed they were. They were put up for the night in one of the doctors’ quarters which were comfortable enough, although there was little on offer in the way of food! [Colette Knowlden]

Saved by a damp facecloth

Richard joined a party of pilgrims visiting Mount Athos in Greece in June 1995 (when Richard was 73). The group intended to spend the first night at the monastery of Zographou and debarked from the ferry at Skala Zographou. The plan was to walk to the holy monastery of Constamonitou, and to take the inland path from there to Zographou. Unfortunately this inland path proved to be closed, so we all walked in the extremely hot early afternoon sun back to Skala Zographou, and would then be faced with a long hike up a fairly steep road to Zographou. Just as they were reaching Skala Zographou Richard, who was not very fit, keeled over in a faint. Michael, who was with the group, was very concerned that Richard had sunstroke. He helped Richard into a comfortable position off the path, and Richard asked him to remove his (very small) backpack. In the backpack was a plastic bag, and in the plastic bag was a wet facecloth. Richard spread the facecloth over his face and lay back. After a few minutes he had recovered enough to resume the journey. The facecloth was a godsend, and just the right thing for a near-sunstroke (‘Just the ticket’ as Richard would have said). Nobody else in the party would ever have thought of carefully packing a wet facecloth, but Richard had, and it saved him! The party was then very lucky indeed to find a pick-up truck at Skala Zographou which was about to take a couple of monastery workers up to the monastery at the end of their day’s work, so everybody got a lift, thus avoiding a journey which Richard would have almost certianly been unable to make, so once again everything worked out perfectly albeit in an unexpected way! [Michael Johnson]

At the wheel – 1

One of my first memories of Uncle Richard is a visit we made as a family to see him in The Lowveld in the Triangle area of Rhodesia, where he was Priest in Charge. I imagine this was in the late 60’s early 70’s – probably just before he left Rhodesia to return to England. We were in his car, maybe a Renault, and we were at the top of a hill with the road visibly going down and then up the other side in a long sweep. He suddenly turned off the engine and announced that the car would be fine. No petrol needed! We’d never seen anything like it. We were bouncing up and down on the back seat with excitement wondering when he would turn on the ignition again. The car picked up speed, and we were going at a hell of a rate. He knew the road, and that the hill on the other side would slow us down – but it was quite an experience! {Colette Knowlden]

At the wheel – 2

All Uncle Richard’s cars seemed to me quite ‘bouncy’. Renault’ s can be a little higher off the ground – which may ease getting in and out. The weight of bodies, and the speed of driving this gave the appearance of quite an unstable car.
Granny appeared to always be ‘on standby’ for Uncle Richard. They would be sitting in The Rectory when suddenly Richard would announce “Come on Mum’s, we’re going”. She would gather her things – a cardigan, her bag, and go outside and get in the passenger seat of the car and wait for Richard. He would then be distracted by something – maybe a phone-call, or a newspaper article, or he maybe suddenly find himself playing the piano, and quite forgetting any urgency. Granny would be sitting in the car…still waiting. Then he would suddenly swirl out of the house, throw the car into gear, and they would bounce away down a little English lane. [Colette Knowlden]

Catching the train

Sometimes we would travel down to Winchester by train for a weekend visit at the Rectory at Littleton. Uncle Richard would meet us at the station, and would drive us back on the Sunday evening to catch the train home. If the train was due to leave at 16.55, Sherry and I would be ready to leave at 4.30. Uncle Richard would ignore any anxiety about catching the train, and would either disappear to carry on with some work he was doing, or suddenly engage me in conversation, along the lines of ‘Michael, you will know about this. There is a tribe in the Amazon that…” By 4.45 I would be practically tearing my hair out, and Uncle Richard would reluctantly get into the car with us, saying “Don’t worry, we have plenty of time!”. He would then race along the roads into Winchester at top speed. We would see the train coming in to the station from Bournemouth, knowing that it would only be stopped for a minute or two. Uncle Richard would screech to a halt, Sherry and I would leap from the car and dash into the station. I don’t think we ever actually missed a train, but it certainly caused a rise in blood pressure and anxiety! [Michael Johnson]

Poona ’46

We were having lunch at an Indian restaurant in the West End. Uncle Richard, Sherry, my mother and I. Uncle Richard, out of the blue as it seemed, leaned across to an elderly gentleman eating quietly at an adjacent able and, fixing him with a piercing gaze, said loudly “Poona ’46”. The poor gentleman looked very startled and said, “I beg your pardon?” Uncle Richard smiled and said again “Poona – 1946”. The gentleman shook his head in bemusement. Uncle Richard said “Yes. We met in Poona in 1946.” The gentleman shook his head and said, “I’m sorry. I’ve never been to Poona and I don’t have the faintest idea who you are!” Uncle Richard was not at all downcast at the failure of his sally. If he had been right, then that would have been another triumph of connection. As it was, nothing had been lost and the possibility of making a link was well worth the embarrassment of those sharing the table with him! [Michael Johnson]

Interview with myself

There is a video of Richard which he made when he was familiarizing himself with a video camera which he bought, and which became one of his favourite devices. Enjoy!