Judy Mills - A Likely Lad: The life of Norman Lesser, Archbishop of New Zealand

A Likely Lad

The life of Norman Lesser,
Archbishop of New Zealand

Judy Mills

Copyright 2020 Judy Mills

All rights reserved.

This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Email Judy at
judymills9@gmail.com

Assistance with the publication of this book from the
Diocese of Waiapu is gratefully acknowledged.

ePub edition
ISBN: 978-1-98-857234-5

Philip Garside Publishing Ltd
PO Box 17160
Wellington 6147
New Zealand

bookspgpl@gmail.com www.pgpl.co.nz

Front cover and other photographs:
Kindly supplied by Elisabeth Paterson, Waiapu Diocesan Archives and the John Kinder Theological Library.
Author photograph by Mike Hughes.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Norman Lesser was a man for his time. A time when Anglicans held the high ground and the cultural mainstream. He understood the privilege of that position and led the church with dignity and care. It felt good to belong under his leadership, even though you held your breath when he reached for goals like a new cathedral in an era when most people had given up on them.

Those outside the church respected him as much as the insiders, probably because he was much more than a conventional bishop. Comedian, story teller, preacher who revelled in lifes delights and absurdities, and above all a man with eye for the detail of pastoral ministry; the same sense of detail that he brought to his work as a craftsman.

This book is an overdue honouring of a man who led the church through two decades with great flair and enormous devotion. Judy Mills has done Waiapu and the whole church in Aotearoa a great service through her meticulous research and even handed distilling of a huge story. And only just in time. Many of the memories and anecdotes she assembles would have soon been lost for ever.

As someone who would not ever have made it to ordination without the support and encouragement of this man, and as his eventual successor, Im personally grateful for this book. It will help all who followed him to learn just how rich a legacy he left us.

John Bluck

Preface

Norman Lesser was Bishop of Waiapu, a small Diocese in an out-lying Province, for nearly 24 years and Archbishop of New Zealand, that out-lying Province, for ten of those years. During that time he filled 15 scrapbooks with items he regularly cut and pasted from a variety of sources: newspapers from home and abroad, parish newsletters, his own pastoral letters to clergy, Synod papers and Orders of Service, and general memorabilia ranging from an advertisement for the familys lost fox terrier to the menu for a State lunch with President Lyndon Johnson. A fascinating social history in themselves, the selection of material reveals something of the personality of the man behind it, and it was these scrapbooks which initially sparked my interest in Norman Lesser.

However, the scrapbooks are not just a social history. They also preserve significant original material not found elsewhere: his pastoral letters, some sermons, various articles for different readerships, and personal information about his early life. Official church records give us the bare bones of his work and achievements, but it is these scrapbooks that put the meat on those bones. While the accuracy of the many newspaper clippings included could be questioned, Lesser himself clearly read them, sometimes commenting or correcting with his red pencil, so we can assume that if he has not done this, he himself was satisfied with them.

Other Diocesan and Provincial archival material, along with personal memories, have contributed to form a picture of a man of many parts: preacher, pastor, and liturgist; wordsmith and story-teller; sportsman, miniaturist and humorist. Above all he was a man of faith who was passionate about communicating that faith.

It is impossible to read through this volume of material without recognising his huge contribution to the life of the Waiapu diocese over his long episcopate. What he certainly gave the Diocese was stability, huge amounts of energy and dedication, and high-quality pastoral care. He was a greatly loved Bishop, remembered still by many, and there are undoubtedly hundreds more stories to be told.

In every biography it is the sense of the person, rather than what he or she did, that is both the most interesting but also the most elusive to capture. Hopefully this book is not just a testimony to the impressive work of Norman Lesser but also offers an occasional glimpse into the character of the likely lad from Liverpool who became the Archbishop of New Zealand.

Acknowledgements

I am greatly indebted to his daughter, Mrs Elisabeth Paterson, and to all those who responded to requests for their particular understanding of Norman Lesser, including the following: the late Archbishop Brown Turei; Bishop Peter Atkins, Bishop John Bluck; Revs B. Allom, C.W. Bennett and Mrs Bennett, Rex Caudwell and Mrs Caudwell, A. Gardiner, R. Foster, Iritani Hankins, Tiki Raumati and Mrs Raumati, B. White, F. Wright, Mr Sam Donald, Mrs Beverley Galloway; Mrs Shirley Hosking; Mrs Y. Mawson, Mr Robin Nairn, Faith and Nancye Panapa.

I also want to acknowledge the considerable help and kindness from the Archivist at All Saints Cathedral, Nairobi, and the Rev Sheila Hughes of St John the Evangelist church in Barrow, UK, during our visits to those places; Robin Moor at Liverpool Cathedral; and information supplied by Ridley Hall, Fitzwilliam College and Liverpool Collegiate. In addition, the John Kinder Library at St Johns Theological College in Auckland, and the Waiapu Diocesan Archivists have provided invaluable help, while Michael Blows work on the photographs is much appreciated.

Judy Mills, QSO, MA (Hons)

Chapter 1: England

Albert Lesser Senior, son Albert aged c. 20, Norman c. 8 c.1910

The house in which I was born was one of a long row, standing straight on to the street and backed by a small red-tiled yard which looked on to a shippon. A shippon was a cow house, and right in the midst of the city was this shippon in which cows were kept in strictly supervised conditions and provided milk for the local inhabitants.

So begins Norman Lessers own account of his early years in Liverpool. The shippon and the cows close by were not responsible, he hastens to add, for the diphtheria which nearly killed him at the age of three. I was one of the few in the locality to survive, he writes, although the life-saving treatment of the time a huge needle delivering copious amounts of anti-toxin three times a day left him with a lasting horror of injections.

The third child of Albert and Eleanor Elisabeth Lesser (ne Jones) he was six years younger than sister Ruby and twelve years younger than brother Albert. They were a devout Anglican family: Albert Lesser senior would have liked to enter the Church, but in his day there had been no opportunities for assistance such as prevail now, so he served instead as a highly-committed layman, being secretary of the vestry and superintendent of a preaching. It was a faith-filled household, and no doubt there was much prayer during the diphtheria attack. There was also much laughter as the family shared enjoyment of a good joke and the sharp-witted exchange, a family trait which Norman kept very much alive in his own family.