Wednesday, April 22, 2009

The Most Reverend Michael Wright


His postings included the British Army of the Rhine, Nato at Shape, near Mons, and Hong Kong. When in Aden he was regularly flown by helicopter to take Communion services in the Radfan region of Yemen, using ammunition boxes for an altar.

He was serving in Cyprus when the 1974 coup occurred. Returning to his rectory there, he found a convoy of cars, bringing some 1,000 refugees from Nicosia and Famagusta.

For almost a fortnight Wright and his wife slept in their sitting room while feeding the guests allotted to them on unchanging "compo" rations and explaining the gravity of the situation to exasperated, bikini-clad tourists. Afterwards he and his wife were bemused to find that a large sports field nearby had been used as a car park and was now left with one vehicle – a Rolls-Royce.

After returning home to Woolwich, he was woken from his bed to attend the victims of the bombing of the King's Arms there in 1974. But the posting also gave him time to paint a large picture of the barracks and church in acrylic. It was greatly admired when exhibited – one general judged it a mixture of LS Lowry and Canaletto – but Wright refused to sell, though some miniature copies were made. His other works included a large picture, Christ in Glory, at a church in Mönchengladbach, western Germany, which he painted on his study floor over several months before it was mounted on a wooden frame and placed over a window to give the impression of stained glass. Another commission, produced in fibreglass for the new garrison church at Bovington, Dorset, was a sculpture with golden-coloured angels holding the shields of different regiments. This was placed in the sanctuary.

More here-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/religion-obituaries/5195761/The-Most-Reverend-Michael-Wright.html

No comments: