The best and worst Travelling Overseers in the UK (page 9)

jookbeard

Micheal "short arsed huge opinion of himself" Purbrick certainly is getting a lot of mentions, meek, humble down trodden sadly neurotic wife. Tony Kendall requested a meet with me in an attempt to "bring me back" the meet was refused.

BluesBrother

Some good ones from the past , IMHO of course

John Blaney, 'nuff said already

Ken Wildig (had a young wife - rubbish speaker but droll at times and a kind man when you got to speak personally to him)

Richard Cullen - great motivator if you want to be motivated

Anthony Kendall , Mr Cool, distinguished guy. I thought he hardly noticed me but when I ran into him years later he greeted me as an old friend

David Carter, yes the comedian, Robert Morley lookalike

Albert Broad - Never a dull talk

That was when they were allowed to be themselves and had prior experience of life. Now they are boring company men who know no more of life than Pioneering from school and book learning - The lowest of the crop would include

William Heath - useless waste of space !

Bro Shah. I never got on first name terms with him

A big Scot called Don? I think, Wilson

and the rest of the rule book followers they send around these days.

cedars

BroMac

Paul Whiteman = From Jersey I believe originally. Only CO I have 'clicked' with, great sense of humour. Really lovely wife Collette. The only CO's wife who I remember. They made a lovely couple.

Collette? Don't you mean Jane?! You're right, he's a great guy. Nice sense of humor. Enjoys his science mags, funnily enough.

Cedars

dozy

John Flack is in Glasgow Kelvin congregation now. Nice guy - mid 70's now. Just seems too intelligent to still be a JW & not see through all the c**p. There was a lot of controversy when his partner in a printing company was DFd yet they continued with the business. Long story.....

Peter Morgan was another really nice guy - very bright. He had alopecia or something similar , which caused him almost overnight to lose all his hair (including eyebrows etc). His introductory talk always began with the line "I bet you brothers with male pattern baldness are feeling rather smug!" Him & David Algar were the most effective JWs on the ministry I have ever worked with. If every JW was of the same quality there would be 70 million , not 7 million JWs.

I had COs & their wives staying with me for over 40 years - my parents & then myself & my wife when I got married , so I know a few & many of the names are familiar. Most are pretty decent , sincere men , though you do get the odd fruitcake or proud individual. One CO still keeps in touch with me - he still serves & knows it isn't " the truth" ( by the WTBTS definition ) but carries on on the basis that it is as good a way to worship God and follow the bible as he knows. Which is fair enough , I guess. He does say that a couple of COs in the UK have roughly similar views but most are rock solid "Society Men".

Throwing another name into the mix - Roddy " call me Rod " Holyoake. Anybody remember him? Originally from Aberdeen - married a slim , sexy young blonde wife about 15 years younger than him that every guy I knew fancied but was out of our league - Lucy Tucker.He had a rather gay persona - touch of the" Larry Grayson's" about him. Again - an incredibly intelligent guy - university educated. Brilliant teacher. On the usual 2 page "CO & their Wives requirements" letter he insisted that every home he stayed in should have a bath so for a laugh we assigned him to a home where the middle aged couple used theirs as a place to store their coal. He didn't see the funny side at all & refused to stay there. I went on a study with him with a rather mentally challenged person during the visit ( a classic "scrape the barrel - keep the CO occupied Thursday afternoon assignment ) discussing the anointed & the elderly gentleman asked me at the end why I calling him "God"? Was he one of the "sons of God" we had been discussing? Er no - his name was Rod , I explained.

Sad to hear about Roy Renouf's wife. Nice guy & lovely wife - from the Channel Islands originally ( which explains his French surname). First met him at a district convention in Jersey back in the 80's.

jookbeard

from the old school amongst us Rob Schofield Dennis Ashby (his infamous lets pray for Terry Waite talk,after he come off the CO list) Danny Owens Mal Gibson Alan Stokes(big voice entertaining speaker) Micheal Hodgson

usualusername

Roddy Holyaoke

Yes his wife was hot by some mens definitions. When I was around she very unwell and barely made it on the ministry. Poor lass. You could see she was lonely. Heard a horrible story that he married the first woman he cd to get into Circuit Work. I feel a little dirty for even mentioning that. Found that his knowledge of scriptures was quite poor in minestrone.

slimboyfat

He does say that a couple of COs in the UK have roughly similar views but most are rock solid "Society Men".

Dozy, how can he know that? It's hard enough to tell within congregations, or even families, what others truly feel about the organisation. The climate of thought control hardly fosters frank exchanges of views at any level.

dozy

When I was around she very unwell and barely made it on the ministry.

re Rod & Lucy Holyoake - Well - I am talking about 25 years ago now , I suppose. The desciption would fit half the COs wives I know - mystery illnesses seem to afflict many of them. It used to really annoy my wife that often the COs wife would be sitting around at home all day watching tv , surfing the internet & generally hanging around supposedly "unwell".

Not too sure about your account - my recollection is that Roddy was invited to go to Gilead but declined as he was courting Lucy. You don't need to be married to be a CO ( eg Anton Irons was long single until he eventually married - it actually helped as he was assigned to cover the Falkland Islands as well which rather bizarrely was included with one of the Welsh circuits at one time. ) Wasn't Bill Harris single as well?

SBF - I suppose COs do see the worst side of the truth , from Bethel & GB directives that they disagree with to dealing with all the worst conduct in congregations , including child abuse etc. They also know all the usual apostate arguments as they quite often come across them in their work ( I asked one CO about the UN case & he immediately showed me the UN letter & Guardian article scanned on his laptop. He admitted , unprompted , that the WTBTS had made what he called "a complete balls-up" of the whole business.) There are some who take the view that , for all its faults , being a JW does foster a belief in the bible , encourage Christian conduct , evangelises on the basis that this is a Christian's obligation etc etc and maybe close their mind to the negatives that have led us to leave. It often surprised me what COs would come out with after a couple of beers watching the football in an evening , so doubtless they chat with each other quite openly on occasions.

nugget

Ted Hunnings stayed with Cantleaves family and they have fond memories.

BroMac

Collette? Don't you mean Jane?! You're right, he's a great guy. Nice sense of humor. Enjoys his science mags, funnily enough.

Cedars

Oh no!

Collette/Jane lol. How embarrasing! forgive me Jane!

ok Collette is Justin Shaw's missus. thats 2 CO's wives I remember. Paul&Jane still my faves, unless they've swapped wives

The best and worst Travelling Overseers in the UK

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