The Rev John Stott

John Stott in 2006. He has been described as 'a renaissance man with a reformation theology'.

Though the name of the Rev John Stott, who has died at the age of 90, rarely appeared in the UK national press, in April 2005 Time Magazine placed him among the world's top 100 major influencers. A comment piece in the New York Times six months earlier had expressed surprise that he was ignored by the press, since he was a more authentic advocate for evangelical Christianity than more colourful figures such as Jerry Falwell.
Stott, radical in his conservatism, could not be pigeonholed. He was deeply committed to the need for social, economic and political justice and passionately concerned about climate change and ecological ethics. He regarded the Bible as his supreme authority and related its teaching to all areas of knowledge and experience. He insisted that Christians should engage in "double listening" – to the word of God, and to the world around them – and apply their biblical faith to all the pressing issues of contemporary culture. He himself researched, preached and wrote on a wide range of matters – from global debt to global warming, from the duties of the state to medical ethics and euthanasia. This was the kind of evangelicalism he embodied.
Stott was born in London, the fourth child and only son of Sir Arnold Stott and his wife, Lily. His father, a Harley Street physician, hoped he would enter the diplomatic service, and his peace-seeking spirit could have equipped him well for this. But at the age of 17, while at Rugby school, Warwickshire, his plans took a different turn. One February afternoon, he came to view the Christian gospel as compelling, and shortly afterwards resolved to be ordained into the church.
From school, having been excused national service as a conscientious objector – though he later came to accept the validity of the idea of a just war – Stott went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he gained a double first in French and German. He then trained for ordination at Ridley Hall, Cambridge. In 1945 he became a curate at All Souls, Langham Place, in central London. This was the church where, as a child, he had terrorised the girls in Sunday school with his toy guns and daggers.
Stott has been described as "a renaissance man with a reformation theology". He had a sharp inter-disciplinary mind, and always worked to bring his thinking under the scrutiny of the Bible. It was, he believed, possible to understand the world only in the light of the Bible's teaching about God and humankind.
While the US evangelist Billy Graham, a long-time friend, was drawing tens of thousands to sports stadiums, Stott's mission field was the university campus. He conducted week-long events at universities in many countries, presenting a case for a Christian worldview, and drawing even the most cynical students into the pages of the New Testament.
In 1950, while only 29, he became rector of All Souls, a crown appointment. When released by the Church of England for wider ministry in 1970, he moved into a mews flat above the rectory garage. This modest two-roomed home became his base until 2007. Much of his substantial writing – a total of 50 books translated into 65 languages – was completed in a remote cottage on the Welsh coast which he bought in 1954. It was at that stage derelict, and for many years had no mains electricity. Stott's books included the million-selling Basic Christianity (1958), Christ the Controversialist (1970) and The Cross of Christ (1986). His final book, A Radical Disciple, "to say goodbye to his readers", was published last year.
Stott was behind the shaping of The Lausanne Covenant (1974), a significant statement of international co-operation in the cause of world evangilisation. He founded several evangelical initiatives in Britain, including the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity (1982) of which the sociologist and broadcaster Elaine Storkey later became director, succeeded by Mark Greene. Through his work with the university Christian Unions in the UK and overseas, he engaged with many of the sharpest up-and-coming Christian thinkers while they were still students.
His influence in the church has spread to more than 100 countries through his founding of Langham Partnership International. In the US, it operates under the name of John Stott Ministries. This threefold initiative, now under the direction of the theologian and author the Rev Chris Wright, works to strengthen the church in the developing world by training preachers, funding doctoral scholarships for the most able theological thinkers, and providing basic, low-cost libraries for pastors. Stott's own considerable royalties from his writing went towards the production and distribution of theological books in developing countries.
Stott was appointed CBE in 2006. He had served as chaplain to the Queen (1959-91) and then as extra chaplain until he died. His six doctorates included one from Lambeth Palace.
From childhood, Stott was taught by his father to love the natural world. He became an expert self-taught ornithologist, sighting and photographing some 2,500 bird species.
Urbane and gracious as both visionary and strategist, Stott left the Langham Partnership as perhaps his major legacy. His influence will doubtless attract much further attention.

• John Robert Walmsley Stott, clergyman and theologian, born 27 April 1921; died 27 July 2011

Silvio Narizzano

Georgy Girl, with Lynn Redgrave as Georgina and James Mason as her admirer, directed by Silvio Narizzano. 

The film and TV director Silvio Narizzano, who has died aged 84, handled several genres throughout his career, including black comedies, period pieces, social dramas, action thrillers and horror movies. But one picture, his swinging London romantic comedy Georgy Girl (1966), stands out from the rest of his eclectic filmography.
Georgy Girl was part of the trend in which British cinema shifted the focus from provincial life and back to the metropolis, celebrating new freedoms and social possibilities. Narizzano, influenced by the French New Wave and his chic contemporaries Richard Lester, John Schlesinger and Tony Richardson, explored such "shocking" subjects as abortion, illegitimacy, adultery and sexual promiscuity with a light touch. The film, which took its cue from the jaunty title song by the Seekers, had superb performances from Lynn Redgrave as the virginal and plain Georgina; Charlotte Rampling as her sexy and amoral flatmate, made pregnant by her charming, laidback boyfriend (Alan Bates); and James Mason as a wealthy businessman who takes more than a fatherly interest in Georgy. The film was nominated for four Oscars, for best actress (Redgrave), supporting actor (Mason), cinematography (Kenneth Higgins) and original song. Narizzano was nominated for a Bafta for best British film and a Golden Bear at the Berlin film festival.
The son of an Italian-American family, Narizzano was born in Montreal and educated at Bishop's University in Quebec. After graduation, he joined the Mountain Playhouse in Montreal. The theatre was run by Joy Thompson, a leading figure in English-language theatre in Quebec and a great influence on Narizzano. He then joined the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, working as an assistant to Norman Jewison, Arthur Hiller and Ted Kotcheff. Soon after co-directing a documentary about Tyrone Guthrie, the artistic director of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario, Narizzano came to Britain to work in television.

Narizzano's first feature was the Hammer horror film Fanatic.

  He rapidly reached the top as a director, gaining plaudits for his work on ITV Television Playhouse (1956-60), a series of Saki tales (1962) and ITV Play of the Week (1956-63), all with superb casts and writers. He directed JB Priestley's anti-nuclear play Doomsday for Dyson (1958); an episode of the BBC series On Trial, starring Micheál MacLiammóir as Oscar Wilde (1960); and 24 Hours in a Woman's Life (1961), starring Ingrid Bergman and adapted by John Mortimer from Stefan Zweig's novel.
Narizzano's feature debut was Fanatic (1965), a Hammer horror film notable for being Tallulah Bankhead's last movie (and her first in 20 years). She plays a crazed religious fanatic who keeps her dead son's fiancee (Stefanie Powers) prisoner, hoping to "cleanse" and then kill her so that she can marry the dead son in heaven. Narizzano managed to coax a venomous performance out of Bankhead, who was intoxicated throughout the shoot. After being shown the film with a small audience of her friends, Bankhead, who is seen in many harsh, unflattering close-ups, announced: "Darlings, I must apologise for looking older than God's wet nurse."
The triumph of Georgy Girl was followed by Blue (1968), a plodding western starring Terence Stamp, which opened to withering reviews but, surprisingly, remained Narizzano's favourite film. Loot (1970), a pointless reworking of Joe Orton's mordant play by the comedy TV writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, and directed at a rapid pace, was only marginally better received.
Narizzano was more at ease with Why Shoot the Teacher? (1977), a feelgood adaptation of a novel set in Saskatchewan in the mid-1930s. Then it was back to British television with William Inge's Come Back, Little Sheba (1977), fluidly directed on an elaborate studio set, starring Laurence Olivier and Joanne Woodward. In contrast, Staying On (1980), Julian Mitchell's adaptation of Paul Scott's novel, was shot for Granada Television in Simla, India, with Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson.
From the mid-60s, Narizzano lived with his longtime companion, the writer Win Wells, in Mojácar in Andalusia, Spain, as well as keeping a house in London. Wells co-wrote the screenplay of Narizzano's Bloodbath (1979), a weird straight-to-video horror movie, shot in Mojácar, starring Dennis Hopper as the leader of a group of degenerate Americans terrorised by locals for their indulgence in drugs and sex.
After directing a Miss Marple mystery, The Body in the Library (1984), for the BBC, Narizzano's work began to tail off. Since his 30s, he had suffered from bouts of depression which became more serious and prolonged after the death of Wells in 1983. He found some comfort at a Buddhist retreat in Chislehurst, south-east London, and later through a Bible study group in Greenwich, where he lived a semi-reclusive life. He is survived by two sisters and a brother.

• Silvio Narizzano, film and television director, born 8 February 1927; died 26 July 2011

Evelyn Kuypers

Evelyn and Henk Kuypers during the second world war. They both followed the allied liberators into the Netherlands

Towards the end of the second world war, my aunt and godmother, Evelyn Kuypers, who has died aged 92, gave herself a special mission as she drove through the newly liberated Netherlands – to visit her in-laws for the first time and introduce herself.
As a truck driver with the VHK, the Dutch women's voluntary corps, she had followed the liberating troops from Ostend, through Belgium and into the Netherlands, giving first aid and food to the many refugees. She had switched to the VHK from the Dutch Red Cross in an attempt to stay near to her husband, Henricus "Henk" Kuypers, a paymaster with the Dutch war office, who was also with the support troops. Although she spoke no Dutch, she managed to track down her in-laws' home, where she was overjoyed to find that Henk was there to greet her.
Their marriage in Congleton, Cheshire, in 1942 was the start of a globetrotting life for Evelyn (nee Ogden), who hailed from the village of Mow Cop, on the Cheshire-Staffordshire border. She had met Henk the previous year when Dutch servicemen regrouped in Congleton following the Nazi invasion.
After their marriage, they moved to London with his unit until, in 1944, Evelyn's VHK party set sail from Tilbury for Ostend, only to be prevented from landing by severe storms. Lying off the coast, they then lost an anchor and were drifting towards a mined area when the captain decided to return to England. A week later the vessel successfully landed at Ostend.
In 1946 Henk was posted to the Dutch embassy in London. The couple lived in South Kensington for 10 years and had two daughters, Elizabeth and Patricia. Henk's career then took the family to Hong Kong, Johannesburg, Karachi, Edmonton, New York and Bombay (now Mumbai), where he retired as consul-general.
While the family moved around the world, the vivacious Evelyn worked for Catholic charities and schools at each posting. On Henk's retirement in 1978, they settled in St Margaret's Bay, near Dover, where Evelyn immediately declared that she was neither ready nor willing to start taking it easy and, almost until the end of her life, was a staunch volunteer worker for the National Trust, the local Pines gardens and museum, the village charity shop and meals on wheels.
Henk died almost exactly a year before her. She leaves her daughters and four grandchildren.

Dan Peek

Peek composed Don’t Cross the River. 

The songwriting ability and vocal harmonies of the bassist Dan Peek, who has died aged 60, were an integral part of the success of the soft-rock band America. Between 1971 and 1977, the year he quit for a solo career, Peek and his bandmates, Dewey Bunnell and Gerry Beckley, scored an impressive run of hit singles and albums, mostly in their native US. The biggest of these was their debut single, A Horse With No Name, which made the top three on both sides of the Atlantic and instantly earmarked them as the new Crosby, Stills & Nash.
Like his fellow band members, Peek was the son of a US military serviceman and his early years were peripatetic. Born in Florida, he had already lived in Greenland, South Carolina and Japan before the age of 10. The frequent travel meant long journeys on the US highway, where Peek first began singing three-part harmonies with his brother Tom and sister Debbie. By the time his father transferred to an army base in West Ruislip, Middlesex, in 1967, Peek had also become a proficient guitarist and piano player.
It was while attending London Central high school (for the children of US service personnel) in Bushey that he met Bunnell and Beckley. "We really hit it off as friends long before we became bandmates," Peek said.  "We immediately bonded as we were all obsessed with music. "Eventually I joined Gerry and two of his mates in a band called the Daze." In 1969 Peek left for a brief spell at university in the US, and Bunnell took his place in the fledgling group.
On his return they became a trio, fired by the acoustic Americanisms of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, James Taylor and Joni Mitchell. They were still broke though, and for a time were forced to rehearse in Bunnell's car. "From the summer of 1970 until our first album was released in 1972, we rehearsed four hours or more per day," explained Peek. "Dewey's Morris Minor was actually a great space to practice, as it had an immediacy and closeness that helped in really hearing the intricate harmonies and guitar licks we were fine-tuning."
The band secured early gigs at hippy hangouts in London such as Middle Earth and the Roundhouse, before landing a contract with Warner Brothers. While scouting for a record deal, Peek and Bunnell were still employed as dishwashers at the base cafeteria. "There was an 'Americana' brand jukebox there that we played constantly," said Peek. "Somehow the connection between its music and our quest for a name dovetailed. I pushed for keeping it simple and direct, hence America."
A Horse With No Name, issued in December 1971, was an immediate success. Their smooth harmonies and readily accessible folk-rock sound chimed with the times, as did the hirsute wholesomeness of their image. Their first album, America, was a colossal hit too, reaching No 1 in their homeland, chalking up more than a million sales and earning them a Grammy for best new artist. Their follow-up, Homecoming (1972), which featured Peek's first great composition, Don't Cross the River, was only marginally less popular.
For their fourth album, Holiday (1974), the band drafted in George Martin as producer, who helped frame their songs in clever arrangements and give them a glossy studio punch. Lonely People released in December, became Peek's signature tune and made the US top five. A year later America scored their second US No 1 with Beckley's Sister Golden Hair.
But all was not as ripple-free as the music suggested. Tensions had long been part of the band's dynamic. "All three of us were enormously competitive and it was a high-stakes game we were playing," admitted Peek. "And what had once been an all-for-one camaraderie evaporated. It could get pretty ugly." Peek's increasing drug dependency was also becoming a problem. "I was taking hash, marijuana, cocaine, quaaludes, alcohol and tobacco. …There was a certain amount of naivety regarding drug use in the 60s and 70s. In retrospect I sincerely wish I'd been a teetotaller." He left the group by mutual consent in the summer of 1977.
Peek duly set about overhauling his life. He vowed to kick his addictions and renewed his faith in Christianity. His debut solo single, All Things Are Possible, issued on Pat Boone's Lamb & Lion label in 1979, became one of Christian rock's first big crossover hits, while Bunnell and Beckley contributed to the album of the same name. But despite the occasional on-stage reunion over the next couple of decades, America remained a duo.
By the 1990s Peek had more or less retired from the music circus, preferring instead to record at home in the Cayman Islands. Later years yielded an autobiography, An American Band (2004), and a steady trickle of albums, mostly released via his website. The most recent was All American Boy in 2007.
He is survived by his wife, Catherine.

• Dan Peek, guitarist, singer and songwriter, born 1 November 1950; died 24 July 2011

Pat Evans

 

Pat Evans helped revolutionise the farming industry, motivated by feeding the world’s fast-growing population.

Pat Evans, who has died aged 89, was one of the generation of post-second world war farmers motivated by the vision of feeding the world's fast-growing population. They believed that farming communities, and the industry itself, could shake off their stifling traditions and build a new future.
This new mood eventually became manifest in a worldwide network of farmers known as the Farmers' Dialogue, which Pat and others launched in 1994. Its aim is to promote shared values for the land, the environment, forestry and family life. Pat firmly believed that there is a common language, and often a shared way of looking at the world, between people who work the soil wherever they come from, not least through their religions. He spelt out his wide-ranging ideas in two books, Farming for Ever (1996) and A Hand to the Plough (2006).
After graduating in agriculture from Cambridge in 1943, Pat served in the Ministry of Agriculture. Then he gained experience on farms in Britain and France, where he formed enduring links, before returning to his family's land at Whitbourne in Herefordshire.
Not everything went according to plan. Pat made an abortive foray into a heavily oil-dependent grass-drying system. But despite agricultural surpluses and low prices, he and many others like him did indeed lay the basis for today's modern farming industry. In 1961 the BBC filmed his new pig unit – considered revolutionary at a time when modern units, purpose-built for large numbers of pigs to be managed with minimum labour, were still a rarity.
His ability to combine the hard work of running a farm while being in constant touch with farmers in other countries brought him an extraordinary range of international contacts. The Farmers' Dialogue, which he was able to develop after his retirement in 1988, grew out of this. He took part in Farmers' Dialogues in Thailand, Cambodia, India, Poland and the US as well as visiting Ukraine, Kenya, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Pat also wrote poems, some of which were published. He lived at Whitbourne for most of his life until moving to a nursing home in Bromyard in 2009. He is survived by his wife, Kristin, whom he married in 1962.

Amy Winehouse found dead aged 27 in London home

Amy Winehouse has been found dead in her London house at the age of 27. 

Singer Amy Winehouse has been found dead at her house in north London She was 27. The award-winning artist, famous for hits including Rehab from the critically acclaimed album Back to Black, was discovered by police in the late afternoon. Her death was being treated on Saturday night as "unexplained" but sources said she had died of a drugs overdose.
The Metropolitan police said: "We were called by London Ambulance Service to an address in Camden Square shortly before 16.05hrs following reports of a woman found deceased. On arrival officers found the body of a 27-year-old female who was pronounced dead at the scene."
Winehouse was last seen with her goddaughter, Dionne Bromfield, earlier last week when the teenager performed at the iTunes festival.
Tributes began to pour in to one of the most celebrated and troubled British artists of recent times. Mark Ronson, who produced Back to Black, said: "She was my musical soulmate and like a sister to me. This is one of the saddest days of my life."
Singer and actress Kelly Osbourne wrote: "i cant even breath right now, im crying so hard i just lost 1 of my best friends. i love you forever Amy & will never forget the real you!"
Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood dedicated his show on Absolute Radio and the reunion performance by his former group the Faces in Hurtwood, Surrey, to Winehouse. "It's a very sad loss of a very good friend I spent many great times with," he said.
Two regulars at Winehouse's local pub, The Hawley Arms in Camden, paid tribute. "Some people might think it shows disrespect to come out drinking tonight but she was such a part of Camden she made it her home and she always got involved," said Mary Gallagher. "Amy even worked behind the bar here. She was such a lovely person and, to be honest, I don't think fame agreed with her. She was an ordinary girl at heart."
Gloria Woods, 26, who works for a record label, said: "There will never be another voice like that in our generation."
A spokesman for the late singer said: "Everyone involved with Amy is shocked and devastated. Our thoughts are with her family and friends."
Winehouse's father, Mitch, returned from New York, where he had been due to perform at the Blue Note jazz club. He said: 'I'm coming home. I have to be with Amy. I can't crack up for her sake. My family need me."
Flowers, teddy bears and candles were left outside her home in Camden Square. One card read: "You will not be forgotten by Camden. We all love you and will continue to love you. Your legend lives on."
Winehouse had suffered a well-publicised battle with drink and drug abuse that saw her withdraw from all of her scheduled performances last month after a series of erratic performances. She started her 12-leg European tour in Belgrade but was booed off the stage after appearing to forget her lyrics. She then pulled out of performances in Istanbul and Athens before she cancelled the tour as fears for her health grew.
A statement released by her spokesman at the time said that she would be given "as long as it takes" to recover. "Everyone involved wishes to do everything they can to help her return to her best," it read.
Winehouse rose to fame with her debut album Frank in 2003, which was feted by music critics in the UK and nominated for the Mercury music prize, but it was her 2006 follow-up album, Back to Black, that catapulted her to stardom and led to five Grammy awards. The album became the third-highest selling album of the 2000s.

Jean Hartley

Jean Hartley reads from Philip Larkin’s Hull and East Yorkshire in 1995.

Jean Hartley was half of the tiny firm that published the first mature book of poems by the best poet of the age. Philip Larkin's The Less Deceived was brought out in 1955 by the Marvell Press, run by Jean, who has died aged 78, and her husband, George, from their two-up, two-down house in Hessle, on the outskirts of Hull. The book instantly made Larkin's reputation.
A few years earlier, the Hartleys had started the literary magazine Listen on the proceeds of Jean's accumulated child allowance. She was the "business manager", which meant that she did most of the work while George was out and about scouting for "contacts". The Marvell Press was so named partly because of the 17th-century poet Andrew Marvell's connection with Hull, partly because they realised it would be a marvel if the thing worked.
It did work, and Jean herself was a remarkable woman. She was born in the heart of Hull's fishing community. Her father, Billy Holland, was a foundry worker. In the early months of the second world war, Jean was briefly evacuated to North Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. She went on to win a scholarship to Thoresby high school, in Hull, and found, at the age of 14, that she had to choose one of the three vocational courses offered. She chose "commercial", but left after only a year. Her first job was as a shorthand typist with a small firm of accountants, where she was paid £1 a week.
She already had a hunger for serious reading, and spent part of her first week's wages on a book of poems by Edith Sitwell. It "did not stand the test of time. I was more selective thereafter." At the age of 17, dallying with a boy called Peter, who purported to be a poet, she became pregnant. Jean was sent to a strict but kindly Anglican home for unmarried mothers. When she returned to Hull, she took up with an earlier bohemian acquaintance, George Hartley, who was now a shoe salesman. He courted her with flowers stolen from local gardens. Before long, pregnant again, she married George.
In her memoir, Philip Larkin, The Marvell Press and Me (1989), Jean observed: "Hindsight tells me I should have been reading Dr Marie Stopes rather than Ernest Dowson." But she and George got the first issue of Listen out at the same time that Jean's second daughter was born.
The magazine began to thrive ("critically at any rate"), with a range of contributors that broadly represented what was collectively labelled "The Movement" – Kingsley Amis, Robert Conquest, Donald Davie, John Wain, and also, in almost every issue, Larkin. There followed The Less Deceived, first published with a list of 120 subscribers. (The current dealers' value of this book is about £500.) Jean was busy packing copies, rushing to the post office, keeping a house and family, while George went back to the local art college.
By 1967, George had acquired a teaching certificate and was teaching at a local boys' school. Jean decided to pack in her secretarial job, and take some O- and A-levels. Soon she was encouraged to apply for university. Feeling too embarrassed to ask Larkin for a reference, she consulted him over whether she should try Richard Hoggart (who, much earlier, had taught her on some Workers' Educational Association courses) or CB Cox, to which he replied: "Why not let me do one for you? I've known you long enough. Of course you'll need an UCCA form. UCCA! God's gift to limerick writers." Jean was touched that Larkin came round after she had taken each of the three A-level English literature papers, to see how she had done and talk about the questions.
By the summer of 1968, Jean found that life with George had become unendurable, so she moved out with the girls. They found an attic flat, where they lived for three years while Jean was an undergraduate. At the beginning of this course, Larkin told her: "I expect you'll be hard-up living on a grant. I opened a book account for my niece when she went to university. Why don't I do the same for you?"
Jean did well at Hull University and, after graduating in 1972, was accepted to read for a BPhil degree. Needing money while studying, she managed to get a job teaching English in "a smart, purpose-built girls comprehensive" – her old school, Thoresby, rebuilt and now called Amy Johnson school, after the Hull aviator. Later she taught at the local college of education.
After Larkin's death in 1985, Jean was instrumental in setting up the Philip Larkin Society, and for a time edited its journal, About Larkin. She had warm relationships with several women who had been close to Larkin: Ruth Siverns (nee Bowman), Winifred Dawson (nee Arnott) and Maeve Brennan. In 1995 she published the very useful guide Philip Larkin's Hull and East Yorkshire. She was also a gifted painter and potter.
In 2010 Hartley's memoir was reissued by Faber Finds and Hull Truck theatre presented a stage adaptation, Wrong Beginnings, by David Pattison, as part of the events commemorating the 25th anniversary of Larkin's death. Earlier this year Hartley was awarded an honorary DLitt by Hull University, in response to which she said, of herself and her fellow mature students: "We all learned, like the hairdresser heroine of Educating Rita, that we too could sing a different tune."
After her separation from George, Jean never received any money from The Less Deceived. In her last years and final illness she was fortunate to have the love and support of her daughters, Alison and Laurien, and her granddaughter, Sarah, who survive her.

• Jean Hartley, publisher and writer, born 27 April 1933; died 18 July 2011