Canon Graham Drake writes:
WITH Ivan Bailey’s death, we lost a great character: a parish priest, hospital chaplain, television and radio broadcaster, after-dinner speaker, school governor, chaplain to the City Club, supportive pastor to individuals (both clergy and laity) — and his gifts as a preacher and his work with the diocese.
Ivan regarded it a great privilege to preach the gospel. He implicitly believed it, and sought ever to bring home its relevance to society, all people, and all situations.
He was of unashamedly working-class stock. His grandfather was a farm labourer and a Methodist local preacher. His father worked at the local railway station. Ivan was deeply conscious of a sense of privilege.
After Diss Grammar School, Ivan undertook his National Service as a sergeant in the Royal Army Education Corps. Here, he was called upon to teach and lecture on a diversity of subjects to men who were there because they had to be and did not necessarily want to know or learn. Using the army’s well-tried principles and methods of instruction, he learnt the importance of being clear, relevant, and, whenever possible, of entertaining. It was to serve Ivan well in the years ahead, both in the pulpit and in his later involvement within the media.
Ivan went on to Keble College, Oxford, rowing in the First Eight; and then on to St Stephen’s House.
After serving his title on a large council housing estate in Ipswich, Ivan went on to work as clerical secretary for the Church of England Men’s Society. He visited every diocese, speaking and engaging in special evangelistic outreach to win men for the Church.
Ivan would say that his most successful venture was to find a woman for himself: he met Romayne at a party in Fulham Palace. They were married for 58 years.
He served his first incumbency in Cringleford, south-east of Norwich, for 15 years, and then spent ten years in villages near by, combining his time with being rural dean and diocesan chaplain to the Mothers’ Union, and chairing several diocesan committees.
In 1981, Ivan was appointed both religious adviser to Anglia Television and the Bishop’s chaplain for television and broadcasting, reflecting the activity of the churches across the Anglia TV region. There were also nationwide broadcasts, working with Roy Castle, and the late-night epilogues for the close of the television service at 11 p.m.
When Ivan moved on to work as a mental-health chaplain, his work with BBC Radio turned to Radio Norfolk. His breakfast-time conversation piece on Sunday mornings had a particular appeal for ordinary folk who were not necessarily Christians or churchgoers, but who were prepared to listen to someone who could make sense of it all in terms that they could understand.
What was important to Ivan was not that the preacher should have a way with words, useful as that might be, but that the preacher’s way of life should show Jesus in action.
Ivan’s readiness to entertain in order to inform led to his being invited to offer comedy input into other programming. He had a great sense of humour. He was excellent at telling stories and at mimicry. An encounter with Ivan was certainly an occasion you would never forget.
Romayne was a character in her own right: a mill-owner’s daughter from Lancashire, she went to Roedean, was a debutante, and worked with Sir John Barbirolli and the Hallé Orchestra, at Sadler’s Wells, as secretary to Vic Oliver, on the BBC’s Navy Lark series, and with Spike Milligan and Charlton Heston. After marrying Ivan, she took a full part in parish life as a vicar’s wife. She also worked with the Magdalene Group to support prostitutes on the streets of Norwich, and was a freelance researcher for writers and authors requiring specialist information. Romayne died just nine months before Ivan.
Ivan spent some time preparing his own funeral service — not just choosing all the hymns (two of which he wrote himself) and readings and music, but explaining in meticulous detail his reasons for his choices, and the introductions to be made to them. He even had a go at writing the address that he would have preached at his own funeral.
In the end, he got to know and trust his local vicar, and he knew that his funeral would be in safe hands — and it was.
Canon Ivan John Bailey died on 11 July, aged 91.
