A Tribute to Anne

It is now 2026, and I have been encouraged to write some more chapters to my story. The Lord continues to amaze me at the doors He has opened before me, two of which stand out comparable to the door into the Hebrew School, often quoted as the “Everest” of my life. However, it would be remiss of me not to begin with a eulogy to my partner of 65 years who shared this journey with me – my precious wife, Anne.

Anne passed into the presence of her Saviour on Dec 17th 2025, peacefully, at home, after a 14-year battle with cancer.

It was the year following our wonderful holiday in Norway, celebrating our 50th wedding anniversary, when we received an invitation from Vincent and Shirley Cheah in Malaysia to be their guests for a tour through China. We were thrilled, especially I, as ‘top of my bucket list’ was to see the famous terracotta soldiers and the Great Wall. Tickets were bought to travel to Hong Kong, where we would join them to enter China, when we received news that Anne was diagnosed with breast cancer. She received this news stoically, knowing that the Lord was still in command. He had proven Himself on the mountain tops; now we would need Him to walk with us through this deep valley. The flights were cancelled (with full refunds) while Anne started her chemotherapy. This was a horrendous experience, but she faced it with calmness, even though in great weakness.

Two years of ‘remission’ followed before a second outbreak resulted in a mastectomy. A few more years went by with regular check-ups all borne with calmness – then a third outbreak in the lymph nodes of her neck needing radiation treatment. She tried to live out her life as a testimony of the Lord’s goodness to our students, never complaining but always being a mother to them – and to me.

In September 2025 I had to take her into Emergency at our local hospital as she was short of breath. They discovered that her lungs had collapsed, the left one fully and the right one partially. More than four litres of pleural fluid were drained from her and, as feared, cancer was discovered in that fluid. Our oncologist explained that nothing more could be done for her, to which she replied, “It’s OK. I know where I’m going and am at great peace about it. I shall live one day at a time until the Lord takes me home.” She was with me at home for the last month, having nothing but good words to say about all the medical staff, caregivers and palliative care workers who served her.

After her “sweet” passing, the oncologist told us that Anne was a miracle, as the normal life expectancy for one with her type of cancer is 5 years or less. Anne stayed with me for 14 years. If her passing was “sweet”, her living with me was rich, and I have realised afresh the great treasure I had to walk alongside me on the journey.

We met when I was in university, and she attended the youth meetings at the same church as I. She was quite shy, having few friends, spending most of her childhood looking after an ailing father. I was her first ‘boyfriend’ and had to take most of the initiative needed to bridge the wide difference in our personalities, her shyness contrasting with my independence (having lost my mum when young). I often caused her embarrassment, but she stuck with me, as the first time she had seen me, silhouetted in the darkness of a church doorway during the showing of a Billy Graham film at our church, the Lord had told her, “That is the man you are going to marry!” It took a couple of years before He told me the same thing!

We married in 1961 and moved to Kenfig Hill where I taught at the local Comprehensive school. Two years later I ‘tore’ her away from the safety of her family roots and took her across the sea to Germany where we had no one but each other in a foreign land with a strange language. I was the youngest ever teacher with the British Army by five years, having had only two years of experience, instead of the ‘required’ five, and no National Service prior to my appointment.

Anne was nearer the age of my students than any other teacher/teacher’s wife. Though it was very hard for her, she never complained – in fact, we both knew that Germany “made us” as a family as we only had each other – and the Lord. This wasn’t to be the first time I would take her from her safety. On to Hong Kong, where she finally broke free of her shyness by taking on the selling of Tupperware in private homes.

On our return to the UK in 1969, it was she who started a youth work at our home by inviting four teenage girls to join her in Bible study each week. That work grew into the Youth work I led in Bridgend, a time referred to by many as “revival”. I got the plaudits, but she was the initiator.

We emigrated to Canada in 1975 and two years later I finally “arrived” when appointed Head of Physics Department at Toronto Hebrew Academy. Now we could have a good living as I was the highest paid teacher in Canada, other than School Principals. My teenage daughters began to look for houses with swimming pools, etc., in the north of Toronto while we began to upgrade our furniture and lifestyle, always giving testimony to God’s “goodness” to us.

Then, I dropped a bombshell on Anne. After months of wrestling, I informed her, “Anne, I believe the Lord is calling me into the Ministry!” Everything inside her must have been screaming, “No! No!” after a childhood of poverty where her dad was an itinerant evangelist in Norway, bringing home a pittance. However, her reply showed her character and trust in God. “If God is calling you, you’d better obey!”

It would be another 10 years before another step ‘down’. She enjoyed being on the Anastasis while it was docked in Victoria but had no desire to be “living in community on a metal box in the heat of Africa with no air conditioning.” No thank you! Then I received the telephone call inviting me “on board” to give relief to the current chaplain. I told Don Stevens I would need to talk to Anne about leaving her for a few months to accept his invitation. I called her and, to my amazement and hers, she expressed a willingness to go for the long-term (a decision never regretted). She became my great co-worker and “mum” to all the African crew on board and was greatly loved by all.

Four years later we left the ship and travelled to see our daughter Lynette and family in Australia. Six months later, as we packed to leave, I was invited to return in twelve months to conduct a seminar for pastors and leaders with The Christian & Missionary Alliance. When I expressed how “impossible” this was as I anticipated taking on a new church in Canada and could hardly ask for a leave of absence a year later, it was Anne who said, “You should not take on a new church. You are too straight to take ‘the nonsense’ so common in churches. You should go itinerant, teaching and training pastors and others. I can take students into our home to enable you to travel where the Lord would call you!”

So it was that I left the Hebrew Academy with a big salary and big pension, for a pastorate with half salary and half pension, for a missionary work with no salary and no pension, for an itinerancy with paying my own way!! Hardly the path to success!! But this book shows the lie to that thought, for God has led us on a remarkable journey.

However, none of it would have been possible if Anne had not heard His voice and obeyed. I speak the truth when I say that if she had said “No” at any time, I would not have gone against her wishes, as I learned long ago that the Lord speaks most clearly to me through the words of a godly wife – and I certainly had that! Thank you, Lord, for the great partner you gave me! I have received many plaudits, but I know that they truly belong to her – and that she is now receiving the acclaim she did not often publicly get while on Earth – from the One that matters most.