Bishop Ken Pillar RIP

The Right Reverend Kenneth Pillar1924 - 2011　

It was a source of gentle amusement and joy to Bishop Ken that he shared a name with the great Nonjuror Bishop of Bath and Wells.

He served as Suffragan Bishop of Hertford from 1982 until his retirement in 1989. He came to this Diocese from being Vicar of Waltham Abbey, a place with strong connections with the Anglo-Saxon King Harold, and before that had served in the Dioceses of Liverpool, Rochester and Canterbury together with two periods, as Chaplain and later Warden, of the Lee Abbey Community in Devon.

Ken was, at heart, a gospel man. He longed to share his personal experience of the grace and truth of God's love shown in Jesus Christ with everyone who came within his orbit. By nature Ken was kind and humble who always lent towards generosity and compassion in his judgements.

He was entirely fitted to a ministry of episcope which had at its core prayer and worship and found its expression in genuine pastoral oversight and care. The Lay Ministers and Clergy instinctively felt that Ken was on their side in that he knew at first hand the toughness and demands of the ministerial life and so his support and encouragement of those engaged in such ministry was hugely valued.

Ken received tremendous support and help from his wife Margaret and he was always clear in ascribing many of his strengths to their partnership. Being a non-driver himself it was invariably Margaret who drove and accompanied him on his visits around the Diocese and she became a great friend to many vicarage families. Their four children and many grandchildren were a source of enormous joy and thanksgiving.

The seventeenth century Bishop Ken wrote that the Christian should strive to make " all thy converse be sincere, thy conscience as the noon-day clear ". We thank God for his namesake, our Bishop Ken, whose sincerity and good conscience gave such an attractive and compelling testimony to the gospel of Christ. We pray that he too may rest in peace and " rise glorious at the aweful day".