Lady Rosalind Runcie, the widow of Lord Robert Runcie the 102nd Archbishop of Canterbury died on Thursday. She was a remarkable woman who always struggled with her role as a clergy spouse and yet is said to have made an “important and vital contribution” to the life of the Church of England
Lady Runcie’s obituary in the Telegraph is notable for its honesty and the delightful picture of the couple.
An obituary in The Daily Telegraph commences – Lady Runcie, who has died aged 79, was the widow of the late Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Runcie; never entirely comfortable in her role as clergy wife, in her own bouncy and unorthodox way she made an important and valuable contribution to the life of the Church.
They became a couple in 1956, when Runcie was appointed Dean of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. She was Rosalind (“Lindy”) Turner, the pretty and vivacious daughter of a Law don at the college. A gifted pianist and passionate gardener, she was determined to be a person in her own right and had little time for Church socialising and flummery.
She confessed that she was “not terribly religious”, famously remarking that “too much religion makes me go pop!” Sermons “switched her off”; she could not bear the sound of church bells; and she had little time for “running round the parish dispensing calves-foot jelly, whatever that is”.
With a keen dislike for phoniness and pretence, Rosalind Runcie particularly dreaded having to accompany her husband to formal occasions, complaining that “lots of times they do not really want me there. I’m only there as a decoration. I resent having to go there, smiling.” She rarely accompanied Runcie on his weekend visits to the Old Palace in Canterbury, and travelled with him overseas only when she herself had been invited to perform as a concert pianist.
More at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/religion-obituaries/9014245/Lady-Runcie.html