The Revd Iain Clavering Young, Vicar of The Ascension, Lavender Hill and St Philip with St Bartholomew, Battersea, died in his sleep on 12 February 2021.
As news of his death broke, tributes came in from around the Diocese, including one from the Dean, Andrew Nunn, who had trained with Iain at Mirfield. Andrew wrote the following in memory of his friend:
There are some people who are born to be priests, others who realise a sense of vocation later and in other ways. Iain was the former. I met him on our very first day when we arrived at the College of the Resurrection at Mirfield. We were both beginning the first of three years. Iain was a member of quite a large group of new students who had arrived from the Diocese of Newcastle and all with connections in one way or another with the parish of St Luke, Wallsend. The parish priest there was inspirational and helped many young men – these were the days of young men – to realise a sense of vocation and to have the courage to go ahead and test it.
Iain was a larger-than-life character, physically large and with a personality to match. He seemed to know so much even before he arrived at the College and I have to admit that I was a bit in awe of him. The truth is, of course, that when you are being formed for priestly ministry it’s not really what you learn in lectures or write in essays that is going to make the difference; it’s much more about how you begin to embrace the priestly character and being so familiar with the Church and with God that it all becomes second nature.
Church was the air that Iain breathed. That may make him sound rather dry and boring and nothing could be further from the truth. St Benedict is rather dismissive in his Rule for the monastic life of the place of humour. In chapter seven he writes “be not easily and quickly moved to laughter”. That was not something that unduly affected life alongside the Community of the Resurrection. Iain kept me and all of us amused throughout our time at the College. Whatever we were doing he would bring a touch of humour and often make us split our sides in laughter.
Each morning at the end of Greater Silence we would dash up to the floor where are rooms were – I was a few doors from Iain. To get us in the mood for the day Iain would perform a daily routine of imitating the traditional poses adopted in the statues of the saints. The rest of us would stand around calling out the names of saints – “St Francis”, “St Clare”, “St Ambrose” – and Iain would adopt the pose. It sounds ridiculous but it wasn’t really. Many years later I was with a group of pilgrims I had taken to Oberammergau and the Passion Play. We were visiting a very large baroque church and looking up at a screen filled with statues of saints – and I stood there like some expert “That’s St Francis, that’s St Clare, that’s St Ambrose”. “How do you know?” asked the pilgrims. And I told them about Iain.
I owe so much of what I know to him, so much of what I imbued of the priestly character from his character, his sheer delight in God and the things of God. He was a parish priest through and through and I give thanks to God for that.
John Kiddle, Archdeacon of Wandsworth, also wrote the following in recognition of Iain:
Fr Iain Young was a priest for whom I had the deepest respect and a real fondness. We mourn his death with much sorrow, it is so deeply sad that death came as he was beginning to contemplate a much deserved and restful retirement. We are sad, very sad, but we thank God for the long and prayerful ministry that Fr Iain offered to God and to the church and communities he served.
In all my encounters with Fr Iain I never failed to find him to be gracious, kind and thoughtful. In his gentle manner there was a great strength and humour. I thoroughly enjoyed our conversations, I found them moving, reflective and insightful. Although it might sometimes have felt to him that the Church had moved on, there was a freshness and joy in Fr Iain’s faith and in his vocation that was powerful. His was a ministry that was evidently rooted in God, expressed in a consistent commitment to prayer, to the daily offering of the mass, and to the simple goodness of caring for others.
Anyone who knows The Ascension, Lavender Hill, will know it to be large building prominently sited on a busy road on the top of the hill. Fr Iain’s ministry as parish priest filled that large space with a warm and generous welcome, a regular pattern of prayer and the worship of God, and was indeed a light set on a hill in that busy community. We thank God for him and for his ministry, we seek God in our sadness and pray especially for Fr Iain’s family and for the congregation of The Ascension, and we renew our own commitment to a life of prayer, worship, and service. May Fr Iain rest in peace and rise in glory.
An obituary of The Revd Iain Clavering Young is available in March’s Bridge.
