The sacking of Dr Malcolm Love (1925 – 2006) from the post of choirmaster at St Devenick’s church and the origin of the Deeside Choristers. Revised.

 

Introduction

This story was originally published on Blogger in December 2023 and was based largely upon newspaper reports, my personal archives and direct experience of the events portrayed.  By early June 2026 the article had accumulated 392 page views and had generated three contacts from former choristers, one of whom was actually the custodian of Malcolm Love’s archive which deals with the whole imbroglio generated by Malcolm’s dismissal. This correspondent offered to make Malcolm’s collection available for my use, a proposition which was quickly and gladly accepted.

The Love compilation of personal and other papers, press cuttings and photographs provided much new information which I have used to fill the lacunae in my original account.  However, I am aware that such an extensive addition to my source material, substantially from one side of the dispute, places a responsibility on me to differentiate clearly between facts and opinions and to include attributions to claims which are not my own.

While much more detail concerning the origin and evolution of this controversy is included below, the conclusions reached are essentially unaltered.  But an enduring conundrum remains.  How could such a dispute arise in a Christian community and then persist for years without a resolution emerging?  This revised article gives some important clues which go some way to uncovering the answer.

 

Aberdeen in the 1970s

The Granite City has for centuries been a centre of commerce, industry, government, professional services and education.  As such, it has generally enjoyed a higher level of income and educational attainment than other parts of Scotland, outside the major conurbations of Glasgow and Edinburgh.  But the 1970s brought major, unanticipated changes to Aberdeen and its hinterland. 

From as early as the 1850s small reservoirs of both oil and gas had been discovered on land in both Britain and European countries bordering the North Sea, but it was not until the first half of the 1960s that major gas fields were proven to exist in The Netherlands and the Southern North Sea.  In the second half of the decade exploration moved north, resulting in major offshore discoveries of oil, such as the Ekofisk and Forties fields.  Many more discoveries followed.  Aberdeen was the sea port best placed by geography, infrastructure and commerce to act as a service base for this major new industry and for the next 40 years or so there was a great increase in industrial and commercial activity in the North-East of Scotland.  This included substantial construction of both housing and commercial premises to accommodate the incoming companies and their staff.

Even before the arrival of the new hydrocarbon-related businesses, the villages of Lower Deeside, a few miles west of Aberdeen, particularly Cults, Bieldside and Milltimber, had become very desirable places to live for families that could afford the higher house prices of the area, including people employed in legal services and higher education.  The arrival of the burgeoning oil industry and the associated influx of well-remunerated staff gave a considerable stimulus to house-building on Lower Deeside.  Some of the incomers originated from other nations, such as the USA, but they also came from nearby European countries and, of course, England.  Cults and Bieldside’s attraction for the upper middle classes was substantially enhanced and growth of the housing stock followed.

At the start of the 1970s there were only two major religious denominations, with their church buildings in the area, the Presbyterian, East and West, Churches of Scotland and the St. Devenick’s Scottish Episcopal Church, all being  located on the North Deeside Road.  The Scottish Episcopal Church is an Anglican Province, Anglicanism having originated with the Church of England which broke with Roman Catholicism in 1534.  The Scottish Episcopalians essentially follow the practices and liturgy adopted by the Church of England.  It is not surprising that many of the incomers to Lower Deeside during the oil boom, who were religious, chose to worship at St Devenick’s.  There are seven dioceses within the Scottish Episcopal Church, St Devenick’s being located in the Diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney.  Each diocese is in the care of a bishop.  Between 1976 and 1991 the Aberdeen and Orkney incumbent was Bishop Fred Darwent.  He will re-appear frequently as this story unfolds.

St Devenick's Bieldside

Bishop Fred Darwent

 

The Scottish Episcopal Church and the Reverend Kenneth Davidson Gordon (1935 – 2021).

Nationally, the Scottish Episcopal Church is governed by a representative body called the General Synod which meets annually to consider matters of national importance such as policy priorities and changes to the legal framework, the Code of Canons, within which this religious movement operates.  Delegates to the General Synod represent both the laity and the clergy.  At the level of individual congregations, each church has its own constitution which adds more rules circumscribing the actions of local clergy and church officers.  Unfortunately, as will be seen in what follows, at the time of the St Devenick’s crisis which burst on the public scene in 1983, occasioned by the sacking of Malcolm Love as choirmaster, the formal rules were not always well drafted, containing both ambiguities and difficulties of interpretation, as well as failing to anticipate some situations on which guidance might be sought.  Further, both church officials and clergy usually lacked a deep and comprehensive understanding of the rules they were obliged to follow, or the limits of their authority.    

St Devenick, after whom the Bieldside church is named, was a rather obscure saint but a friend of the more famous St Machar, an Irish priest who arrived at Iona with St Columba and who later preached to the Picts of Aberdeenshire.  The Lower Deeside Episcopalian congregation first met in a loft at Bieldside Farm in 1880 but by 1902 sufficient funds had been raised to construct the present church building.  Kenneth Davidson Gordon was born in Edinburgh in 1935.  His secondary education was at George Heriot’s School, followed by a degree at Edinburgh University from where he graduated in 1957.  Subsequently, he trained for the Anglican ministry at Tynedale Hall and after a number of junior positions in England and Scotland, he was appointed rector of St Devenick’s church, Bieldside in March 1971 at the start of the oil boom, moving to live at the manse, 2 Bailieswells Road, with his wife Edith Jessica.  The couple had married in England in 1964.  Kenneth Gordon was further appointed as a canon of St Andrew’s Cathedral, Aberdeen in 1981. 

Canon Kenneth Gordon

 

Dr Malcolm Love (1927 – 2006) 

Robert Malcolm Love, usually called “Malcolm”, was born in West Derby, an affluent suburb of Liverpool, on 30th March 1927 to Richard Archibald Love, a corn broker, and his wife.  Malcolm was their only son.  His paternal grandfather was a vicar, and the Loves were a religious family.  By 1939, but probably much earlier, Malcolm had become a pupil at the Terra Nova preparatory school which had relocated in that year to a new site in extensive grounds on the edge of Congleton, Cheshire.  It is likely that Malcolm Love moved on from Terra Nova in about 1940 when he reached the age of 13.  His new place of education was the School of English Church Music, which had been established by Sir Sydney Nicholson in 1929 at Buller’s Wood, Chislehurst.  Here Malcolm said, “he learned the rudiments of choir training”.  In 1945 the SECM became the Royal School of Church Music and relocated to Canterbury Cathedral.  Dr Love also said that he attended the RSCM, so possibly he was a pupil in 1945 after the change of name and the move to the ecclesiastical capital of the world-wide Anglican community.  In autumn 1945 Malcolm Love entered Liverpool University to study biochemistry and graduated with first class honours three years later.  He went on to post-graduate study in the same discipline, graduating Ph D in July 1951.  With such a school education, it is not surprising that Malcolm Love would, post-school, wish to continue his involvement in the most sophisticated and traditional Anglican musical genre, as well as preparing for a career in science.

Dr Malcolm Love 

In January 1949, Malcolm Love was a member of a group of seven Liverpool University students which gave a recital of seventeenth century choral pieces by Byrd, Monteverdi and Campian in the City Museum during the National Arts Students’ Festival held in Leeds.  Another fellow performer was Muriel Hodson.  Malcolm and Muriel were engaged in December 1950.  They were married in July of the following year when Malcolm was 24.  Edith Muriel Hodson (usually called Muriel) was the only daughter of Mr and Mrs Frank Hodson of Aintree, a suburb of Liverpool.  The marriage took place at Brook Road Methodist Church, Urmston, near Manchester.  In 1951, the Loves moved to Aberdeen, and Malcolm became an employee of the Torry Research Station, where he would remain for the rest of his professional life.  This institute had been established in 1929 and was concerned with the storage and preservation of caught fish, and the promotion of unwanted species for use in the human diet.  Malcolm’s scientific career was clearly a successful one.  In 1968 he was one of 38 Government scientists who received a merit promotion to a grade equivalent to a professor or reader in a university.  He authored many scientific papers and was awarded the degree of DSc (Doctor of Science) for his published work.  Malcolm Love was also the author of four books, including “The Chemical Biology of Fishes”, which was published in 1970.  When conferences of experts on food preservation were sponsored in Aberdeen by the research station in Torry, Malcolm Love was an inevitable speaker.  In 1972, he presented a paper “Food from the sea” at a British Association for the Advancement of Science conference for young people held at the University of Sussex.  He would later describe his scientific research work as lying in the realm of “chemical biology”. 

There was even more substance to Malcolm Love than scientific excellence and a commitment to church music.  He also became a Judo instructor at Aberdeen University and picked up linguistic expertise in  five foreign languages, French, Spanish, Danish, Norwegian and Japanese!

Thus, Malcolm Love was both an expert on the chemistry of fish storage and preservation and an expert on church music in the high Anglican tradition.  After his relocation to Aberdeen, he immediately became involved in the city’s active classical music scene and came under the influence of Mr Willan Swainson.  He had arrived in Aberdeen in 1916 as organist and choirmaster at Queen’s Cross Church.  In 1925 he was appointed as part-time lecturer in music in the university, having played a prominent civic role as a conductor, organist and choir master.  Swainson was later appointed director of music at the university and remained in that post until 1956.  Although the exact dates are not known, Malcolm Love studied voice production under the prolific Swainson.

Willan Swainson 

After their move to Aberdeen, the Love family first lived at Chattan Place in the city but by 1954 when their first son was born, they had relocated to 117 Craigton Road, Braeside on the western edge of Aberdeen.  By 1976, the family had moved further out from the city along the same road, to East Silverburn, Kingswells, which was originally a mill building with a small croft attached.  Initially, Malcolm Love appears to have worshipped at St Andrew’s Episcopal Cathedral in King Street and there, in 1965, he met Richard Weddle (“a fellow biochemist”).  Richard also played the organ and had been a pupil of organists Richard Galloway and Ronald Leith.  Both Malcolom Love and Richard Weddle were then members of the St Andrew’s choir and would later work together at St Devenick’s church in Bieldside.  It is uncertain when Malcolm Love moved his place of worship to St Devenick’s but, on the evidence of one former St Devenick’s choirboy, it was in or before 1975.  East Silverburn lies about two miles north of Bieldside.

 

The origin of the St Devenick’s Choir

Canon A Austin Foster was the incumbent at St Devenick’s, Bieldside from 1910 until his death in 1942. He was responsible for the installation of the organ in the church, which took place before1929.  The church subsequently employed an organist.  No evidence has been found for the existence of an organised choir at St Devenick’s before the arrival of Kenneth Gordon in 1971.  However, in June 1972 an advertisement was placed in the Press and Journal for an organist/choirmaster at St Devenick’s, presumable a move which was at least authorised by Kenneth Gordon.  It has not been discovered who, if anyone, was appointed to this role.  A choir was in existence in December 1972, since it performed at the St Nicholas Festival in Aberdeen, though, with this one exception, it does not appear to have been active outside the confines of services at St Devenick’s, its home place of worship.

A correspondent and former choirboy at St Devenick’s, has reported to me that, “My brother and I were both choristers under Dr Love in 1974/5 and possibly 6, although we may have moved away by then. I have many happy memories of singing under Dr Love and he was definitely the spark that turned into a life-long love of sacred choral music”.  According to the sleeve notes on the LP record by the Choir of St Devenicks, published in September 1981, "The decision to try to create a working Anglican choir from very small beginnings was taken at the end of 1975 (ie before the formal appointment of Malcolm Love as choirmaster in 1978), as a gesture of defiance at the trend towards emptying churches and vanishing choirs.  Everyone warned that choirboys were now almost impossible to recruit and that men who could both sing and read music had almost disappeared from the scene".  It is presumed that Malcolm Love, given his traditional education in church music, was the moving influence in this development.  But, as the record sleeve notes further state, St Devenick’s, Bieldside, had a number of disadvantages.  The church had no choir school (there were 40 in England but only one in Scotland) to recruit and train new choristers, there was no regular income and there were no endowments to nourish the start-up and meet the recurrent costs of an ambitious choir.  Further, the church only accommodated 260 worshippers, it had deadening acoustics, and the organ was small and limited. 

It thus seems likely that Malcolm Love was informally involved with the St Devenick’s choir from at least 1975.  This informal involvement seems to have been hinted at by Malcolm Love when he later asserted, “In 1978 the Memorialist (ie Malcolm Love) was formally (author’s emphasis) appointed Choirmaster of choir of St.D’s church”, though he also indicated that he was not the originator of the choir.  Further, it seems reasonable to assume, though he did not say so specifically, that Malcolm, with help from Richard Weddle, was the moving force in the project to “create a working Anglican choir”.

 

Worship at St Devenick’s

The pattern of Sunday services appears to have been orthodox during the incumbency of Rev Foster.  In 1934 the Sunday programme was Holy Communion 8.30am, Matins and Sermon 11am, Evensong and Sermon 6pm.  It is unlikely that this pattern changed during the rest of Rev Foster’s time at St Devenick’s.  A claim has been made that, in the early part of his time as the rector, Kenneth Gordon’s Sunday services were of a relatively traditional form, following the 1970 revision, the so-called Grey Book of the Scottish Episcopal Liturgy.  Such a pattern of worship would accommodate traditional, highbrow church music, as well as congregational musical participation in the singing of hymns.

Was it the case that in the first few years of his incumbency, Kenneth Gordon wanted a choir at St Devenicks?  This seems likely.  Further, he must have become familiar with Malcolm Love, his abilities, interests and intentions over the three year period from 1975 when serious moves were made to create a traditional Anglican choir and 1978 when Malcolm Love was formally appointed choirmaster.  It is an almost inevitable conclusion that in 1978 Kenneth Gordon was satisfied with Malcolm’s work and intentions, and approved of his appointment.  There was a further significant development in 1978 when an advertisement was placed in the P&J “Part-time Opportunity.  ORGANIST required ST DEVENICK'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH, BIELDSIDE.  Details from Rev K D Gordon”.  The appointee was Richard Weddle, a long-time friend of, and collaborator with, Malcolm Love.  Richard Weddle was also an aficionado of sophisticated church music.

Malcolm Love later admitted that in 1975 the St Devenick’s choir could not sing properly, and it lacked men.  Initially the only three adult male members were Richard Weddle, Mr Chew the organist and Malcolm Love himself.  Also, at the beginning, Malcolm struggled to recruit and retain boy trebles.  But his ambition (he said that in 1975 his goal was to make the choir famous), unbounded enthusiasm and personal charisma overcame these early impediments.  Choirboys were paid a small stipend, though this stopped in 1983.  Malcolm Love always sought to make choir practice and trips away from Bieldside fun for the boys with activities other than singing included. 

Dean Campbell Adamson

By 1979, the local Aberdeen newspapers were had started to notice the existence of the St Devenick’s choir and its performances, both in the Aberdeen area and further afield.  Appearances included Choral Evensong at St Machar Cathedral (Church of Scotland!) in March 1979 and, at the same venue in June of the following year, including the anthem “Let all the world” – Vaughn Williams.  The choir was also a gold medal winner in the church choir category at the Aberdeen and North-East Music Festival, 1979.  In 1980 The Scotsman noted that the programme for St Giles Cathedral summer recitals included on Wed 9th July at 3pm, “Choir of St Devenick’s Aberdeen.  Music by Byrd, Handel, Stanford, Vaughan Williams”.  Although he was not mentioned by name, Malcolm Love surely was both the author and the conductor of this programme?  Further prominence for the choir came from an appearance on Grampian TV in December of the same year when a programme called “Four Faces of Christ”, presented by Campbell Adamson, the Dean of the Episcopal diocese, appeared with illustrations of its themes provided by the St Devenick’s choir “conducted by Dr Malcolm Love”.  Campbell Adamson soon became a keen supporter of this choir.  The Dean of a diocese was the next clergyman in status below the bishop in the diocesan hierarchy, effectively the stand in for, and aid to, the bishop.

St Machar Cathedral, Old Aberdeen

The July 1980 concert at St Giles’ Cathedral also provided an insight into Malcolm Love’s aspirations for his nascent choir in the form of an information sheet distributed to the audience prior to the St Giles’ performance.  The sheet is very informative about Malcolm’s motivation, charismatic appeal to young people and uncompromising commitment to musical excellence.  It is reproduced in full.

St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh

“Saint Who?

“St.Devenick’s is an ordinary-looking church situated in a strip of ribbon-development on the edge of Aberdeen. It has no choir school, no musical endowments and indeed no regular source of income for the music. 

“Until recently there was little in the way of musical tradition either, and the choir began to take its present form only towards the end of 1975, as an act of faith and from a sense of outrage at closing churches and disappearing choirs: it is an attempt to keep at least some of our heritage in a state of vigour.

“Taking boys from local schools, the choir has increased from seven boys and one man singer to a total of thirty trebles and fifteen under-parts, a proportion of whom are here on tour today. The choirstalls at St. Devenick’s are inadequate for such a number, and are currently being enlarged, thanks to the generosity of the family of a former singer.

“Phrases like ’Centre of Excellence’ are bandied' about, but this is a target. In truth the choir is still in a state of growth and development and tends to differ from one month to the next, though there has been virtually no turnover of choristers since the departure of the more unsatisfactory elements during the first year; boys are now required to play a musical instrument before they are considered for entry, and there is a short waiting-list.

“A surprising truth has emerged: there has been no need to grovel by proffering only light and superficial music in order to attract youngsters to the choir. Music labelled ’great’ by the musical world at large is enjoyed most, and the choirmaster has been repeatedly asked, nay, pestered, for a further taste of a new piece earmarked for the repertoire in the autumn: it was written in the sixteenth century, and the words are in Latin!

“Welcome to the concert!”

This public recognition of the choir in 1979 and 1980 proved to be no flash in the pan.  In 1981, Malcolm Love started to compile recordings for a long-playing gramophone record from the material he had recorded at the church services and concerts attended and he had plans to take the choir on a 14 day tour to the east coast of North America in 1982 where he believed few similar choirs existed, though that style of music was popular.  He had also raised money to subsidise summer camps for the choir, annual trips to Oban, Cullen and Edinburgh having already been accomplished.

St Devenick's Choir

Another signal development in the organisation of the choir occurred in 1980.  Up to this point, the Bieldside - based choir had been for membership of boys only, but that deficit was then addressed by the formation of a girls’ choir, called St Cecilia’s, with Dr Iain Marr (another chemist and a member of the male choir) as its conductor.  Although it never attained the numbers of the boys’ and men’s choir, St Cecilia’s was still of a significant size, and it too achieved local prominence with the quality of its performances.  At the Aberdeen and North-East Music Festival, held in June 1983, the St Cecilia choir won the Paterson gold medal for the best female choir aged 18 and under.  Indeed, most of the St Cecilia girls were well under this upper age limit.  By 1985 the girls’ choir also had its own newsletter.

But, from about 1981, the relationship between Malcolm Love, on the one hand and Canon Kenneth Gordon and his Vestry on the other started to become strained.  Perhaps Kenneth Gordon was becoming resentful of the attention that the choir and its larger-than-life choirmaster was attracting.  In this period between the late 1970s and the early 1980s, I only discovered one reference in the local press to the Rector making a significant external appearance.  It came in July 1980 when he presented a five minute daily slot on Grampian TV at 9.25am, entitled “First Thing”, in stark contrast with the frequent media reports on the St Devenick’s Choir and its leader.  Malcolm Love himself appears to have begun an autobiographical account of this period of his life and an incomplete manuscript copy exists in his archive.  One incident recorded there, in Malcolm Love’s own words, illustrates that tensions existed between the two men by 1981.

“One day I caught him (Kenneth Gordon) out.  I was trying to fix a microphone to the rood screen to record the day’s anthem.  This I have always done if there is a solo sung, so that the boy, or man, has a permanent souvenir of the occasion.  I could not quite reach and turned to Himself who happened to be passing.  “Where is the ladder kept”, I asked him.  A shifty look, which I came to recognise again later, brushed across his face, “Oh, there isn’t one”.  So I had to go all the way home again to bring mine.  A couple of weeks later I forgot myself and ejaculated “Hey – where did that come from?” as I saw him carrying a fine tall ladder out of the church.  “Yes” he replied – and again the shifty look appeared – “You’ve had problems like this, too, haven’t you?  I really will have to try to persuade the Vestry to buy a ladder for the church.  This is my one”.  And he would not lend it to his own choirmaster”.

There is no doubt that Malcolm Love was a traditionalist as far as different forms of service were concerned and, of course, a major part of that tradition was the incorporation of music by the classical masters.  Malcolm had little sympathy with new and experimental forms of service which were simpler, involved more congregational participation and used popular musical devices, presumably in an attempt to stem congregational decline.  Malcolm saw the future differently, especially in the context of the generally more sophisticated population of Lower Deeside.  For him the answer to depopulation was the performance of classical church music to a high level of achievement so that the music itself became an attractant.  Further, Malcolm also engaged and retained young boys (and later girls) through the challenges of singing highbrow music, much of it as a component of actual church services.  Also, his practices were interspersed with the enjoyment of youthful fun and games. 

Unfortunately, Kenneth Gordon held the alternative view to his choirmaster and chose to experiment with simplicity and popularity.  Another extract from Malcolm Love’s biographical work from 1982 illustrates the disdain he felt, at least in private, for the Rector’s innovation.

“A constant source of irritation was the advertising of the “Family Service”, the monthly service in which placards with words of choruses were held up for the congregation to sing from, as in a pantomime.  Sometimes there were “action songs”, the sermon was geared to the mentality of small children, and a group of middle-aged men and women sang songs to the accompaniment of a guitar.  As the most trivial service of the month, it seemed inappropriate to advertise it, and it only, on a large “glow-paint” poster outside the church”.

Malcolm Love raised the issue of religious instruction for the choristers and offered to provide it himself but his gesture was spurned by the Rector, who later nominated Mrs Edwina Clark and Dr Peter Brunt to instruct the choirboys.

 

The events of late 1982.  Malcolm Love is given an ultimatum.

At a meeting of the Vestry (of which Kenneth Gordon was an ex officio member and chairman) in late October 1982 a decision was taken, without any form of consultation with the generality of the St Devenick’s congregation, that the newly introduced Scottish Liturgy (1982) would for the future replace other forms of Holy Communion Service at St. Devenick’s, except at the 8.50 a.m. Service on Sundays; at this service, the Scottish Lit­urgy would alternate with the 1970 Revision ( i.e., the so-called “Grey” Book).  Even the church elders were not given forewarning of this fundamental change in the form of worship which, in style, was more participatory and less sophisticated and did not accommodate classical religious music.

This move, which had been instigated by Kenneth Gordon, quickly became a major bone of contention amongst the congregation because many, possibly most, of its members were traditionalists as far as the form of the liturgy was concerned and did not want to see a lop-sided change introduced without consultation and debate.  That was not the only change that Kenneth Gordon desired in the organisation of St Devenick’s Church.

Another historical feature, which the Rector aspired to see swept away was the presence of the Rood Screen.  This feature is a screen, often of ornately carved wood, separating the nave from the chancel, particularly in Anglican and Episcopal churches.  In effect the rood screen puts a visual barrier between the congregation and the clergy, and to those churchmen like Kenneth Gordon who sought closer and less formal contact with the laity during services, the rood screen was both a physical and an emotional barrier to the achievement of that end.  When the Rector’s views on the rood screen at St Devenick’s became known, the first person to challenge his position was the traditionalist Malcolm Love, though he was not alone in his view that the rood screen should be retained.

A third issue of contention, possibly seen as being of even greater magnitude than the other two by the St Devenick’s hierarchy was, superficially, the choir but, in reality, the choirmaster, whose policy for developing the choir as a major cultural force in church music put him at variance with the aims of Kenneth Gordon and his supporters, who simply wanted a compliant choir to sing their choice of music during services. 

In October and November 1982, concerns had been expressed at Vestry meetings about the size and control of the fund which had been raised by choir supporters, principally the choirmaster, Malcolm Love.  It had just been announced by the choir fund-raising group that they would be holding a sale of donated goods in the Aberdeen Music Hall but the Vestry intervened to demand that the sale would be under the auspices of St Devenicks and not the fund-raising group.  This proved to be the opening shot in a campaign to take control of the monies raised for the choir.

Canon Gordon had already shown through the means by which he imposed changes to the form of services at St Devenick’s that he was not democratically inclined, or even consultative, but was prepared to assert that he was in charge and claim the authority to impose change, without consulting the congregation and without being obliged to offer a cogent explanation for any change that he might decree.

The constitution of the St Devenick Church called for an annual meeting of the congregation which was held towards the end of the calendar year. The 1982 AGM, which took place on 9^th December, generated substantial discussion “some of it heated” concerning both the introduction of the new Scottish Liturgy and the proposal to remove the rood screen.  It was a “tempestuous” event, according to one attendee.  A complaint was made to the Rector about the imposition of the new liturgy.  His reported justification was that after twelve years of “liturgical experiment and revision” St Devenick’s should settle down to one liturgical form, and to a form “fitted to take us on into the future”.   He claimed that the new Liturgy would help the cause of Christian unity.  The Rector refused to allow the congregation to vote on the matter, asserting that it was the responsibility of the Vestry to decide the issue.  When the proposal to remove the rood screen was raised, the Rector said that he had felt for a long time that this action should be taken and that it fell within the competence of the Vestry to act in this way.  But then, curiously and inconsistently, he allowed the congregation to vote on this issue, when a large majority of attendees voted against removal though this expression of the democratic will did not change his view.

At this time, December 1982, moves were also afoot, initiated by the authoritarian Kenneth Gordon, to clip the wings of the troublesome choirmaster, though the concerns about the choir had not been raised at the recent AGM.  Malcolm was summoned to an unpublicised meeting with the two churchwardens and clergy (Kenneth Gordon and his curate) on 21^st of the month, a bizarre assemblage since it did not represent any structure described in the St Devenick’s constitution.  It was certainly not a Vestry meeting, since neither the Vestry nor the elders were aware it was taking place.  Malcolm Love, clearly suspecting that something detrimental to the choir’s interests was afoot, proposed that Richard Weddle, the organist, should accompany him, but the Rector vetoed this suggestion.  Malcolm was to be unaccompanied.  The choirmaster then asked Kenneth Gordon what the purpose of the meeting was but this information was withheld.  Malcolm Love, an intelligent man, could see that he would be in an informal meeting where accurate records might not be kept and that he was the only person representing the choir and his ambition for it.  All the other attendees he suspected of being in the camp of the choir’s detractors.  Anything said in the meeting would be deniable if the four inquisitors chose to conspire.  Malcolm decided to tape record the occasion surreptitiously to guard against its proceedings subsequently being misrepresented.  Of course, this was an underhand action by Malcolm Love but one that he justified by claiming it had been for his own protection.

In a subsequent press report, “one person closely involved with the choir” revealed that Malcolm Love had been “grilled” on several subjects, including his attitude to church policy at the 21^st December meeting.  Basically, he was put on notice.  The managerial hierarchy was not happy with the high church, traditional musical direction that the choir was following, which clashed with its own view (ie that of Canon Gordon) who wanted to see a more informal, less traditional style of worship evolve at St Devenick’s.  The choir and the clergy were on a collision course.  If it continued, then the choir would be “without a choirmaster”. 

The church hierarchy took two formal actions following the meeting with Malcolm Love on 21^st December.  It wrote to Malcolm allegedly summarising the content and conclusions of the meeting and giving him a list of conditions for the choir continuing in existence and secondly, it arranged for the Vestry to meet on 6^th January 2003.

Before the meeting of 6^th January took place, one vestry member, Ian Findlay, since he could not be present at the upcoming meeting of that body, wrote a memorandum (from “Ian” to “Ken”) which he sent to Kenneth Gordon outlining his views on the agenda items, with the express wish that his memo would be included in the meeting papers, or at least read out at the event.  Ian was a supporter of the choir but also a loyal member of the congregation who was doing his best to heal the divisions which had appeared in the church by finding a middle way acceptable to all shades of opinion.  A copy of this memo found its way into Malcolm Love’s archive and the most significant sections are reproduced here.

“I imagine this meeting is to discuss the points raised on 9 Dec about the rood screen, and the issue re the choir raised with ML on 21 DEC ?  If so, may I make the following contributions for 6 JAN 83” (author’s emphasis).

“Rood screen – like you, I would take the same scriptural / theological position re the essentially Old Testament nature of the r.s. in an essentially New Testament church situation ie that it is in a sense divisive between priest and body of believers.  BUT in the light of the intense feeling at AGM – I would strongly advise against pushing the issue any further.  Let it die.”

“One thing the “rood screen hassle” has done clearly is raise the much wider issue of Vestry consultation with the congregation.  It is, bluntly, inadequate.  We must work out some machinery for this.  Probably cogs in this machinery would include some public display of Minutes, and advance notice of the next agenda.  But if people want a face to talk to, or an ear at the other end of the telephone, I am willing (as lay rep.) to play that role or to share it with People’s Warden, or with Vestry generally – whatever the Vestry decides.”

“Choir.  I was – and again I’ll be blunt – distressed to hear of the meeting sprung upon Malcolm Love on the evening of 21 DEC 82.  This – and I say this in great concern that we are getting into another quicksand of division if we are not careful – is not the way to solve problems.  Confrontation never gets anywhere.”

“Yes, of course there is a problem of relationship between choir and Vestry.  But let us not forget that it is a problem stemming from growth, energy, enthusiasm, vitality, etc.  How many churches would love to have such problem!!!!!”

“May I end with a plea that, on 6 JAN 83, we begin the New Year by sorting out our whole future “stance” as a Vestry on both issues discussed by opting for peace, reconciliation, brotherhood, prayerful fellowship and forward/outward movement ... rather than falling into the temptations of internal strife on issues not worth the spiritual candle, when considered in any sort of spirit of sanity and Christian love.”

Condensing Ian’s message into a brief statement, he was telling Kenneth Gordon the following things.  I too would prefer to remove the rood screen but it would cause another serious division in the congregation, so I advise you not to press the matter.  It was not a smart move to ambush Malcolm Love and this tactic is unlikely to generate a better relationship with the choir.  The choir is very successful.  Other churches would not find success to be a problem.  We need a better, more open, more consultative relationship between Vestry and congregation if we are to prevent similar problems recurring.  Let us behave as Christians.

This was a diplomatic, but direct, plea for accommodation and compromise.  Sadly, it told Kenneth Gordon a series of home truths about his behaviour that he was unwilling to recognise.  His response was to suppress Ian Findlay’s contribution and the Vestry meeting on 6^th January proceeded with the other members being unaware of the memo’s contents or even its existence.

Just at a time when leadership in Bieldside was required, Kenneth Gordon absented himself from his charge to take a six-week (half of January and all of February, 1983) sabbatical break at Lee Abbey, which is located on the North Devon coast adjacent to Exmoor.  Today (2026) it describes itself in the following terms.  “Lee Abbey, Devon is home to a Christian Community. A stay at Lee Abbey, Devon is more than a Christian retreat or holiday; it is an opportunity to encounter Jesus through worship, teaching, ministry and Community which we pray will transform your life, relationships, community, environment and world”.

Lee Abbey

In Kenneth Gordon’s absence the Churchwardens sent a letter to Malcolm Love, dated 1 January, claiming to summarise the discussion which took place on the 21^st of the previous month.  It is presumed that the Rector saw and approved the text of the letter.  The churchwardens did not ask Malcolm to agree that this was a fair reflection of the events of that December day but they were not seeking an agreed position: they were handing down their unchallengeable version, together with their own demands for Malcolm’s future conduct, sugared, like a Victoria sponge, with a thin coating of Christian rhetoric.  The text of the letter is given in full.

“We met with you, the Rector and Curate on 21 December to discuss various matters of concern. We are grateful to you for this meeting and feel that the opportunity to have a frank discussion enabled a number of issues to be clarified. We would like to reiterate the main points covered.

“It was agreed that spiritual authority in our Church lies with the Rector. All aspects of our worship, including musical items, should therefore be in accordance with the Rector’s wishes. As a consequence of this it is necessary for you to put to the Rector for approval items which you propose the Choir should sing at services. This may be supplemented by the Rector and yourself meeting for discussion at appropriate intervals. You are also required to cooperate fully in having the Choir sing, or lead the congregation in singing, any item requested by the Rector.

“The number of members of the Choir should be reduced as soon as practicable - to that which can be accommodated comfortably within the choir-stalls in Church. The reduction can take place by ’natural wastage in an immediate period during which new members should not be admitted other than with the Rector’s agreement. In the meantime, Choir members that cannot be accommodated in the stalls should occupy pews with the congregation.

“You agreed that proposals for expenditure from the Choir Fund or other Church funds should be submitted to the Vestry for prior approval because the Choir Fund, like other Church funds, is the responsibility of the Vestry.

“It was agreed that Choir practices should not be held at times that clash with other Church activities. We request that the matter of the holding of practices on Sunday mornings at a time which clashes with Pathfinders be resolved in consultation with the Rector as soon as possible, and in the absence of an alternative solution this practice should be discontinued.

“We expect the Choir to give a lead to the congregation in the musical worship of Church services, including the singing of the hymns.

“We expect you to encourage members of the Choir to play a part in the full life and worship of the Church, including activities at which they are not necessarily attending as Choir members.

“We regard it as important that you recognise that other styles of music besides those in which the Choir excels are valid aids to, and expressions of, worship, and that you encourage this view in members of the Choir.

“We believe that adherence to these points, in recognition of the Rector’s spiritual authority, is essential for the maintenance of the harmonious relationships which should be the hallmark of any Christian congregation.

“Whilst it is hoped that agreement on all these points will result in the resolution of all matters of outstanding concern to us, we would wish to review the position at the end of three months, and will expect to see progress on all these points to the satisfaction of the Rector.

“We are grateful to you for the untiring work and musical skill which you have put into leading the Choir over the years. It is a musical contribution to our worship that today is rarely matched, not least during the recent Christmas season during which you continued at considerable personal pain and discomfort.

“We pray that we may all, with God’s help, live and work to His glory alone and the building up of Christ’s body the Church.”

The content of this letter was utterly shocking to Malcolm for several reasons.  He described it as “the rudest letter I have ever received”.   At the meeting he said he had been conciliatory.  “Some points raised were unexceptionable but to comply totally would have ruined eight years of work”.  “I was however, prepared to solve the problems in ways that would have satisfied everybody and would not have caused decline”.   Malcolm Love was also puzzled by the demand that all music used in services should be approved by the Rector, since he and Richard Weddle had met with Canon Gordon in August 1982 to plan the entire music programme up to Christmas.  The meeting has been amiable, the programme agreed and there had been no deviations from the plan.  However, what Malcolm was now being offered was not a compromise position which would have satisfied the two factions, which I will categorise as “traditional” and “progressive”, but capitulation to the demands of the Rector, or dismissal.  Subsequently, Malcolm Love would state, ruefully, that “The rector has not always welcomed the choir’s role in divine service, and gradually the choir’s contribution to the worship has grown less”.  It is thought that Malcolm did not formally reply to the churchwardens’ letter at this time but what he did do was to consult with his friends on its implications.

 

Malcolm Love is summarily dismissed as choirmaster at St Devenick’s

Kenneth Gordon returned from his sabbatical leave at the beginning of March 1983 apparently having decided on a plan of action to settle the unresolved issues that he had left in suspense at the time of his departure.  On the 8^th of the month at a meeting of the Vestry, the body which had the formal power of hire and fire relating to Malcolm Love’s employment as the choirmaster, the Rector insisted that that body vote immediately on a proposal to dismiss the choirmaster, without waiting to review the position at three months.  This proposal was approved by seven votes in favour to four against.  The four dissenters immediately resigned from the Vestry.

The following day, 9^th March, Kenneth Gordon wrote a letter to all members of the choir.

“I am sorry to have to give you news that will sadden you. The Vestry of our Church has found it necessary to pass a resolution which leaves us without a Choirmaster at St .Devenick's.  In the meantime, therefore, Members of the Choir are asked to worship in the congregational pews and the boys are invited to continue their time with Dr. Brunt on Sunday mornings, going out to the-Lady Chapel for part of the service. There will be no further choir practices for the time being.  We fully appreciate the work that Dr. Love has done for the choir, as I am sure that you do. You may well want to understand what lies behind the Vestry's action and the clergy or churchwardens would be only too willing to talk to any individuals who may wish to do so concerning it”.

Two things were immediately striking about this letter.  Firstly, the dubious sincerity of the Rector in praising Malcolm Love’s efforts on behalf of the choir and, secondly, the failure to give any reason for his abrupt dismissal, which must have raised concerns in the minds of the recipients that Malcolm had been guilty of some unspeakable act.

The letter of “dismissal” (Malcolm Love’s word) sent to Malcolm Love himself apparently demanded his resignation.  However, it has not been found in the archive, but Malcolm’s incomplete manuscript autobiography described its distressing impact on the whole Love family.

“We were in daily contact with our friend the Dean, and when the letter of dismissal arrived, Muriel broke down and wept as she tried to read it to him over the phone.  It struck me as worldly to sack someone in the most dictatorial fashion and then demand that one provided a service, and not only that but by a specific date!”

In addition to the Dean, Campbell Adamson, Malcolm was also in contact with the Bishop of the Diocese, Fred Darwent.  Both were providing advice to Malcolm on his response to the letter of “dismissal”  and would continue to counsel him.  So, who were these two senior Episcopal clergymen?

Bishop Fred Darwent had seen military service with the Royal Inneskilling Fusileers in the Far East before being ordained in 1961.  He served as rector of several Aberdeenshire parishes before being appointed Dean of the Diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney, serving between 1973 and 1978 and then as bishop from 1976 to 1991.  

Campbell Adamson worked at various times with the armed forces, in Glasgow borstals and jails, with the Boy Scout movement and he also served as chaplain to the Actors Union at His Majesty’s Theatre in Aberdeen.  Another personal interest was mental health and he worked as chaplain to the Royal Cornhill Hospital (a mental hospital), also in the Silver City. Campbell Adamson was rector of St John’s, Aberdeen from 1970 until 1978 when he was appointed Dean of the diocese in succession to Fred Darwent, when the latter was elevated to serve as bishop.  Campbell Adamson was a larger than life character with excellent interpersonal skills and an enquiring mind.  He wrote books on the history of the theatre in Aberdeen and also on the origin of nursery rhymes, appeared regularly on television and in the newspapers and was even in demand as a contributor to Burns Suppers.  He had a particular facility for relating to young people.  I only met him once when I was helping at a scout camp.  In a chat with a group of older scouts Campbell’s way of breaking the ice was to pose an unexpected question. “Why do we bury dead bodies?  After a few stumbling suggestions from the lads, he gave them his answer.  “Well, they would smell badly if we didn’t”.  Malcolm Love told a not dissimilar story concerning Campbell Adamson in conversation with the Deeside Choristers, when he was acting as chaplain to the choir.  He opened with, “Well, when I was a cowboy in Mexico ....”.  I do not know if Campbell ever followed that calling but as a technique for gaining the attention of young lads, it appeared to work.

After his stint at St John’s, Aberdeen, Campbell Adamson moved on, in 1978, to become rector of St Thomas’ Aboyne and St Kentigern’s, Ballater, plus pastoral work in Braemar, the whole of Upper Deeside.  The Balmoral Estate was on his patch.  Braemar had an Episcopal Church, St Margaret’s which had originally been built in 1880 to cater for the large number of English visitors who holidayed at on Upper Deeside in Victorian times.  A summer chaplain used to be appointed each year but, due to declining visitor numbers that practice stopped in 1972 and St Margaret’s was closed to public worship three years later.  However, one of Campbell Adamson’s achievements was to reopen St Margaret’s.  He conducted the first wedding to be held there for 20 years in 1981.  The St Devenick’s Choir was engaged to sing at this wedding and also sang in this church on at least one other occasion.  There is no doubt that Campbell Adamson was a true supporter of Malcolm Love and his choirs.

Another component of Canon Gordon’s plan to deal with the “choir problem” on his return to Bieldside in March 1983 was to remove control of the choir fund from Malcolm Love, though the full extent of his actions did not become known for some months.  When Malcolm Love assumed the role of choirmaster in September 1975, the fund contained a balance of £34.  Between that date and 9^th March 1983, a further £9,017 was deposited in the account and at the point where control of the fund was removed from Malcolm Love, the balance stood at £5,746.  Income came from a variety of sources but the largest single contributor was Malcolm himself who donated £5,544 to the fund, derived from supplementary work he had carried out, such as scientific translating.  It needs to be emphasised that no money from any other St Devenick’s account was ever used to subsidise the activities of the choir.  Its choir camps had been largely self-funded and thus choir activities had never been a drain on other, non-choir church income.  There is no doubt that the choir fund, though largely raised by Malcolm Love, was legally owned by St Devenick’s Church.  But the morality of Canon Gordon’s actions both at this time and in the months and years over which the dispute rumbled, would be repeatedly questioned.   

On the morning of 9^th March, after gaining the authority of the Vestry for his intentions, Kenneth Gordon gave the Clydesdale Bank branch in Cults, where the choir fund was lodged, an instruction that the choirmaster and the organist were no longer to be recognised as signatories for withdrawals from the account.   

 

Malcolm Love’s response to the letter of dismissal   

Both Bishop Fred Darwent and Dean Campbell Adamson emphatically advised the ex-choirmaster not to resign, presumably because that might be taken as an admission that Malcolm had erred in his conduct of choir affairs.  Explicitly, Bishop Darwent harboured hopes that the dispute could be overcome with “goodwill on both sides”, making resignation unnecessary.  Malcolm “penned a letter carefully, correcting all errors of fact in the dismissal letter” and then including Fred Darwent’s words of hope.  Malcolm Love then drove down to the Rectory in Bieldside to deliver his response by hand.  The subsequent exchange with Kenneth Gordon, as reported by Malcolm, follows verbatim.

“I delivered it personally, and the Rector himself came to the door.  His eyes lit up when he saw the envelope in my hand, “Why, good morning to you Malcolm.”  “I suppose this is goodbye”, I said, very matter-of-fact.  He replied hurriedly, almost urgently.  “Oh, yes, yes indeed” as though to shut the door before I could put my toe in.  I handed over the letter.  “Perhaps you did not realise” I said “that if you make a demand like this after instant dismissal then you should have sent a stamped addressed envelope”.  He was momentarily taken aback, but then recovered.  “God bless you in whatever you do”.  He held out his hand.  Habits from childhood really are almost impossible to break, and like a robot I took and shook it, mentally kicking myself afterwards.  Driving away, though, I could picture his frustration at not finding a resignation within the envelope.  He must have looked forward to finding out that far from being sacked I had resigned.  My action in not resigning triggered off some very testy and unwise action on his part – he just had to tie everything up and finish the business”.

One day later, on 10^th March, Malcolm Love received the true dismissal letter: he had been fired because he had refused to resign.  The Rector had also typed an explanation of his actions which had been photocopied by a Vestry member in time for distribution to the congregation on the following Sunday, 13^th March.  With a dash of cynicism Malcolm love remarked ““Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour” evidently did not apply at St. Devenick’s”.

 

The St Devenick’s dispute receives wide publicity

Inevitably, the abrupt firing of the choirmaster at a previously low profile Deeside church, brought a flurry of newspaper reporting and various attempts by gentlemen and ladies of the press to gain an insight into the full story of Malcolm Love’s dismissal.  Both he and Kenneth Gordon declined comment to the press at this stage, but others were not so reticent.  An anonymous lady member of the congregation declared to a reporter that there was more to the story that the dismissal of the choirmaster for unspecified reasons.  Malcolm’s autobiographical account claimed that she had said words along the following lines, “many of the congregation were furious at the way the services were geared to the mentality of tiny tots and that people could not worship in the way that they wanted”.  Malcolm guessed the identity of the informant, phoned her and thanked her for her support and for deflecting enquiries away from him.  The following day, another long-standing member of the congregation, who may have been the same informant as the person identified by Malcolm Love, predicted further declines in the church numbers at Bieldside in yet another Evening Express report.  “My husband and I know of a number of families who have left the church and have cancelled their covenants and tithes.  If the rector remains the membership will continue to drop”.  According to the woman, who did not wish to be named, problems with the church began when changes were made to the format of the service.  “He said that we were no longer allowed to say the Lord’s Prayer and when some members of the congregation objected he said that if we didn’t follow him it showed how well the devil had been doing his work”.  She added that it was felt that Canon Gordon was “far too intense” and tried to impose his will on others”.

The Aberdeen Evening Express coverage on Friday 11^th March detailed several rumours and quoted Dr Iain Marr, the conductor of the girl’s choir at St Devenick’s, who was reported to have told a reporter, “There has been a serious personality conflict.  The whole thing has been handled extremely badly.  There will now be a move to disassociate the choir from St Devenick’s.  We don’t want it to disband or cease to be a church choir but we may try to become the diocesan choir rather than St Devenick’s”.  Iain, who was a prominent member of the congregational faction supporting Malcolm Love, had thus revealed some of the current thinking of Malcolm and his advisors. 

A popular feeling had been rapidly generated that survival of the choir, singing sophisticated church music, was more important to the choir’s supporting group than loyalty (should that be obedience?) to the Rector, Canon Gordon, and the maintenance of congregational cohesion.  But the traditional faction did not want to become dissociated from the Episcopal Church.  If the Rector would not accommodate them and their musical tastes, experience suggested that others probably would.  It was also interesting that Iain Marr had put down a major cause of the dispute as being a clash of personalities, rather than a clash of ideologies.  Kenneth Gordon had already shown by his actions that he believed that his position as Rector bestowed on him substantial authority to decide what course church policy would follow.  He was dictatorial, non-consultative (except with those whose support he enjoyed) and was not above manipulating circumstances to suit his own interests, such as withholding Ian Findlay’s memo from the Vestry. 

Malcolm Love was intellectually bright.  He also exhibited a persona which appeared affable and slightly bumbling (in 1988, he played Mr Bumble in the Deeside Choristers’ production of “Oliver”!) on the surface but, underneath this amiable exterior, he was an ecclesiastical snob, who harboured disdain for the simplification and popularisation of Christian worship.  I had also gained the impression from personal contact with him that Malcolm was, beneath his agreeable surface, actually a very determined person, intent on achieving his own musical objectives as his highest priority. 

1988 production of "Oliver"

Several prominent individuals were aware that if any hope of reconciliation was to be maintained, then those supporting the continuation of the choir should follow a policy of “least said, soonest mended”.  Iain Marr, an emotional man, perhaps unwisely commented further on the Vestry letter, “It was horrific.  Things were put down on paper which never should have been”.  Others were more circumspect.  Bishop Darwent would only say he was “dealing with an internal matter”.  Vestry and choir member, Michael Partridge, was of a similar view.  “I wish everybody would say nothing”.  Organist Richard Weddle confirmed he had resigned but preferred to wait until after the following Monday’s meeting (of choir members, parents and supporters) before speaking.

The Evening Express of Friday 11^th March also reported that “On Sunday it is alleged there was “an unprecedented revolt” by some members who refused to shake hands with the canon when they left the church.  During the service, while Canon Gordon was speaking Dr Love was said to have hurried from the church looking upset.  These allegations could only have referred to events on Sunday 6^th March, which was before the issuance of the “resignation” letter to Malcolm Love.  Thus the cause of the alleged congregational revolt could not have been the demand for Malcolm’s resignation but some other matter, most likely the changing of the liturgy.

 

The Vestry gives its reasons for dismissing Malcolm Love

On Sunday 13^th March 1983, the Vestry issued a statement to the congregation on the reasons for dismissing Malcolm Love from his post.  At last Malcolm and the congregation generally were no longer to be kept in the dark.  The text of this message follows in full.

“Many of you will know by now that the Vestry has found it necessary to terminate the appointment of Dr Malcolm Love as Choirmaster of St Devenick’s Church.  This will have caused distress to members of the congregation and we therefore wish to make a statement concerning the reasons for this action.

The position of Choirmaster is a formal appointment made by the Vestry.  The person appointed is required to sign a letter of agreement to abide by the conditions of the appointment and is entitled to receive an honorarium and expenses for his services.  As the appointing body, the Vestry has the responsibility for ensuring that the terms of the letter of agreement are observed and that the overall interests of the Church are protected.

Over the past two years (ie since about March 1981) Choir matters have been a frequent subject of discussion in Vestry meetings and the most important area of discussion has concerned the fundamental question of what the role of the Choir is in the worship of our Church.  You will have observed the increasingly dominant role that the Choir has assumed in our services and the wisdom of allowing this trend to continue unchecked has been questioned by members of the congregation and subsequently in Vestry discussions.  In this matter we have looked to the Rector for spiritual leadership.  Equally we expected the Choirmaster to accept the Rector’s “entire control over the choir” as he has agreed to do.  Regrettably the Choirmaster has not always been willing to accept this in spite of numerous discussions with the Rector and a meeting with the complete Vestry.  This fundamental difference between the Rector and the Choirmaster concerning what the role of the Choir is and of how it should be determined has been dismissed by some as “a conflict of personalities”.  That is untrue; the suggestion is insulting to both the Rector and the Choirmaster and it tends to trivialise a vital difference concerning our manner of worship.

The tensions concerning the role of the choir in the Church were evident during last year’s Annual General Meeting and, to help to resolve these tensions, the Churchwardens and the Clergy arranged a meeting with the Choirmaster to discuss the issues involved.  There appeared to be mutual understanding and a large measure of agreement at the meeting.  Following it the Choirmaster was sent a written record of the issues that had been discussed, which specified the points where his agreement was expected.  These were not unreasonable and gave ample scope for the continued development of the choir’s role in the worship of St. Devenick’s Church, without conflicting with the Rector’s responsibilities as spiritual leader of the Church and ultimately for its life and worship.

Dr Love has since shown by his actions that he has no intention of complying with these points.  He has also spoken to, and written to, a number of members of the congregation in terms that have been highly derogatory to the Rector and his staff.

At its meeting last Tuesday (8^th March) the Vestry considered Dr Love’s actions and judged them to have been inconsistent with his responsibilities as Choirmaster and in direct conflict with the terms of his appointment.  The Vestry decided, by a majority decision, that as the appointing authority it had no alternative to accepting that Dr Love had severely broken the terms of his contract with the Church and that his immediate resignation should be requested.  Dr Love has refused to resign and, most reluctantly, he has now been dismissed.

We are all genuinely sorry that this action has been necessary.  We all have a high regard for Dr Love’s musical ability and for his devotion and enthusiasm in building up such an excellent choir.  It is sad that by his refusal to accept the discipline and restrictions of the post of a choirmaster in a church, Dr Love should have brought his work at St. Devenick’s to such an unhappy end”.

Copies were made of this statement and placed in the church porch for distribution to the attendees as they left the Sunday service on 13rh March.  Later, much later, in December 1984, Bishop Darwent commented that this letter from the Vestry to Malcolm had been “unwise and uncompassionate” and that that it was “unwise” for the Chairman of a Vestry meeting to allow no opportunity for representations to be made by a person whose dismissal is being considered”.

 

The Sunday service at St Devenick’s on 13^th March 1983

This church service turned out to be a remarkable affair, attended by both tension and drama.  For a start it was packed with members on the congregational roll, not all of whom would have made the effort to attend had there not been an expectation of further developments following the choirmaster’s sacking.  It appeared that Canon Gordon had made a special effort to encourage his supporters to lend their presence, including members of the nascent Episcopal congregation from Westhill, a new settlement developed in response to the advent of the oil industry.  They were temporarily attached to St Devenick’s until a new interdenominational church building could be constructed in their own settlement.  Westhill members were generally not involved with the choir, since it was a long way for them to travel to practices.  The choir’s supporters also attended, crowding together for mutual support in three pews at the back of the nave, with Malcolm seated next to the aisle.  The new liturgy contained one progressive feature which Canon Gordon had obviously planned to weaponise in his campaign against the traditionalists.  Malcolm Love described the extraordinary scene which followed.  His account follows.

“A feature of the new Liturgy is that at one point the people shake hands with all others within reach.  The Rector said the formal “Let us offer one another a sign of peace”, but then continued, non-liturgically (author’s emphasis), “Today don’t feel limited to exchanging the Peace just with your immediate neighbours.  If you would like to move anywhere within the church, please feel free to do so.”  So saying he himself came down the Sanctuary steps through the Chancel arch, down the Nave and right to the back pew, so that he could publicly shake hands with me!  All heads turned and again I could not bring myself to refuse.  Later I came to refer to this as the “Judas handshake”, because he did it knowing the content of the defamatory literature already stacked outside in the porch, ready to distribute to the congregation as they left”.

For a Christian, this was a very serious charge to level against Kenneth Gordon, likening him to Judas Iscariot who had betrayed Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane for thirty pieces of silver by kissing him on the cheek, but, as will shortly be seen, Malcolm and his family considered the claims made in this statement of justification to be highly defamatory.  These charges would not go unanswered.  Kenneth Gordon’s attempt to appear conciliatory before the congregation was not subsequently backed up by actions which were consistent with conciliation and would be judged as being cynical.

The rest of the service was also packed with incident.  Collectively, the choir’s supporters had agreed not to contribute to the collection, an action which would have been noted by their opponents as being antagonistic.  Malcolm had decided that he could not receive Communion from Canon Gordon given his abrupt dismissal on Gordon’s initiative but that is not how proceedings transpired.  Malcolm Love’s autobiography is again quoted.

“We believe that the Sacred Elements are not invalidated by any shortcomings in the Celebrant, but we are also not allowed to receive communion if we are in dispute with anyone.  The situation seemed straightforward enough, and I settled myself in the pew to wait while others went up to the altar.  None of the choir moved from their seats, but suddenly I felt my arm being strongly, almost violently grasped.  It was Nancy (Nancy Mercer, was a retired doctor, who had worked for the University of Aberdeen Student Health Service) our benefactor and long-time friend, now also an Elder.  “For Christ’s sake, come, Malcolm”.  “I can’t”.  “Please, please come with me!”  What could I do?  She was terribly upset, and her hand was shaking all the way up to the altar, while the faces of the choirmen showed how the incident had unnerved them”.

Dr Nancy Mercer

So, Malcolm Love, through his innate politeness, had had to suffer two particular indignities by attending that first Sunday service after his dismissal: he was obliged to shake the hand of his oppressor, Kenneth Gordon, and then receive Holy Communion from him.

A representative of the Aberdeen Evening Express had apparently been present at the service and noted that the Rector had introduced an additional lesson into the proceedings.  It had a message for the congregants and some implicit advice on how they should interpret the current disturbance.  The relevant passage was “Get thee behind me satan, for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men”.   Gordon went on to advise his flock, “Let us see, not man, but Jesus, only Jesus.  Let us as individuals and as a congregation unite to follow him.  Our prayers and our focus should be on him”.  The implication was that Malcolm’s devotion to highbrow church music was distracting the congregation from the true path, which Canon Gordon had prescribed for them.

At the conclusion of the service the congregation filed out past the Rector and one of the churchwardens, who stood distributing the document explaining the reasons behind Malcolm’s sacking.  But not every attendee received a copy.  According to Malcolm Love the recipients were those whom the two church officials knew.  Perhaps this was intended to keep information away from members of the press and casual visitors.  Apparently, many people approached Malcolm outside the church and shook his hand, presumably in sympathy for his predicament, but he related one particularly disturbing interaction with a church official, Bryan Bache, the Lay Reader.  “His face was drained of colour and a real study in grief.  “I really am terribly sorry, Malcolm”, he said, stumblingly, “I never thought it would come to this”.”

 

The parents’ meeting of Monday 14^th March 1983

The immediate outcome of the sacking of Malcolm Love from his position as choirmaster had been the resignation of four dissenting members of the Vestry, soon followed by the departure of five other church officials, Iain Marr, the director of the girls’ choir, Richard Weddle, the organist, the treasurer, the secretary and the lay representative.  But, the most remarkable statistic of all to emerge from this down-grading of the St Devenick’s choir was that of 74 young people who had been associated with the choir, 69 chose to leave and throw in their lot with Malcolm Love’s new unattached choir.       

Although the meeting of 14^th March was principally to discuss with the parents of choristers the proposals for the future of the choirs, all the prominent supporters of Malcolm Love were present too, plus a few attendees who had no previous connection with the choir.  The meeting was packed, over 100 attendees having turned up. 

My wife and I were both there.  We were not members of the St Devenick’s congregation but, through his friendship with another chorister, our son had joined the choir.  He was welcomed by Malcolm and given the same opportunities as all the other young singers.  Malcolm was strictly meritocratic in his promotion of choristers through the various ranks and our offspring eventually ascended to the position of deputy head chorister, entrusted with singing the most challenging solo pieces, such as the Magnificat in C by Sir Charles Villiers Stanford.  However, the presence of choristers of non-congregants did not sit comfortably with some prominent members of the congregation, one of whom gave me a severe ear-bashing at an event where we happened to fall into conversation by chance.  But perhaps Malcolm’s openness to non-congregational membership of the choir indicated that his first priority was the excellence of the choir’s performances and not its proposed supporting role in leading the congregation in their hymn-singing.

The meeting was opened by Michael Partridge, a prominent choir supporter, parent and Lecturer in Philosophy at Aberdeen University, saying a prayer.  He then introduced Malcolm Love to the audience.  Malcolm recorded in his autobiography that he was particularly moved by the throng arrayed before him and he described the thoughts that flooded his mind, promoted by the significance of the occasion.

“Looking at that sea of anxious faces I realised that they probably felt just as vulnerable as I did, perhaps more so, and a surge of resolve filled me.  It struck me as never before that they were all part of this great family that the choir had become, and that now was the chance to pull the whole huge team into a close-knit survival machine”.

At this time shortly after the sacking of Malcolm Love there was a widespread belief amongst his congregational supporters that the antagonisms of the last few months could be overcome and reconciliation could be achieved through the exercise of Christian compassion, compromise and goodwill, leading to the reinstatement of the choirmaster.  Although he had clearly been moved by the attendance at the parents’ meeting, I suspect that Malcolm had already concluded that he would not be reinstated during Kenneth Gordon’s tenure at St Devenicks and that the immediate future of his choir was likely to be as a freelance body unattached to any church but welcomed by many.  Further, I believe he went into that meeting with his survival plans already formed, including the messages that he wanted to impress upon the supporting clan that evening.

Malcolm began his presentation with a homily, likening the choir’s troubles to the feeling of loss, even devastation, that a choirboy suffers when his voice breaks but, that with persistence, he re-emerges with an adult voice which once again becomes an instrument of pleasure, learning and achievement.  Malcolm then turned to the future of the choirs and pronounced his message of that evening.

““Tonight I am not going to glance backwards, not even for a moment, to think about what has happened to us.  You know it well enough.  A great future lies ahead, we will survive and flourish vigorously”.

That was not the speech of someone who still pined only for the clock to be turned back and the status quo ante to be restored.  Malcolm assured his audience that the planned choir camp would go ahead, subject to the approval of their host church, though he had lost access to the St Devenick choir’s funds.  He then staged the ceremonial admission of two red cassock-clad choristers at which each boy was invested with his white surplice by the head chorister.  This was followed by the performance of a short anthem, “My spirit longs for Thee”, by the adults.  As Malcolm himself admitted, this was a good idea but produced a disjointed performance, below the choir’s usual standard, due to a deficiency of practice.  Another positive outcome of the meeting was an agreement to name the two new choirs the Byrd Choir (male voices), with Malcolm Love as the musical director and the St Cecilia Choir (female voices), with Iain Marr as its musical director.  Collectively, the two choirs would sail under the title, “The Deeside Choristers”.  The meeting then ended with many attendees rallying around Malcolm, shaking his hand and assuring him of their support.  At the suggestion of one parent a collection plate was placed at the exit and raised £130, an indicator that future support would not be confined to warm words.

 

The Deeside Choristers emerge from the disruption

Several problems immediately assailed the choir, if it was to continue with public performances in churches, or elsewhere.  In addition to lacking funds, it no longer had a set of robes, or a set of prayer books, or a suitable practice venue.  Those it had been using belonged to St Devenick’s and the present regime there was not minded to be generous.  Choir practice was resumed the following Thursday, 17^th March 1983, a little over a week after Malcolm Love’s dismissal, not in a hired venue, but at East Silverburn the home of the Love family.  Malcolm, in his autobiography, described the arrangements.

“My home is a converted water-mill and the building that once housed the grinding machinery, now our sitting room is big and lofty.  We would not have had nearly enough chairs for choir practice, though, had it not been for the church chairs I had bought.  Muriel dusted the straw and hay fragments off them and we found that with the easy chairs and the dining chairs we could now seat 45 singers.  Any above this number had to sit on the carpet, but the smallest boys did not seem to mind”.

Later, the Loves went further to adapt their home for the new needs of the choir.

“The cottage in which the crofter had lived when my home was a mill, is now my garage and workshop, but the upstairs part affords all sorts of scope for recreation.  My sons had installed a bar, carpet and easy chairs, and it seemed logical to allow the senior choristers the use of this place on practice night.  It gave them a place they could call their own now that they could not use church premises, and as the year went on we resurrected a small snooker table and table tennis table that our own sons had enjoyed, while a big new darts board arrived at Christmas”.

The choristers themselves also showed that they did not lack initiative.  Some had been keeping their robes at home but most left them and their RSCM ribbons and medals, their badges of office and achievement in this meritocratic organisation, in the church.  A few boys sneaked, unobserved, into St Devenick’s during the week and purloined all the ribbons and medals.  They were handed over to their juvenile owners and Malcolm, quietly admiring their chutzpah, did not intervene, except to allow the boys to keep their awards, rather than surrendering them, as a cost-saving measure on graduation to the adult choir.

 

The Loves hit back 

Malcolm and Muriel Love had three sons, one of whom, Ian, was a practising advocate in Aberdeen.  He authored a long document, rebutting the charges made against his father by the St Devenick’s Vestry.  The document was available for distribution on 12^th May 1983 and it is reproduced in full below.

“A Statement concerning the dismissal of Dr Malcolm Love from the post of Choirmaster of St Devenick’s, Bieldside. 

“As most of you will be aware, my father, Dr.Malcolm Love, was sumarily dismissed from the post of choirmaster of St .Devenick's church, on 8th March 1983, following a decision by the majority of the Vestry to that effect.  Many of you will also have seen a statement from the Vestry purportedly explaining this decision, which was distributed to members of the congregation at the close of the morning service at the church on 13th March, and a circular enclosed in recent copies of St.Devenlcks Matters referring to that statement.  It is in response to this statement and circular that I am writing now.

“Firstly, it is within the Rector’s and Vestry’s remit to appoint and dismiss the Choirmaster.  I was astonished, however, to discover that the Rector, Vestry members and persons distributing the document were prepared to accept the responsibility for publicising comments which were at best misleading and in some instances utterly untrue.  The general tenor of these comments, and the relative circular, was to assert that my father had broken his conditions of appointment, flouted the Rector’s and Vestry’s authority, broken subsequent agreements, with the Vestry and conducted himself in a manner inconsistent with his holding the post of Choirmaster, to the extent that “the Vestry has regrettably found it necessary to terminate his appointment".

“My father was shattered when he saw this statement, made by people that he had worshipped with wholeheartedly in Christian communion, week in, week out, for years.  Members of the-congregation who were not appraised of the true situation would naturally believe the ’official version' appearing in black and white and even advertised with the church magazine!

“That this statement could not be correct becomes obvious when one discovers that the decision to dismiss my father prompted the immediate resignation of four Vestry members - a fact tactfully omitted from the Vestry's statement.

“I now append a note of my father’s observations on specific passages, from the Vestry's statement of March 13th.

“1.  In paragraph 3 of the statement: "we expected the choirmaster to accept the Rector’s entire control of the choir, as he had agreed to do when signing his letter of appointment.  Regrettably the Choirmaster has not always been willing to accept this in spite of numerous discussions with the Rector and a meeting, with, the complete Vestry”.

“It is difficult to discover what this oblique generality refers to. Every note of music, psalms, anthems, etc., was agreed for every service, months in advance at a meeting of the Rector, curate, Organist and Choirmaster.

“2.  In paragraph 4  “The tensions concerning the role of the choir in the church were evident during last year's Annual General Meeting...”.

The AGM was certainly tense, but the role of the choir was not at issue; it was not even discussed. It was not raised.  No representations of any description were made by 'the choir' or members speaking in its name. Two contentious matters were raised: the question of the form of liturgy to be used at church  services, and the question of the future of the Rood Screen.  As I understand it, the whole point of an AOB is to give an opportunity for members of a congregation to air their views on matters concerning their church. Many members of the congregation voiced strong views on these two matters. Given that the choir forms a significant proportion of the congregation and given the number of people that expressed views on these subjects, it would, have been most surprising if no choir members had had views to raise. In any event, surely it is not necessary to defend the right of the individual to question matters at an AGM? In a Christian community it is ludicrous, that the word 'democracy' should even require to be mentioned. If it truly is the case that concerned members of a congregation are to be denied discussion of pertinent questions raised by them (as indeed happened) and that, further, their temerity in daring to raise such questions is to be punished by making a scapegoat of the choirmaster, then Christian values at St, Devenick's have slipped to a lower level than I am prepared to believe.

"3.  The Churchwardens and Clergy arranged a meeting with the Choirmaster to discuss the issues involved. There appeared to be mutual understanding and a large-measure of agreement at the meeting."

“This innocuous-sounding passage is a very benign and inaccurate account of a most unpleasant episode.  After being asked to attend a meeting on 21st. December, 1982, my father inquired as to the purpose of this meeting, but the Rector declined to tell him, hardly the best preparation to "discuss the issues involved”.  At the meeting itself, held so soon after what many people considered to be a very  successful carol service, my father was interrogated for 3 hours without a break, being, as most know, in a great deal of pain at the time. The scene was set by Mr.Heueston, who made the following points:

“That he and others had been concerned for some time, as they showed at the AGM that the choir and Clergy and the choir and Vestry, were on a collision course, and that if a colllsion occurred, then "it would result in our having no choirmaster.’

“He said that certain points had given great concern to all of the congregation for quite a nunber of years, that he had heard that various people had been unhappy about the liturgy and the clergy were un­happy about the choir.

“The Vestry were said to be concerned about the size of the choir, and that "the kind of way the choir fund was growing appeared to be almost out of the control of the Vestry".

“He gave as an example of "the sort of thing one heard said” that “the choir had almost declared U.D.I. from the church."

“Now as anyone at the AGM will remember, a ‘collision course’ was never mentioned.  I have tried to make some sense of Mr.Heueston’s remarks, but unsuccessfully. 2 . Why the choir and the Vestry should be on a collision course is a mystery to me. Three members of the Vestry were in the Choir.  The other members of the Vestry had no contact whatever with the choir or Choirmaster, except for the Treasurer, who resigned from the Vestry when the dismissal was announced. The rest of Mr.Heueston’s preamble was no more enlightening. He seemed worried by the size of the choir, the size of the choir fund, and related matters. I should have thought that these merited congratulation, not damnation and the threat of dismissal.  He then came up with a view which he said was the "sort of thing one hears said”, the monstrously fatuous view that the choir "had almost declared UDI from the church." How could this be so when the clergy approved ALL the music and determined the order of service?  How could anyone take, exception to the choir’s being self-funded? This simply means that the church can apply its other resources as it sees fit without the additional burden of meeting the choir’s needs.  Mr.Heueston refers to nothing that my father had done which was other than helpful to the church, let alone unconstitutonal, or as the statement of 13th March would have it, "Inconsistent with his responsibilities as choirmaster and in direct conflict with the terms of his appointment".

“This apart, I am disgusted that my father was treated so shabbily by a ’religious’ body immediately before Christmas, being questioned closely for such a long period when in such poor health.

“I need hardly say that my father disagreed with Mr.Heueston’s train of thought and with comments in a similar vein from the other three protagonists and so one may safely assume that the "mutual understanding" and "large measure of agreement" pertained only to the Wardens and Clergy present, and not, as was implied by the statement, to my father.  It would appear from the events which followed that none of the arguments put forward by my father was adopted by the others present, or allowed to influence their subsequent actions.

"4.  ...the choirmaster was sent a written record of the issues that had been discussed, which specified the points where his agreement was expected. These were not unreasonable and gave ample scope for the continuing development of the choir’s role..."

“These points are now quoted In full:

“1.It was agreed that spiritual authority in our Church lies with the Rector. All aspects of worship, including musical items, should therefore be in accordance with the Rector’s wishes. As a consequence of this “it is necessary for you to put to the Rector for approval items which you propose the Choir should sing at services. This may be supplemented by the Rector and yourself meeting for discussion at appropriate intervals. You are also required to co-operate fully in having the Choir sing, or lead the congregation in singing, any item requested by the Rector.

“2.The number of members of the Choir should be reduced as soon as practicable to that which can be accommodated comfortably within the choir stalls in Church. The reduction can take place by ’natural wastage’ in an immediate period during which new members should not be admitted other than with the Rector’s agreement. In the meantime, Choir members that cannot be accommodated in the stalls should occupy pews with the congregation.

“3.You agreed” (“I most certainly did not” RML) “that proposals for expenditure from the Choir Fund or other church funds should be submitted to the Vestry for prior approval because the Choir Fund, like other church funds, is the responsibility of the Vestry.

“4.It was agreed that choir practices should not be held at times that clash with other church activities. We request that the matter of holding of choir practices on Sunday mornings at a time which clashes with Pathfinders be resolved in consultation with the Rector as soon as possible, and in the absence of an alternative solution this practice should be discontinued.

“5.We expect the Choir to give a lead to the congregation in the musical worship of church services, including the singing of hymns.  

“6.We expect you to encourage members of the Choir to play a part in the full life and worship of the church, including activities at which they are not necessarily attending as Choir members. 

“7.We regard it as important that you recognise that other styles or music besides those In which the choir excels are valid aids to, and expressions of, worship, and that you encourage this view in members of the Choir. 

“...Whilst it is hoped that agreement on all these points will result in the resolution of all matters of outstanding concern to us, we would wish to review the position at the end of three months, and will expect to see progress on all these points to the satisfaction of the Rector.” 

“While these points may not seem unreasonable to the casual observer, it should be noted that the major point no.1 HAD ALWAYS BEEN COMPLIED WITH and that, points 6 & 7 really had nothing to do with my father. Further, the remaining points would be difficult to implement without damaging the choir’s structure, as the rapid changes in boys’ voices steadily create gaps which must be filled to maintain a balanced sound. Notwithstanding this, my father DID ATTEMPT TO COMPLY In deference to "the Rector’s and Vestry’s request”.

“5.  "Dr.Love has since shown by his actions that he had no Intentions of complying, with these points". 

It is sad that a church authority should print such a statement in the full and certain knowledge that it was utterly and demonstrably untrue. My father had made out a rota for reducing the numbers in the stalls as soon as the rehearsals for the school show were finished. He discussed Pathfinders with Dr. Heddle and had reached a compromise acceptable to them both.  A scheme for the religious instruction of choristers was already in operation during sermon time under the auspices of Dr .Brunt and Mrs .Clark, and was working most successfully. The choirmen then wrote to the Rector, jointly, requesting permission to discuss with the Vestry the remaining practical points requested. The Rector wrote in reply that this “should obviously be considered by the Vestry at our next meeting on 8th March, and I shall include it as an Item on the agenda thereof.” 

“The Rector, however, withheld this letter from the Vestry at that meeting. The Rector had also withheld a memorandum from Dr .Findlay, a Vestry member, to be placed before the Vestry at Its meeting on 6th January when the ’role of the choir’ was to be discussed. It may therefore be that the statement Issued by the Vestry on 13th March came about through misinformation, and although that is no excuse for its scurrilous content, the Rector’s actions in withholding these letters may well have shifted most of the onus of responsibility for this document fairly and squarely on to his own shoulders. 

“6.  “(RML) has also spoken to, and written to a number of members of the congregation in terms which have been highly derogatory to the Rector and his staff..." 

“Once again, totally misleading. My father has no recollection of writing to members of the congregation in any terms, derogatory or otherwise. A number of copies of the Wardens’ letter of 1st January were sent to people on request - surely permissible, as it purported to come from their representative, the People's Warden. My father certainly did speak individually to each of the four who had been present at the 'meeting' on 21st December - the Curate and two Wardens personally and the Rector by telephone - telling them how outraged he was by that meeting and the subsequent letter of ’conditions’. There was no question of speaking behind their backs, a point which he specifically made to each of them. The meeting and letter were, after all, done without the Vestry's prior knowledge, later ratified with four dissentions, and badly and unfairly executed by any decent and honest standards. 

“7.  At Its meeting last Tuesday, the Vestry considered Dr.Love's actions and judged them to have been inconsistent with his responsibilities as choirmaster, and in direct conflict with the terms of his employment".  

“This damning indictment is both wilfully misleading and utterly unfair. The three month probation period specified in the ’letter of conditions’ had not nearly expired: far from my father breaking hls contract, the Vestry had failed to honour the terms of its own ultimatum! Further, the letter from the choirmen requesting a meeting to discuss the few remaining practical points had been suppressed. The Rector was away for part of January and all February, and on his return did not even mention the choir situation to my father, apart from refusing to present Choral Evensong on his coloured poster. 

“8.  Dr.Love has refused to resign". 

Quite true: he was strongly urged NOT to resign by many people and, further, having complied with the Vestry's stipulation to the best of his ability, hoped that a modus vivendi was at least possible. 

“9.  ...his refusal to accept the discipline and restrictions of the post of choirmaster...". 

“This quaint and untrue statement possibly gives an insight into the thought processes of Its authors. My father had always operated as choirmaster strictly within the normal Episcopal system, consulting professional advisers as required and working to enhance the weekly worship at St. Devenick’s to the best of his ability, expending no little energy in the process. It is not until recently that he realised that the Vestry viewed these normal and natural processes in terms of 'discipline’ and ’restrictions’.

“In summary, I must first apologise if this statement has seemed bereft of the normal conciliatory platitudes, but frankly I am disgusted by the whole matter.

“I certainly would not wish to be part, of a church which condones such clandestine and malevolent behaviour on the part of its officials.  Certainly my father is far more tolerant than I am, devoting so much time, energy, thought and money towards creating and funding one of the most effective and enthusiastic church choirs in the whole country, only to be met with an invidious tissue of half-truths and dismissal.

“How the Vestry can say "We all have a high regard for Dr. Love’s musical ability and for his, devotion and enthusiasm in building up such an excellent choir” when that is the precise reason for his dismissal I do not know.  How the newly-appointed ’People’s-Warden’ can write and act without consulting the people also requires explanation.

“You will note, I trust, that this statement covers ONLY the points made by the Vestry: much more could have been written on the unfair nature of the actions. It is with the greatest reluctance that this ’reply’ is being written at all, but as persons reading the Vestry’s statement have been known to take it at face value, something had to be done. I only hope that the church will itself bring some sanity back into the situation as I am sure it can and should.

“One thing is absolutely certain. While we would not contest the Vestry’s right to hire and fire choirmasters as they see fit, my mother, brothers and I concur in the view that leaving matters as they are with my father’s good name in unjustifiable disrepute is quite out of the question.

“Ian. R. Love P 12th May 1983

“187, Great Northern Road, Aberdeen.”

Evaluating the actions of individuals from a vantage point more than four decades distant from the events described gives this author the advantages of hindsight, perspective and emotional detachment.  It was certainly necessary for the Loves to respond to the charges made against Malcolm by the Vestry.  But perhaps the document would have been more impactful if Ian Love’s rebuttal of the charges had espoused brevity and shunned emotion, confining itself to factual inaccuracies in the Vestry case with contrary evidence, so that those not familiar with evaluating long and complex documents would not have become lost, or discouraged, before reaching its terminus.

The fundamental charges levelled against the former St Devenick’s choirmaster were that he had repeatedly broken the terms of his contract of employment and flouted the authority of the Clergy and Vestry.  This being so, I was surprise that there was no direct reference to the actual terms in the contract and no copy of such a document was produced by either the Vestry or by Ian Love.  No such document was found in Malcolm’s archive.

However, what is immediately clear is that both Vestry and Clergy were completely out of their depth in dealing with employment matters.  Collectively they seemed to lack any appreciation of the need to make their charges specific and to back each one up with clear, factual, supporting evidence.  Vague generalities and assertions, which was all they could offer, were not just inadequate but inappropriate.  Perhaps the most egregious example of the Vestry’s flawed approach was their claim that choir problems had been raised at the 1982 AGM, when such a debate was completely absent.

Ian Love’s document was helpful in indicating that his father had attempted to accommodate the wishes of Canon Gordon, for example by proposing a rota of attendance at services to achieve a practical reduction in numbers of choristers present in church.  It also produced a further example of Canon Gordon withholding documentation from the Vestry which may have had an impact on those responsible for composing and signing off the “ultimatum” letter to the choirmaster.

When Ian Love’s document reached Kenneth Gordon, which surely it must have done, one wonders if he read it carefully to the last paragraph?  Did he pick up the hint of further action if the wrongs Ian Love claimed his father had suffered were not addressed?  Either way, Kenneth Gordon’s approach remained to “tough it out”.

 

Attempts at reconciliation are redoubled   

Shortly after the release of Ian Love’s rebuttal of the charges made by the Vestry against his father, Malcolm and Muriel Love went on holiday for two weeks but in their absence other activists were hard at work on behalf of Malcolm.  There was clearly a hope that Bishop Fred Darwent could intervene to bring about reconciliation.  Several of Malcolm’s supporters spoke with the Bishop and, at that stage, he was prepared to listen to anyone who turned up at his door.  The Bishop subsequently met twice with the St Devenick’s Vestry.  He asked them to reconsider the dismissal of Malcolm Love as choirmaster but received a blunt refusal even to consider such a move.  Apparently, Bishop Darwent believed that he lacked any authority to force the matter on the St Devenick’s Vestry and he was left with the dilemma of how to react to this difficult situation.  He was an admirer of Malcolm Love and his choir but also believed that the Rector of St Devenick’s had to be supported in his mission.  Darwent’s solution was to sit on the fence, with one foot either side, gently leaning one way then the other as pragmatism required.  He issued a statement which was handed out to the congregation after the Sunday service on 15^th May 1983.  His message expressed sorrow at the situation which had developed, but stated that the decision was the Vestry’s and that he supported the Rector. He asked for love, compassion and compromise but his emotional hand-wringing was devoid of obvious impact on the dispute.

Some of those who had been to see Bishop Darwent returned with an enigmatic message from the diocesan leader, “Look to your constitution”, he had said.  And the activists, several of whom possessed higher degrees, did just that and quickly found the section at which, they presumed, the Bishop had been hinting: the Special General Meeting!  A General Meeting involved the whole congregation which would likely be more amenable to compromise and reconciliation.   The relevant wording of section 6 of the St Devenick’s Constitution follows. 

“General Meetings of the Congregation may be held at other times when the Vestry or a majority thereof may consider it necessary, and the Vestry shall be bound, within twenty-one days, to call a General Meeting on receiving a Requisition in writing to that effect signed by not less than fifteen Members od the Congregation; but the purpose for which such meetings are called shall be notified on the two previous Sundays during Divine Service, either verbally or in writing posted on the ordinary Notice-Board on the Church door, and it shall not be competent to discuss any other business at such Meetings.  The forms of procedure at such Meetings shall be the same as in respect of the Annual Meeting.”

I have not uncovered the requisition letter but it is clear from other sources that three topics for discussion were included, the form of Liturgy, the future of the Rood Screen and the reinstatement of the choirmaster.  The draft must have been completed by 12^th May 1983 and Edwina Clark (wife of a senior lecturer in Geography at Aberdeen University) and Brenda Parsons (wife of the professor of Soil Science at the same institution) were given the job of collecting signatures.  Although 15 was the minimum number needed to validate the requisition, it was decided to gather many more to guard against the Rector trying to invalidate some promoters of the document.  In fact, 44 signatories were appended to the letter delivered to the secretary of the Vestry on 22^nd May.  The Rector then decided the date of SGM would be Monday 30the May 1983, thus allowing two Sundays for the required announcement to be made to the congregation.  He informed congregants of this arrangement by letter.

A group of Malcolm Love’s most prominent supporters met to discuss the following day’s SGM after the service on 29^th May.  They agreed that their primary objective was reconciliation, the establishment of Malcolm Love’s blameless reputation and his reinstatement as the St Devenick’s choirmaster..

 

The Special General Meeting of the St Devenick’s congregation held on 30^th May 1983  

The Bishop’s representative, the Dean, Campbell Adamson, attended this meeting but was not allowed to chair it as Kenneth Gordon insisted, as was his right under the constitution, on assuming that role.  This move by the Rector suggested that he was intent on using the levers available to the chairman to steer the meeting in a direction he favoured.  It surely would have been preferable to have a neutral person in the role if the cause of compromise were to be served.

In total, about 170 people turned up to the SGM, including a substantial number from Westhill, some of whom had to ask the way to the church hall, the venue of the meeting.  Those from Westhill were allowed to participate fully in the proceedings even though the ideas being discussed did not really affect them, which upset Malcolm Love’s supporters, since they thought there were grounds in Canon Law to exclude their participation.  The meeting started at 7.00pm and went on for four hours.  It began with a 45 minute preamble by the secretary to the Vestry but, once the debate of substantive issues got underway the atmosphere became very tense and, at times, heated.  Many pleas were made for reconciliation but there was no hint from the Vestry that they were planning any move in that direction.  Remarkably, since the meeting had been called to deal with three separate issues, only one was debated – the status of the choirmaster.  Mr JSR Cruickshank proposed a motion that Malcolm Love should be reinstated.  It was carried by 85 votes to 59.  The only undertaking given by Canon Gordon in consequence of that result was that the Vestry would consider it at their next meeting.

The passing of a motion at the SGM to reinstate Malcolm Love, buoyed up the hopes of his supporters.  On 2^nd June 1983, the choirmen and some parents met at the Loves’ house.  They decided to draft a letter to the Vestry “expressing willingness for reconciliation”.  It was posted the following day.  Also about this time Ian Findlay, who had previously tried to influence the thinking of the Vestry in the direction of reconciliation, sent another missive to the that body, proposing the creation of a liaison committee between the choir, the Vestry and the congregation.  A further action by Malcolm Love’s supporters to impress upon the Vestry the earnest of their wishes for reconciliation, involved several choir families and disaffected members attended the Rector’s Family Service on the morning of Sunday 5^th June.

The next meeting of the Vestry was scheduled for 13^th June, when the passing of the resolution to reinstate Malcolm would be debated.  The choir supporters felt they needed to be ready to respond to press enquiries following that meeting, whatever the verdict on reinstatement.  They met the day before the Vestry meeting and drafted two alternative responses, one assuming reinstatement, the other a refusal to take Malcolm back.  It was a case of “Hope for the best but plan for the worst”.  The traditionalists were right to suspect that the clerical leopard had not changed his spots.  On 13^th June the decision was taken not to re-employ Malcolm Love as the St Devenick’s choirmaster.  However, instead of making an immediate announcement, especially to the sponsors of the requisition and to Malcolm Love himself, the information was withheld until it appeared in the P&J on 14^th June.  Kenneth Gordon had taken a statement direct to the P&J office and requested secrecy until the story appeared in this Aberdeen daily the following morning.  That was the way in which many members of the St Devenick’s congregation, including Malcolm Love, discovered the outcome of the Vestry meeting, by reading the headline, “Sacked choirmaster to stay out”.

Kenneth Gordon also authored a letter, printed on pink paper, which was delivered to some, but not all, members of the congregation.  No original copy of this letter has been uncovered but it is known to have contained the following items.

            “the appoint­ment of Dr. Love again would not be in the best interests of St. Devenick’s”

(Canon Gordon) “could not, in conscience before God, concur in such an appointment either now or in the foreseeable future”

“Things have come to light since, and events that have followed, Dr. Love’s dismissal have made this very clear to me.  I could have no confidence in any assurances that were to be given for the future by Dr. Love... In the present, and any foreseeable, circumstances, re-instatem­ent of Dr Love would in my opinion cause alarm and disquiet beyond the bounds of St. Devenick’s and would have implications for the rest of the Diocese and possibly throughout the Scottish Episcopal Church”

There can be little doubt that composing and arranging for the distribution this letter were unwise actions by Kenneth Gordon, since the missive hints at serious shortcomings in Malcolm Love’s past behaviour, both before and after his dismissal on 8^th March 1983, but without making the allegations specific, or giving factual evidence for their veracity.  Did he not even suspect that Malcolm Love and his family would be likely to take formal action to clear Malcolm’s name, which might have made him more circumspect?

At the recent SGM, Ian Findlay, a member of the Vestry, had made a proposal for the creation of a liaison committee to link the Vestry to the congregation.  Kenneth Gordon took action on 15^th June to create such a group but instead of asking the Deeside Choristers to nominate members for this new body, he made his own selection and while he had nominated some supporters of the ex-choirmaster, such as Ian Findlay, Barry Fenwick and Midge Harbottle, he had circumscribed  any discussions they might have on reinstating Malcolm, or on clearing his name, by his refusal to take him back under any foreseeable circumstances and by making further opaque allegations concerning Malcolm’s behaviour.  The liaison group was likely to be seen as a paper tiger.  A meeting of this liaison group was arranged for 27^th June and a notice announcing this event posted in the church porch, This caused some consternation amongst the members of the group who were supporters of Dr Love and the choirs because the notice could have been taken to imply that they were present, not as individuals but as representatives of the Deeside Choristers, which they were not, having been selected by Kenneth Gordon.

 

The Action Group for Reconciliation and Reform comes into being

The informal group of advisers to Malcolm Love, which contained some significant intellects, now realised that reconciliation was not going to happen either quickly or easily.  In consequence they decided to reconstitute themselves under the formal title of “Action Group for Reconciliation and Reform” and held their first formal meeting on 18^th June 1983.  The name of the new body hinted that the activists had broadened their aims to include changes to the modus operandi of the officers of St Devenick’s.  One of the first actions of the newly constituted group was to write to Bishop Fred Darwent on 24^th June requesting a meeting.  Darwent responded, not by offering a meeting, but by directing the group to his recent letter to the congregation.  The Action Group, which was a formally separate group from the Deeside Choristers, realised that many members of the St Devenick’s congregation would be unaware of their existence and purpose.  To address this deficit, the reply that they drafted to Bishop Darwent’s recent letter which had failed to respond to a request for a meeting, was sent to all members of the St Devenick’s congregation, which they hoped would address the concerns of congregants who felt isolated and powerless in the aftermath of Canon Gordon’s intransigence. 

A group of young people from the choir also wrote to Bishop Darwent about this time, but they received the same brush-off as the Action Group, being directed to his recent letter to the congregation at that time posted in the porch of St Devenick’s.  Some youngsters from the choir also wrote to the local newspapers making an important point about the inspiration they took from Malcolm Love and his evangelical impact on the young members of the choir.  “Dr Love is a great inspiration to all who know him.  He has introduced many young people to the church through the two choirs”. 

On 27^th June an informal meeting took place between representatives of the two sides, the Deeside Chorister contingent including both adult singers and parents of junior members.  The other side contained representatives of the Vestry.  The meeting was amicable and the prospect of a better relationship in future, in the form of a substantial donation from the choir fund and occasional appearances to sing at St Devenick’s services, seemed a possibility.  But Kenneth Gordon was not present and the Vestry representatives may have been free-lancing without his approval for the suggestions at which they had hinted.  They never happened.

 

Bishop Darwent’s intervention

The Bishop had been active behind the scenes but had got nowhere in encouraging Kenneth Gordon to be more conciliatory.  Faced with an impasse he eased onto his St Devenick’s-leaning foot and dispatched a further letter to the congregation which was read out in church on Sunday 26^th June 1983.  Its content was deeply dispiriting to Malcolm Love and his supporters.  Darwent, employing the standard rhetoric of senior clergy, relayed that he had been "praying” and ’’agonizing" extensively over the St Devenick’s problem, which he characterised as “continual feuding” in an attempt to appear even-handed.  He was searching for a solution but Canon Law endowed the clergy with certain "rights and privileges" and when these entitlements had been exercised "prayerfully, with the integrity which one expects from all clergy, and in good conscience before God”, which, he had been assured had been the case, then he had to support the St Devenick’s clergy in the exercise of their rights.  That being so, he had to accept their position and urged the members of the congregation to support Kenneth Gordon and his curate.  This letter from Fred Darwent was badly received by Malcolm Love’s numerous supporters.  They resented the suggestion that both sides had been feuding when they had sincerely sought reconciliation and had been repeatedly rebuffed, and they did not accept that Kenneth Gordon was a superior authority in determining what was the will of God.  The missive seemed to be so different in tone from the previous letter that Bishop Darwent had written to the congregation on 15^th May.

 

The Deeside Choristers Choir formally comes into existence

On adopting the title, “The Deeside Choristers”, for the now-independent choir, it was also necessary to draw up a constitution for the new organisation.  This had been drafted by 19^th June 1983 and was ratified at a meeting on 28^th June at which a committee was also elected.  Malcolm Love was chosen as Director of Music for the new choir, Iain Marr became Choirmaster of the St Cecilia Choir, Richard Weddle the organist and Barry Fenwick was elected as Chairman.  The choir and its supporters were now acting independently of St Devenick’s Church, a community from which they felt alienated, which was a serious matter for committed Christians.  An effort was made to remove this deficit by holding services in the WRI Hall in Cults.  On 26^th June, a private service of Compline, led by Dr Nancy Mercer, was conducted at this venue attended by about 100 people.  Some former members of the St Devenick’s congregation moved their allegiance elsewhere, the most popular new religious affiliation being to the Church of St John the Baptist in Crown Terrace, Aberdeen.  A further private service of Sung Evensong, with about 100 attendees, was held in the WRI Hall, Cults on 21^st August, with Michael Partridge leading on this occasion.  One week later the remarkable number of 40 choristers and parents worshipped at St John’s, Crown Terrace.

St John the Baptist, Aberdeen

Throughout May and June 1983 choir practices went ahead and a programme of events started to emerge.  On 1st June the St Cecilia Choir won the Patterson Gold Medal at the Aberdeen Music festival.  They were competing against three other competent choirs.  The 25^th June 1983, saw the Deeside Choristers and the St Cecilia Choir mount a concert in the theatre at the Deeside Community Centre, Aboyne, which included a performance of “Above him stood the seraphim” by the Tudor composer Richard Dering (1580 – 1630).  Further, the choirs had by this date sufficient invitations to make up a full programme of performances through to the end of the year.

 High Force Waterfall

Ripon Cathedral

Hexham Abbey

The 1983 choir camp took place between 2^nd and 11^th July based at Bishop’s Auckland in County Durham, with a full programme of activities.  Fortunately the Vestry of St Devenick’s allowed the choir to borrow a set of robes.  There was, of course no call on them at St Devenick’s.  The Byrd Choir gave a concert at St. Peter's Church, Bishop Auckland, sang Compline at Escomb Parish Church, and Choral Evensong at St. Andrew's Church, Bishop Auckland, Ripon Cathedral, and Hexham Abbey, with a different music programme on each of the three occasions.  The choristers also joined services as members of the congregation at St Andrew’s, Bishop Auckland and at Durham Cathedral.  Members of the choir also took a day off from singing to walk to the High Force waterfall in Teesdale.  Everywhere they went, the choristers were given a warm welcome.  During the autumn of 1983 there were choir appearances at St Margaret’s, Braemar, Pluscarden Abbey, St Clement’s, Mastrick and (St Ceceilia’s Choir) St Peter’s, Culter.  At Pluscarden Abbey, a community of Catholic Benedictine monks situated near Elgin, Morayshire on 18^th September, the Abbot addressed the Byrd Choir in the following terms.

“I know you’ve come primarily to worship and praise Almighty God.  You’ve done that splendidly, very beautifully, very prayerfully.  This church is not a parish church; it is a monastic church where the monks gather seven times a day to praise and worship God; I feel we have something in common.  We will remember you in our prayers”.

Pluscarden Abbey

In August 1983 the committee of the Deeside Choristers agreed to invite the Dean of the Diocese, Campbell Adamson, to become their patron, which role he readily undertook.  He was an important allay to gain but, sadly, he did not survive long in the role.  Campbell Adamson died suddenly on 3^rd September 1983.

Macolm and Muriel Love, ever keen to add a social element to the doings of the Deeside Choristers, held a barbecue at East Silverburn on 20^th August.  My wife and I attended this event which was a lot of fun and demonstrated the coherence of the choir’s supporters.  I particularly remember complementing Malcolm on the spicy barbecue sauce on offer.  Apparently it had been prepared by Muriel to a recipe she had obtained from an ethnic contact.

The severance of the choirs from their connection with St Devenick’s caused continuing problems from a lack of supporting materials, such as robes and hymn books, and an absence of funds to replace them.  Raising a new fund became an imperative and a sale of goods was planned for the autumn.  Such was the confidence of the Deeside Choristers’ Committee in the success of the upcoming sale that an order for new hymn books was placed before the event took place.  Was this an act of faith, or a business decision based on experience? 

The Deeside Choristers continued their programme of appearances throughout the autumn of 1983.  The choir and its supporters were leading two separate but parallel lives, one the pursuit of excellence in classical church music and the other the engagement with the progressives in St Devenick’s Church concerning legal and spiritual issues, together with wholly practical matters such as the election of the new Vestry.  Malcolm Love, Iain Marr and the singers seemed to sail on unaffected by the turbulence surrounding them.  On 3^rd November the St Cecilia Choir sang in the Arts Centre in Aberdeen and on the 5^th of the month there was a celebration of Bonfire Night for the choristers.  The Byrd Choir appeared at St Machar’s Cathedral, Aberdeen on 20^th November and four days later a further private service was held in the WRI Hall, Cults.  It was attended by about 85 people, George Patterson led the service.  In the run-up to the end of 1983, the Deeside Choristers had a particularly heavy programme of appearances, singing in the following venues.  St. Thomas’, Aboyne; The Parish Church of Glenmuick, Ballater (St Cecilia Choir); St. Clement’s, Mastrick; St. Mary’s, Carden Place; St.- Peter’s, Culter (Carol Service sung jointly by 75 singers of the Byrd and St Cecilia Choirs) and St Mary’s, Carden Place (four men, seven boys, and four girls). 

On Christmas Eve, an evening service of lessons and carols was held in the WRI Hall, Cults.  George Patterson read a prayer and less­ons were contributed by Brenda Parsons, Gordon Simpson, Freddie Gowar (Consultant Thoracic Surgeon and one of the first doctors to recognise the link between smoking and lung cancer), Gavin Clark, Malcolm Ingram (Senior Lecturer in Chemistry, Aberdeen University), and Pat Mugliston (retired Aberdeen University librarian). The lessons were traditional, and were taken from the Authorised Version of the Bible. Three of the Carols were sung by the Deeside Choristers without congregational participation, the remaining eight being congregation­al.  At least in this modest venue the traditionalists were free to worship and celebrate Christmas as they pleased.

The Deeside Choristers’ year ended with an organised party in the WRI Hall on 29^th December, with the programme including games, food, cartoons and a disco, for about 40 attendees.  This was a typical aspect of Malcolm Love’s organisation of the choir, to leaven intense musical activities with youthful fun events.   Since his dismissal in March 1983, it appeared that Malcolm Love had been concentrating on his duties as Director of Music for the Deeside Choristers and avoiding giving the impression of being an activist campaigner for his own reinstatement.    

 

The Action Group for Reconciliation and Reform becomes very active

One of the most active members of the Action Group was George Patterson, a Lecturer in Jurisprudence at the University of Aberdeen, jurisprudence being the theory of law.  George and his colleagues began a systematic study of both the Canon Law of the Scottish Episcopal Church and the Constitution of St Devenick’s Church, because it was under the authority deriving from these two sets of binding rules that decisions had been and would in future be taken concerning Malcolm Love, the liturgical practice and the general conduct of affairs at St Devenick’s.  A Legal sub-committee of the Action Group was created to accommodate the work of George and other traditionals of a similar bent, and it was very active over the summer of 1983.  As a result of the work of the Legal sub-Committee, it was thought that major defects in both drafting and operation of the St Devenick’s constitution had been uncovered.  It was decided to seek the requisition of a further Special General Meeting for the purpose of evaluating (a) The discharge by the Vestry of their functions within St. Devenick’s Church;  (b) The need for revision and reform of the constitution of St Devenick’s Church.  The requisition was read out in church, as required by the constitution on 4^th and 11^th September 

It was also agreed to write to members of the congregation informing them about the issues under investigation.  The letter was drafted by Nancy Mercer and George Patterson.  Its dispatch was organised by Ian Findlay and it alerted the congregants to several issues of concern, including, the way in which the Vestry had introduced the Scottish Liturgy, 1982, the termination of Dr. Love’s contract and its failure to act on the resolution passed at the last Special Congregational Meeting ( 30th May, 1983 ), the presentation of the informal meeting between some members of the Vestry and the Deeside Choristers supporters as being representative.  Also, the present form of the St. Devenick’s Constitution. 

The mere fact that a letter had been sent to the congregation miffed Kenneth Gordon and the other members of the Vestry for two reasons.  It had been sent without their permission and the letters had been addressed using contract details which had not been supplied by any authorised official.  The Vestry appeared to be demanding veneration of their authoritarian role in the St Devenick’s community. 

A further submission was prepared by the Law sub-Committee for Bishop Darwent’s attention, relating to desirable changes to the St Devenick’s constitution and on the matter of the introduction of the Scottish Liturgy, 1982 there.  It was posted about 21^st August 1983. 

 

The Special Congregational Meeting of 12^th September 1983

From the start, this meeting took on an air of menace orchestrated by Kenneth Gordon who insisted on presiding.  Further, he failed to invite the Bishop, or his representative, to be in attendance.  All attendees, about 110 in number, were asked to sign their names on entry, presumably to exclude any non-congregants from the proceedings and Kenneth Gordon asked if any representatives of the Press were present before opening the meeting.  He then asked all those who had signed the requisition letter to declare themselves by standing up, so that the congregation should know their identities.  This move, dictated from the chair, must have felt intimidating to at least some of the sponsors.  After the meeting had concluded it was discovered that Kenneth Gordon had employed a further, potentially disastrous, controlling mechanism.  Professor Ian Parsons had turned up late to the meeting but was refused admission by the Rector’s Warden, John Heueston, who was guarding the locked door to the hall.  There were over 100 congregants inside. 

Given the subjects nominated by the authors of the letter of requisition, it was unlikely to remain a calm and polite meeting for long.  As usual, some highly respected members of the congregation sought a way to bridge the chasm which had opened up within the congregation.  Dr Peter Brunt (Consultant Gastroenterologist at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary and a man who held a medical appointment to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother) proposed the establishment of a committee, chaired by the Bishop and with representation of the various points of view within the congregation to undertake a fundamental re-examination of the future of St. Devenick's Church.   Another, more limited, compromise position proffered was to introduce an additional service, perhaps at 9.30am on Sundays, to allow both forms of the liturgy to be offered.  But, in spite of the reasonableness of these ideas, they were not pursued.  Possibly in the heat of the moment, Mrs Edwards, a supporter of Canon Gordon and a co-opted member of the Vestry,  had said that the Action Group for Reconciliation and Reform should be renamed the “Action Group for the Reinstatement of Dr. Love and the Removal of the Rector”.  This contribution was hardly calculated to contribute to a resolution of the problem.

Another issue was raised at the meeting, the fate of the Choir Fund, which at that time had a balance of over £5,000 and had largely been raised by Malcolm Love from the fees he had received from scientific translating and lecturing.  The fund was no longer accessible to the Deeside Choristers and this troubled some members of the congregation, given the identity of the main donor.  One attendee, Gordon Simpson, made a compelling case for the Vestry to return the money to the Deeside Choristers.

After extensive debate, with voices being raised on both sides, the following motion was proposed by Ian Nicholson, (a Plant Scientist).

“In view of the congregation’s loss of confidence in the members of the Vestry to act as their represent­atives and in the interests of restoring unity and fellowship in the congregation, the elected members of the Vestry should resign prior to the next Annual General Meeting.”

The motion was passed by 66 votes to 40.  It must have been obvious to Kenneth Gordon that the composition of his Vestry could change dramatically at the next AGM.  Presumably because of the unfavourable outcome of the Special Congregational Meeting from his point of view, Kenneth Gordon continued his efforts to control the external perception of the St Devenick’s imbroglio by immediately telephoning an account of the meeting to the Editor of the P&J. The report in the following day’s paper did not mention the nature of the topics discussed, the resolution, or its passage.  He seemed to be trying to present a “nothing to see here” image to the external audience.

The day following the Special Congregational Meeting, Bill Mackintosh, the Chief Reporter at the Evening Express, phoned George Patterson and he made a statement about the meeting.  A new report under the heading “’New row rocks church hit by choir sacking”, incorporating some of George Patterson’s information, duly appeared in that day’s evening edition.  Bill Mackintosh’s piece contained the following statement which laid bare what had transpired.  “A special congregational meeting has raised vital questions on the running of the church, the role of the vestry and its accountability to the people who elect it. And in an unprecedented move it passed a vote of no confidence in the vestry members it had elected. By 66 votes to 40 it called for their resignation prior to the church annual meeting at the end of the year. And those who hoped the simmering row could be kept off the boil have been disappointed again”.  George Patterson had clearly spoken in measured terms as the following quotation from George shows.

“The meeting was a difficult one and it showed there is deep concern and division within the congregation.  In spite of this there were a number of very helpful and positive suggestions which one would hope would bring an improvement to the state of affairs in the future”...”The church’s constitution is obscure and unsatisfactory on a number of points relating to the relationship between the congregation and the vestry”.

 

The Action Group for Reconciliation and Reform continues its work

The Action Group met four days after the special congregational meeting and decided to publicly repudiate Mrs Edwards’ claim that the its aims had changed.  While frankly accepting that the reinstatement of Malcolm Love and the displacement of Kenneth Gordon might go a long way towards achieving reconciliation, it reaffirmed that its aims remained, “the reform of the procedures which had allowed the pres­ent unhappy situation to develop, and the reconcil­iation and re-uniting of the congregation”.  Precisely, Reform and Reconciliation.  Secretary Ian Findlay was instructed to write to Fred Darwent, who had not been represented at the Special Congregational Meeting, to inform him of the congregational vote, the suggestion of Dr Peter Brunt to form an investigative committee, and the Rector’s manipulation of information about the meeting sent to the local Press.  That was the immediate communications issue resolved but it was also accepted that the Action Group needed, in addition, to write to the congregation.

On 23^rd September 1983, Bishop Fred Darwent replied to George Patterson’s recent letter concerning the St Devenick’s constitution and the Liturgy.  He proposed to George that the Action Committee should withdraw its request that the question of how the St Devenick’s constitution might be altered be subject to judicial review because the Vestry had agreed that this was a necessary action and would itself submit a Petition.  George readily consented to the Bishop’s proposal.  Both sides were of one accord that a particular section of the constitution “had no, or at least, no clear meaning”.  Fred Darwent also questioned if it was necessary to subject the mechanism by which the 1982 Liturgy was introduced at St Devenick’s to judicial review but might instead be decided locally.  George Patterson went along with this idea.  Was Fred Darwent trying to keep this issue of contention away from the curiosity of the national church officials?  A meeting was arranged between Dr Clive Dilloway (Secretary to St Devenick’s Vestry and a senior manager with BP), and George Patterson for 28^th September to discuss the two legally contentious issues, constitution and liturgy. The meeting took place in a good atmosphere and Clive Dilloway conceded that there was a valid concern about the lawfulness of the Scottish Liturgy,1982’s introduction.  As such, the matter needed to be authoritatively examined.

Michael Partridge and George Patterson met with Bishop Darwent on 29^th September to explain their reasoning for concluding that the 1982 Liturgy may not have been legally introduced at St Devenick’s and thus they believed there was a need for a judicial determination of the issue.  The Bishop’s preference was to try to resolve the matter locally by discussion between representatives of the differing viewpoints, under his chairmanship.  George Patterson supported the Bishop’s idea and agreed to put it to the next meeting of the Action Group.  The matter could not be resolved locally, possibly because of a lack of competence in Canon Law, and on 3^rd November an Initial Writ was lodged with the Registrar of the Scottish Episcopal Church “craving (a) decl­arator that the introduction of the Scottish Liturgy, 1982, was unlawful, and (b) interdict prohibiting its further unlawful use”.  Almost a week later, George Patterson met with the Rector to explain the implications of the Writ and to advise him to seek legal advice if he proposed to mount a defence of his actions in introducing the new Scottish Liturgy.

 

The 1983 Annual General Meeting of the St Devenick’s congregation

This meeting was due to be held on 22^nd November and had the potential to be highly controversial, bearing in mind that the election of a new Vestry would be held.  Both sides of the dispute at St Devenick’s made substantial preparations for the meeting.

The Action Group met to compile a list of candidates for a place on the Vestry whom they would find acceptable, given their known positions on matters such as the 1982 Scottish Liturgy, the Choir Fund and the reinstatement of Malcolm Love as choirmaster.  A letter was composed for distribution to members of the congregation encouraging them to attend the AGM.  It referred to instances of the inaction of the present Vestry, such as the failure to act on the motions passed at the SGMs of 30 May (when a motion was adopted urging the reinstatement of Malcolm Love) and 12^th September (when the present Vestry members were urged to resign before the next AGM) and the proposal to create a representative committee chaired by the Bishop to consider the future direction of St Devenick’s.  Also, aware of the potential for hostilities to break out, the missive urged attendees to participate “in a friendly and constructive spirit”.  This proved to be a pious aspiration.  The letter was posted out to congregants on 18^th and 19^th November.

At a meeting of the Vestry held on 15^th November, that body gave the Rector authority to buy a new Vestry minute book, even though the book then presently in use was not nearly exhausted, still having 30 empty pages.  His action was unexplained but a suspicious person might think that he was seeking future control of access to the minutes of previous meetings of the Vestry, by retaining possession of all old minute books.  The Rector made reference to the writ concerning the legality of his introduction of the Scottish Liturgy, 1982 at St Devenick’s at the 11.00am service on Sunday 20^th November 1983, and he told the attendees that both he and the Vestry would be lodging defences.  He also identified the pursuers named in the Writ, which included two people, Gordon Patterson and Ian Nicholson who were standing for election to the Vestry.  The Rector also held a meeting with the Diocesan  Registrar on 21^st November, when two items were discussed, the Writ and the authority of the chairman at the upcoming AGM.

At the Annual General Meeting on Tuesday 22^nd November, which was attended by about 110 people, when the minutes of the previous two SGMs were considered (usually the least contentious part of any formal meeting), George Patterson and Ian Nicholson objected to inaccuracies and omissions in the record.  This was followed by Joyce Mowat and others questioning the “the incomplete and misleadingly complacent nature” of the Vestry’s Annual Report, particularly concerning the two SGMs held during the year which were barely mentioned, with no indication of the business, or outcomes, in each case.  Gordon Simpson also gave an accounting analysis of the financial statement and concluded that expenditure had exceeded income, presumably as a result of the significant contraction of number of congregants.

In addition to the Annual Report from the Vestry, the Rector made his own report on the events of the past year.  This included a carefully-worded and caveatted apology “to anyone to whom he might, unint­entionally, have caused distress during the past year”.  There was no hint as to whether he intended Malcolm Love to be included within this statement.  He then went on to present himself as a victim of the circumstances to which he, in large measure, had contributed.  He claimed that he and his family had been caused distress, especially by the issuance of the Writ.  Kenneth Gordon clearly felt that this was either a challenge to his authority, or a criticism of his competence, or both.

Before the election of a new Vestry took place, Kenneth Gordon again identified George Paterson and Ian Nicholson as named pursuers on the Writ.  Was the Rector urging his supporters to vote for the “correct” candidates for Vestry office?  His actions were certainly capable of being interpreted that way.  After this manoeuvre, Kenneth Gordon sought to proceed immediately to the election of officers but was thwarted by a bizarre and unexpected interruption by an excited Mr Barton, a Vestry member.  He entered on a rambling and incoherent monologue which appeared to be a criticism of the Action Group whose members he seemed to accuse of sending malicious communications, both by post and by telephone.  Even the Rector appeared puzzled by this intervention and asked Mr Barton if he was resigning from the Vestry, perhaps expecting a positive reply, but Barton’s answer was in the negative!  Another Vestry member, Mrs Gibson also indicated that she was not resigning but Dr Dilloway regretted that, for business reasons, he would be stepping down (he had been appointed as the manager of the Sullum Voe Oil Terminal in Shetland).  With two existing members declining to demit office, that meant that there were eight vacancies to fill on the Vestry.

The election then apparently got underway with a show of hands for the Lay Representative.  But then there was a most dramatic development.  The Rector suddenly ordered everyone to lower their hands, announcing that he had forgotten to exclude some congregants, those whom he had not placed on the Congregants’ Roll, from voting.  He picked out Professor John Parsons and Mr MJD Mowat and told them that their votes would be recorded separately.  At a later stage he subjected Mr Robert Maybank to the same indignity, telling him he was ineligible because he was a member of the Vestry at St Clement’s, Mastrick.  Maybank was too shocked and confused to protest that the Rector’s statement was untrue.  Brenda Parsons, John’s wife was deeply affected by this public humiliation of her husband.  Although she was a candidate for election to the Vestry, she immediately withdrew her nomination, apparently being unwilling to serve on a representative body which was characterised by such belittling behaviour. 

After this inauspicious start, the election was eventually completed and the result was a disaster for the Rector and his supporters.  All the new Vestry members were traditionalists and Malcolm Love supporters.  The list of new Vestry members follows.  People's Warden, Peter Brunt; Lay Representative, Gordon Simpson; Vestry members, Edwina Clark, Ian Findlay, Midge Harbottle, Seamus Maclnnes, Ian Nicholson, and George Patterson.  However, Kenneth Gordon had not yet exhausted all his tactics for, if not controlling, at least frustrating, the will of the new Vestry.  On the termination of the AGM, the Rector met briefly with the new Vestry and it was agreed that Mrs Dowson and Mr Sim, both Canon Gordon loyalists, would continue in their roles as Honorary Treasurer and Secretary respectively until the first full meeting of the new Vestry.  Then came the sting:  Canon Gordon informed his new Vestry colleagues that that meeting would not take place until 30^th January 1984, 69 days hence and almost 20% into their year of office.  It constituted an unprecedented delay compared with recent years.  If the Vestry did not meet, it could not act.

There was some reporting in the P&J of the events which took place at the St Devenick’s AGM.  One of their reporters phoned Malcolm Love and he gave an impromptu reaction, the tone of which was inaccurately, but understandably, reported as being a “sign of peace”.  Malcolm was quoted as saying, “I would say it is now a conciliatory Vestry and there is now a much better chance of everybody working together ... We would love to return”.  But, as will be discovered, Kenneth Gordon was not about to throw in the towel.

On Sunday 27^th November all the newly-elected members of the Vestry, who were free to do so, attended the 11.00am service at Devenick’s to demonstrate their commitment to reconciliation but it was difficult to detect a similar sentiment emanating from Kenneth Gordon.  It was now anticipated that the work which had been carried out by the Action Group would, in future we subsumed by the new Vestry, which would allow the Action Group to be reconstituted as an association of friends within St Devenick’s.

 

The new Vestry wrestles with Canon Gordon

The eight newly elected members of the Vestry wrote to Mr Sim pressing for an early meeting because of the need to consider what defence needed to be submitted concerning the Writ and also because a delay until January was generally undesirable.  They then received a knock-back from Bishop Fred Darwent who, they were told, had ruled that it would be unconstitutional to convene a meeting of the Vestry before Christmas.  George Patterson, the lawyer, was puzzled by this decision and tried to discuss the issue with Kenneth Gordon, pressing that for legal reasons the Vestry should be meeting before 27^th December, the date by which any defence to the Writ must be lodged.  The Rector’s response was that he was about to write to Vestry members and on 5^th December he did so, informing them that there was no reason for a Vestry meeting before January 1984, on the advice of the Bishop that there was no urgent need for such a meeting concerning the Writ.  Ian Findlay received the letter from the Rector on 7^th December and in a chance meeting with Fred Darwent the same day mentioned Kenneth Gordon’s claim that the Bishop had advised that the matter of a defence to the Writ was not urgent.  Fred Darwent was clearly surprised that his advice had received this interpretation, which suggests that Kenneth Gordon might have been distorting the Bishop’s advice for his own purposes.  On 8^th December a further letter was sent from six of the new members to the whole Vestry membership repeating the view that an earlier meeting of the Vestry was essential.  Ian Nicholson phoned the Rector on the assumption that such a meeting would be sanctioned and asking if the Church Hall would be free on Tuesday 13^th December.  Kenneth Gordon, unhelpfully, could not say if the Hall was available so, in frustration, Ian nominated his own home as the venue.  When Kenneth Gordon learned of this arrangement he petitioned Bishop Darwent to declare the meeting unconstitutional because it had not been convened by him.  Darwent, in turn, took advice from the Diocesan Registrar before reverting to Kenneth Gordon with the decision that the meeting would be illegal.  Shortly afterwards, the activists of the Action Group discovered that the timetable for lodging a defence to the Writ had become more relaxed.  George Patterson had phoned the Diocesan Registrar and discovered that Bishop Darwent had requested an extension to the deadline for submission by three weeks.  Was this Fred Darwent’s own tactic to defuse the stand-off with Kenneth Gordon by placing the new deadline after the planned first meeting of the new Vestry?  It looked that way.

 

The death of the Reverend David Howard  

David Howard died at the tragically early age of 49 on 13^th December.  He had been ordained in 1979 and had been curate at St Devenick’s for two years before taking up a position in Hereford.  David returned to the North-East of Scotland in July 1983 as the Episcopal hospital chaplain for Aberdeen, as well as acting as Episcopal chaplain to students at Aberdeen University.  This loss was felt heavily by the congregation at St Devenick’s as their former curate was well-liked.  He died while being attended by Dr Peter Brunt, a prominent member of the St Devenick’s congregation and a clinician most dedicated to the welfare of his fellow men.  Peter Brunt once said to this author, “If anyone in Aberdeen needs to see me, they can see me tomorrow”, such was his personal commitment.  David Howard was a beneficiary of Peter’s principled stance.

 

Kenneth Gordon issues an apology to Malcolm Love 

Coincidentally, on the same day that David Howard died, Canon Kenneth Gordon issued a formal apology to Malcolm Love.  The statement was sent to all members of the St Devenick’s congregation.  No copy of this apology was found in Malcolm Love’s archive but the following account, taken from the P&J and the Evening Express is thought to constitute the full text.

“I regret if any members of the congregation have construed any part of the letter of 14^th June as an attack on the character or integrity of Dr Love.  No such attack was intended, I apologise to Dr Love if any part of the letter caused him distress and for any harm that may have been occasioned to his reputation, I wish to repeat that the healing of relationships requires time and patience and that is my sincere wish that there be no continuing dispute between myself and Dr Love”.

This does not look like an apology from a man burdened with guilt and remorse for some unwise act.  The wording is grudging and qualified, suggesting that not everyone would take offence at what Canon Gordon wrote.  The statement also seems to hint – “healing of relationships requires time and patience” – that Kenneth Gordon would not be changing his behaviour towards Malcolm Love anytime soon.  When asked for his thoughts on the apology, Canon Gordon would only say, “The terms of the letter which I have sent to members of the congregation have been adjusted between solicitors acting respectively for myself and Dr Love and no further comment on the matter is necessary”.   Apparently, lawyers representing the two protagonists had been exchanging iterations of the draft statement for some time before an acceptable wording for the text was finalised.

Malcolm Love was clearly relieved that he had been exonerated, which can be seen from the tone of his statement to the Evening Express.  “Life has been made very difficult for us this past year, but choir members and parents, many members of our congregation and the clergy from several churches have given us support and understanding when we most needed it.  Now that my name has at last been cleared, I hope they will feel that their trust was justified and offer my warmest thanks”.

 

1984 - new year, new Vestry, new hope?

The new Vestry met formally for the first time on 20^th January 1984.  It contained a majority of members who, as a result of the events of the previous year, had an agenda for change.  While 1983 had early on seen three major issues in need of attention (retention of the rood screen, wider use of a traditional Liturgy and reinstatement of Malcolm Love as choirmaster) that agenda had grown.  New aspirations included proper access to the choir fund for the choir, resolution of the issue of the lawfulness of the introduction of the 1982 Scottish Liturgy,  the introduction of an alternative mechanism for the confirmation of young people than preparation by Kenneth Gordon, and a more open, accountable and democratic system for conducting the affairs of the church.

Kenneth Gordon and the previously constituted Vestry had taken the view that the list of congregants should be treated as a confidential document, which could only be accessed with the authority of the Vestry.  That body, newly constituted, wanted that secretive approach to change so that access to the list of congregants, with addresses, would be open to any constituent member of the congregation.  However, individuals would have a right to withhold their name or address, if they wished to do so.  But at the Vestry meeting of 27^th February Kenneth Gordon made clear that this change would not occur and the congregational roll would not be made available, even to members of the Vestry.  This authority of the Rector was subsequently confirmed by the Bishop.  Further, confirmation of this position was endorsed by the Episcopal Synod which met on 20^th December 1984.

With regard to the general status of the Deeside Choristers, Kenneth Gordon stated flatly that this choir would not be invited to sing at St Devenick’s because they were now constituted as a separate organisation.  This was a curious argument because the Deeside Choristers received both invitations and warm welcomes from many other churches, including from places of worship adhering to other denominations.

Although the new Vestry had been democratically elected Kenneth Gordon asserted that their role was merely advisory and he had the authority to ignore their advice should he believe that it was in the interests of St Devenick’s to do so.  The reformers had won the battle at the 1983 AGM but they had apparently not yet won the war.  Their year of office, during which they had hoped to achieve so much, quickly took on the aspect of trench warfare with little hope of a quick solution to the problems besetting their church.  In a typical example of the confrontations to which the Vestry could look forward, a proposal to lend the choir robes, which no longer had a use within St Devenick’s, to the Deeside Choristers and also to allow them to use the church hall for practice, was thrown out basically due to the Rector’s opposition.  He accused the proposers of the motion of deliberately engineering a provocation against him and his family but did not explain how he had reached this conclusion.

With their Vestry blocked from making progress on matters of concern at St Devenick’s, many individuals went knocking at Fred Darwent’s door to visit their unhappiness on him.  He claimed that although the situation was “very sad”, he was powerless to intervene.  This anguished hand-wringing did not go down well with the frustrated congregants, so 88 members submitted a statement to the diocesan head which read as follows.  "We are members of St. Devenick’s Church, Bieldside, and are extremely unhappy about the situation at our Church, a situation that is causing distress to a large part of the congregation, some of whom are continuing to attend; but others feel they can no longer do so."  With this missive a list of 27 former members, who had recently left the St Devenick’s congregation because they could no longer tolerate the situation there, was also submitted.  Surely Fred Darwent could see that standing on the sidelines issuing anguished pleas would not for long substitute for effective action?

The Bishop attended the Vestry meeting of 2^nd April 1984, no doubt hoping to mediate reconciliation, and Kenneth Gordon did make a concession of sorts in that he announced, with no discussion, that "for the next six months the Grey Book (the traditional Liturgy) only would be used at the 8.30 Communion.  After six months St. Devenick's would revert to the present pattern of using the Grey Book and 1982 Liturgy alternately at 8.30”.  But that was it!  When Bishop Darwent asked him to consider allowing an occasional evening service at which the Deeside Choristers would participate, Canon Gordon stated bluntly that he would not invite the Deeside Choristers singing in his church.

The frustration at the then present state of affairs boiled over and led four prominent members of the St Devenick’s congregation to make their unhappiness with the state of affairs in their church public by parading their concerns in a letter to the editor of “The Scotsman”.  It is reproduced in full.  They did not hold back.

“Sir, The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland has come and gone, with some of its problems receiving wide publicity.  This week the General Synod of the Episcopal Church of Scotland meets in Perth: one may well ask, what from its agenda will hit the headlines?  Possibly there will be topics which some of the clergy would prefer not to have publicly discussed.

A year and a half ago we had a thriving congregation at St Devenick’s in Bieldside – a church full of young people as well as older, enjoying worshipping the traditional services and music of the Episcopal Church.  A serious rift, with many of the congregation now feeling quite unable to worship in their own church, developed as a result of the Rector, Canon Kenneth Gordon, insisting that everyone adhere to his and only his choice of forms of worship.

The emphasis has changed so much that the traditional services have now been virtually abandoned and this without the congregation being asked for their views.  Fifteen months ago the choirmaster was dismissed because his views did not coincide with those of the Rector.  The combined choirs of around 70 voices, some 50 of them of school age, were told that their services were no longer required.

A congregational special meeting voted resoundingly for the reinstatement of the choirmaster and the return of the choir: this has always been opposed and blocked by the Rector.  A second special meeting voted for the resignation of the elected vestry members who had not already resigned in protest: they remained in office.  At the AGM a new vestry was elected and has since voted for the reintroduction of traditional services with the return of the former choir (which is still very much alive) as well as for the retention of modern forms of worship for those who prefer them: these proposals have been vetoed by the Rector.

The editorial of the latest issue of Newscan, the independent news magazine of the Scottish Episcopal Church raises a number of pertinent questions, some of which are particularly relevant to the long drawn out dispute in our church:

1. “What authority does a Bishop have over his clergy?

Many of us feel that our tragic situation need never have arisen had the Bishop exercised his authority and stepped in at an early stage.  Is there no mechanism for alerting a Bishop to impending disaster and for requesting that he take appropriate action?

2. “How do clergy, vestry and congregation relate”?

Should not the previous vestry have taken note of the wishes of the congregation and pressed for action by the Rector or, failing that, by the Bishop?  Should the Rector not have felt obliged to respect the voice of the congregation and their newly-elected vestry? 

3.  How are minorities to be safeguarded?

We should rather ask, “How can majorities be safeguarded from the whims of a Rector who refuses to take account of their spiritual needs and preferences?”  Should it not be the prime aim of any clergyman to make the most of the goodwill, effort, ability and talent in his congregation and to cater for all reasonable shades of preference in forms of worship old and new, and thereby to create a genuine unity among all his flock?

These are questions which Episcopalians must start trying to answer now.  The ecumenical movement aiming to promote co-operation and eventual unity between Churches is receiving widespread support.  Is it not too much to hope for that this movement may take hold first within individual congregations and that the strength of the Christian faith should be revealed in its ability to unite the differing shades of opinion of those who share a common belief in God and respect for the teachings of Jesus Christ? 

FJ Sambrook Gowar, Iain L Marr, Brenda Parsons, Mary Robertson”.

This letter contained a pointed and comprehensive critique of the failings of the St Devenick’s rector, Kenneth Gordon.  There was a lesser criticism of the ineffectiveness of the bishop, though it was qualified by the acceptance that his legal powers within the church were not well understood.  Surely the Scottish Episcopal hierarchy could no longer dismiss the events taking place in a small church on the outskirts of Aberdeen as merely a little local difficulty of no national significance, especially given the professional status of Freddy Gowar as one of the country’s leading thoracic surgeons?

Gordon Simpson, who took a particular interest in financial matters held a meeting with the Bishop and the Diocesan Registrar in May 1984 concerning the choir fund under the control of the St Devenick’s Vestry.  It seemed clear that the fund legally belonged to the church but the Bishop gave his opinion that the morally correct course would be to transfer a sum equivalent to the former Choir Fund from St Devenick’s to the Deeside Choristers.  The Vestry agreed with the Bishop’s position and proposed donating £6,000 to the Deeside Choristers but Kenneth Gordon vetoed the move.

As ever the Diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney was short of money and at the end of February 1984 the Finance and Administration Board of the Diocese resolved to inaugurate the Aberdeen Diocesan (Sustentation) Programme, sustentation being a fancy word for seeking donations from congregants for the maintenance of the diocese.  The Board had concluded that the level of giving within the diocese was too low and needed encouragement.  Gordon Simpson had earlier pointed out that St Devenick’s was running into financial difficulties at least partly due to the reduction of the congregational roll with the concomitant reduction in donations.  The Vestry urged the congregation to increase its level of giving by 40% to address the financial problem of their church but that was a big ask in the then present circumstances.  The Diocese-wide Sustentation programme produced a free quarterly newsletter, called the “Gazette” to educate congregations about the programme.  The first issue was produced in April 1984 and was accompanied by a commendatory letter from the Bishop but the copies sent to St Devenick’s seemed to get misplaced.  They had been stored on the floor in the church porch, where they were unlikely to be spotted.  It was only after Dr Peter Brunt queried why the “Gazette” had not been distributed at St Devenick’s, which he did at the Vestry meeting of 5^th November 1984, that the explanation became clear.  Kenneth Gordon had taken the view, and claimed that the Bishop backed his opinion, that the Sustentation Programme was “not appropriate” for St Devenick’s “at the present time”.  This appeared to be because “visitors” on the programme (a rough equivalent to “chuggers”) would be visiting individual members of the congregation to persuade them to give more money and that might be uncomfortable in the case of articulate dissidents.  There was also the problem of the confidential status of the congregants’ roll to be overcome.  Peter Brunt, the mildest and most reasonable of men, was not happy with this explanation.  He felt that it was “a serious matter” that the Rector had not consulted the Vestry.  Heavy criticism, indeed!

There were hints at this time, July 1984, that Kenneth Gordon was being affected by the constant stress of ploughing his own furrow against articulate and forceful opposition.  In the middle of the month he absented himself for a two week break, the second such absence he had taken in the previous five weeks.  During the summer of 1984, the Vestry agreed to lend both robes and music books to the Deeside Choristers.  The Secretary and Mrs Edwina Clark were delegated to liaise with Michael Partridge concerning suitable arrangements for the loan of the robes, while Michael Partridge was asked to contact Mrs Hundtofte regarding books of music.  Curiously Kenneth Gordon intervened unnecessarily in the agreed arrangements regarding the music books.  He personally took them round to Michael’s house, accompanied by Mrs Hundtofte, and told Michael to keep them and if they were of no use to the Deeside Choristers, to get rid of them.  This did not look like an act of generosity on the part of the Rector, but a desire to see this traditional church music banished from his charge. 

There was another bizarre intervention by Canon Gordon in September 1984.  Bishop Fred Darwent had insisted that the St Devenick’s Vestry should conduct a poll of the congregation concerning liturgical preferences and he further requested that the two churchwardens should act as tellers and should then communicate the results to him.  But the congregational roll was unavailable to members of the Vestry due to the diktat of Canon Gordon.  He then intervened in the process to conduct the poll himself with the help of one of his trusties, John Heueston, who was no longer a member of the Vestry.  This put the churchwardens in a difficult position because they could not vouch for the any results.  In fact the results of the poll were never published and it is unknown if the results ever reached the desk of Fred Darwent.  It was a shining (if that be an appropriate adjective) example of the chaos which Canon Gordon’s behaviour had generated.  In effect Canon Gordon was bypassing the official Vestry by creating his own shadow Vestry, populated by his chosen trusties.  Another example came to light at the November 1984 meeting of the official Vestry.  Kenneth Gordon announced that St Devenick’s had been represented at an area meeting on the Sustentation Programme by Mr John MacCormack, who was not a member of the Vestry but had been nominated by Canon Gordon.

Meanwhile the musical reputation of the Deeside Choristers went from strength to strength.  Regular visits were made to other local churches and Malcolm Love received an invitation from Grampian TV to take the Byrd Choir to St Peter’s, Culter on 27^th January1984, a church where they were well respected, for the recording of a service.  The Choristers’ Director of Music also started to plan for that year’s summer camp which he hoped to take to Clermont Ferrand in France.  In July 1984, the Deeside Choristers penetrated as far north as Inverness and Strathpeffer, singing music by classical composers such as Scarlatti, Schutz, Handel, Bach, Cleall, Mendelssohn, Rachmaninov and Kalinnikov.  The Byrd Choir received another invitation to sing at Pluscarden Abbey on Sunday 2^nd September 1984 which, for Malcolm Love, was a most delicious pleasure.  Malcolm remarked, “Never forget how lucky we are to be able to sing a full Evensong in cathedral style”.  He was determined that his choir would perform with near perfection and so he arranged an additional practice of the anthems and other items he was planning for the Pluscarden programme when the men and boys of the choir met in the WRI Hall the previous week for a private service.  In those pre-internet days the quickest means of communication with individual choristers was by telephone but, with 70 or more singers to contact on occasion, it became necessary to recruit additional administrative help for this task.  Five mothers of choristers volunteered to provide telephone help.  Invitations to perform at other churches continued at a high level such that they received requests to sing at two venues with which they had close connections, St Clement’s, Mastrick and St Thomas’, Aboyne, on the same day, Sunday 23^rd September.  Each was a special occasion for the host church, the former the dedication of a new organ and the latter a welcome to a new incumbent.  Malcolm Love concluded that both requests must be satisfied and so the choir was split into two groups and one sent to each venue.  Fund-raising continued with a, now annual, sale of goods at the Langstone Kirk in the middle of Aberdeen’s main thoroughfare, Union Street on 29^th September.  The Langstone opened onto a forecourt bordering this street and was an ideal location for attracting passing shoppers.

In October 1984, Fred Darwent, still shifting from one leg to the other in his attempts to mediate in the St Devenick’s quagmire, committed his own mis-step by failing to apply that basic managerial rule when intervening in a difficult situation, “ETF – Establish The Facts”!  Likely, information had reached Fred Darwent via Kenneth Gordon that Episcopal services were being held by the dissidents locally but not under the auspices of St Devenick’s.  If Gordon was the informant, he was probably agitating for this ecclesiastical competitor to be shut down. The Bishop wrote to Malcolm Love, assuming he was the organiser of the private services being held, frequently in the WRI Hall in Cults, and instructed him “to cease the services forthwith”.  This was a mistake for two reasons, firstly, Malcolm Love was merely the choirmaster and not the organiser and secondly, that the Bishop had the authority to intervene in a private act of worship.  When the truth of the situation was explained to Fred Darwent, he withdrew his “instruction” and arranged instead to meet the true organisers of these private religious meetings.  No doubt he then came up against the legal brain of George Patterson and made absolutely no progress in his mission.  Darwent was simply unable to demonstrate any cogent legal or moral reason why the services had to cease.  This incident again raised the thorny problem of the extent to which the authority of the clergy extended and emphasised that it was long overdue a legally competent determination. There was a further meeting, on 17^th December, between the Bishop and 23 members, or ex-members, of the St Devenick’s congregation to discuss the issue of private services.  The attendees were entertained to more hand-wringing, though the Bishop was deserving of some sympathy for having to deal with such a difficult priest as Kenneth Gordon.  Fred Darwent had asked Kenneth Gordon to behave differently and then even pleaded with him to soften his approach, but was rebuffed.  The Bishop explained that he lacked the authority to order Kenneth Gordon to change his ways.  Unfortunately, Fred Darwent was an agreeable and accommodating man who could always see the other person’s point of view and unused to delivering hard messages.  Kenneth Gordon had got away with obdurate behaviour in the past and there was little prospect of his behaviour being ameliorated in the future.   

Bishop Fred Darwent had been petitioned in September 1983 for a determination of the status of the Scottish Liturgy 1982.  Finally, 16 months later, he published his decision which was (quoting from George Patterson’s assessment) “he did not know (a) whether this is a variation on either the Scottish Communion Office or the 1662 Service, or (b) what procedural constraints (if any) apply in the case where an authorised variation on a service is substituted for that service without variation, or (c) whether there was some set of procedures which might enable an innovative form of Liturgy to be lawfully introduced. He threw no light on the meaning of ’’liturgical experiment””.  Perhaps the traditionalists posing these issues should not have expected their Bishop to know the answers to complex legal issues but he was surely unwise to sit on the matter for over a year before saying he was unable to provide answers.

On 15^th May 1985 there was more of his usual approach from Bishop Darwent.  He made a statement to members of the St Devenick’s congregation calling for "love, compassion and compromise".  Sadly it was as ineffective and inconsequential as his previous interventions.

 

The 1984 Annual General Meeting

The year’s AGM took place on 27th November and, at last, a vote was taken on the proposal made some time previously by Dr Peter Brunt that a working party of the congregation should be established, representing all shades of opinion to investigate and make proposals concerning two substantial matters of disagreement, the relationship with the Deeside Choristers and the forms of worship employed at St Devenick’s.  This new body would report back to the congregation in due course for its proposals to be considered.  However, even before the vote was taken, Canon Gordon said he would not cooperate with such a body.  The motion to establish such a committee was then passed by 42 votes to 17.  Later, the Vestry endorsed the proposal but Canon Gordon then added to his previous statement, writing in a letter to the congregation that he did not intend to make any further change in the form of worship at St. Devenick’s in the future.  He was asked to explain the reason why he was ignoring the clearly expressed wishes of the congregation, at which he retreated into his standard response in such circumstances – that it was the responsibility of the clergy to decide such matters.  Malcolm Love was asked for his opinion on the decision to establish a working party.  His response was positive.  “This is the first little bit of success that we have had. ... It is very much our wish to return but we would only go back if we are welcome.  It must not be grudging”.  The story was briefly covered by the Evening Express only, under the clever, but misleading, heading “Harmony note in choir row”.  It appeared that the dispute had been going on for so long that it was no longer judged to be newsworthy by the local newspaper editors.  At the meeting of the Vestry on 20^th December 1984, that body voted to communicate with the congregation explaining why the working party had not at that date been established.  But the problem was that the Vestry could not communicate directly with the congregation because it did not have access to the roll of congregants.  The letter would have to be given to Kenneth Gordon for him to dispatch and he refused to guarantee that he would carry out that task!

 

Another apology to Malcolm Love

Just before Christmas 1984, the Vestry sought to make amends for the errors of its predecessor by voting nine votes for and none against (the Rector abstaining) on a motion to issue an apology to Malcolm Love and his son, Ian Love, for statements made about them in March and May, 1983.  The five-part letter of apology finally saw the light of day in March 1985 and attracted a small report in the Evening Express.  Regrettably, it did not contain the full text of the letter and no copy was uncovered in Malcolm Love’s archive.  The relevant section from the Evening Express follows.  “There was no allegation of moral wrongdoing, nor was there a “real reason” for the dismissal which was too discreditable to reveal ... In the letter of apology to Dr Malcolm Love and his son Ian, the Vestry regretted Dr Love was dismissed from his post without any sufficient reason and that attempts to justify this action had amounted to a campaign to discredit him.  Both the Rector and his curate dissociated themselves from the action of the Vestry”.

 

It couldn’t happen here

By early 1985 the traditionalists who had been active in seeking change at St Devenick’s were suffering very mixed emotions.  They were all deeply committed Anglicans, they loved the congregation of which they had all been members, and some still were, but they were also deeply frustrated that their wishes concerning fundamental aspects of worship at St Devenick’s had been changed without consultation, against their wishes and, so far, they had been unable to reverse trends which they regretted.  Some were also angry and even bitter at the way they had been treated.  But they also worried for the future of the Scottish Episcopal Church.  If these changes could be imposed against the will of the majority at St Devenicks, similar circumstances could emerge in other congregations.  They resolved to give an account of the events at St Devenick’s as a warning to other Episcopalians.  Be vigilant for the future of your congregation, even if you believe, as embodied in the title of the document that “it couldn’t happen here”.  Perhaps the authors of the document were suggesting that readers in other congregations should add the question, “Could it?” to their title.

The document was produced by a group of seven, whose identities were hidden amongst the larger gathering of 23 signatories, six of whom were elected members of the then current Vestry, perhaps to afford the authors some protection from potential retribution.  The full list of those indicating their support for the document follows.  Elected members of vestry – GW Paterson, IA Nicholson, Mrs I Parsons, GW Simpson (Secretary), Mrs B Clark, FJ Sambrook Gowar.  Others.  Miss N Robertson, Mrs HW Kosterlitz, Mrs IM Humphries, Mrs Mary Gowar, Prof Ian Parsons, Barry Fenwick, Brenda Kay, Stephen Marr, Mrs JD Simpson, Mrs IA Nicholson, Mrs JA Carmichael, Miss Maggie Carmichael, Gavin KD Clark, Joe Hains, Rosemary Patterson,  Andrea K Marr, K Turffrey.  Noticeably, Malcom Love and Iain Marr were not amongst the signatories.  Perhaps they judged it wise not to give their detractors the opportunity to brand them as agitators working in their own interest?   

The document, describing how the situation then obtaining at St Devenick’s arose, was accompanied by the following, covering letter.  It was sent to all the Episcopal congregations in Scotland, though being addressed to Anglicans, too, suggests that some copies went to congregations located in England but where and how many has not been uncovered.

Dear fellow Episcopalians/Anglicans,

“The strange story enclosed with this letter is an actual case history.

You may find it hard to believe, but the incidents really did happen.

We have sent it, with our compliments, to Episcopalians/Anglicans as a warning, so that you can do whatever is possible to ensure that what has happened to us does not happen to you. If even one congregation of devoted Christians is saved from the sort of unhappy and disillusioning experiences which we have been enduring here, our efforts will have been well worth while.

One thing you can do in any event is to study your Constitution. Does it protect the atmosphere of mutual trust and respect which ought to characterise the Christian family? Consider very carefully any alterations or substitute Constitution which may be proposed, lest they water down what safeguards you have. Try to strengthen your Constitution where it seems dubiously vague and think how it relates to and complements the Canons (which will over-ride it in cases of dispute). Read the Canons. Their evolution over the years has been suffused with tolerance, and directed towards a wise balance between the powers and duties of the clergy and those of the laity in church affairs. Uphold this spirit in the Canons, and do not support those changes or interpretations which are, or could be, harmful to it.

If the Church is to be an effective moral force, the Church must maintain the highest standards of behaviour and of personal integrity. It is on this basis that the laws of the Church have been founded, tried and tested.  But read our story. 

With fraternal greetings”.

The introductory section of the document is also reproduced here because it shows clearly the strength of feeling generated by events at St Devenick’s, the failure of the hierarchy to take action and the inability of individuals to rise above petty personal considerations to defend and promote the interests of the congregation and the Episcopal Church as a whole

IS THERE A FUTURE FOR THE SCOTTISH EPISCOPAL CHURCH? 

Scottish Episcopalians love their Church. It has successfully survived bitter persecution in the eighteenth century, and, from being "the shadow of a shade", it grew considerably in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Clearly it has had something of great importance to offer.  But for several decades now it has been losing adherents.  For those who are seeking to do God’s will, does this Church still have something of distinctive - or even unique - importance to offer? Is it being faithful to its heritage? What will happen if present trends continue? We are sending this document to many Anglicans both in Scotland and in England because we are convinced (i) that our Church is in serious danger, but (ii) that it can be saved if enough people recognise the danger and act accordingly. 

What are your immediate reactions if you are asked what our Church is like? That it is kindly? Tolerant? Possessing a beautiful Liturgy? Slightly bumbling perhaps but all right in the areas where it matters? 

How would you react if you were told that a particular congregation of the Church had recently changed out of all recognition, and now was subjected to authoritarianism, intolerance, secretiveness, anti-democratic procedures, and had been deprived of much of its heritage - not because the members of the congregation desired these changes, but simply because the Rector, who had ministered to us without major disagreement for 11 years, had apparently developed an unusual view of his "spiritual authority"? Probably you would be horrified; but you would think of your own congregation, smile, and think "Oh, but it couldn’t happen here!" You might also think "If anything did go wrong, the Church has its own resources to promote reconciliation and compromise; and, as a last resort, the Church has its Courts to ensure that nothing is done contrary to the Code of Canons". 

WE HAVE NO WISH TO CAUSE HURT TO THE MANY WISE AND DEDICATED CLERGYMEN WHO WOULD NEVER DREAM OF CAUSING DISCORD IN THEIR CONGREGATIONS, AND FOR WHOSE MINISTRY WE SHOULD ALL BE DEEPLY GRATEFUL. 

But what has happened to one congregation, through the convergence of a number of unusual factors, could happen to other congregations, including your congregation; and, as things now stand, there would be virtually nothing the congregation could do about it.  Moreover, there is cause to be sceptical about the Church’s internal resources, and especially about its Courts.  We have learnt these lessons from a bitter experience at St. Devenick's Church, Bieldside, Aberdeen. This was a happy, prosperous church, proud of its traditions, with a large and lively congregation, which was a cross-section of the local community. Everything they organised they did with enthusiasm. Various youth organisations, especially the robed, traditional choir, flourished. But in the space of two years all this has changed. 

The number of communicants at St. Devenick’s has dropped by 170 (37% of the total) since Advent, 1983. The congregation is split in two; long-standing friendships have been severed; there has been a great deal of distress; and many of the young people now want nothing more to do with the Christian Faith, which for them is completely discredited. This is a tragedy for all concerned, and from the point of view of its institutional survival, the Church certainly cannot afford such losses. 

The whole style and atmosphere of worship at St. Devenick’s is different now. Those who have, in some cases, worshipped here all their lives have been made to feel that they are strangers in their own church, and indeed have been told that if they are not prepared to accept what the Rector offers in the way of worship they should go to some other church. The Rector has taken no notice of votes at Special Congregational Meetings, he does not co-operate with the elected representatives of the congregation; and he has put forward no positive proposal to alleviate the distress which his own controversial policies have caused. Needless to say, St. Devenick’s is now an occasion of scandal in the area, both to worshippers at other churches and to non-churchgoers. 

Of course, the eccentricities or blunders of a particular clergyman do not in themselves call in question the credibility of the Church's whole structure. But this question is raised, in a very uncomfortable form, by the way in which the higher authorities within the Church have responded to the St. Devenick’s crisis. The congregation of St. Devenick’s, both individually and through their elected representatives, have tried to obtain help and guidance from their Bishop and, as a last resort, from  the Episcopal Synod. However, nothing has been done to make the Rector of St Devenick’s honour his promise to promote peace, unity and order within the congregation (a promise he made, like any other clergyman, at his institution).  The congregation - more than half of it, at least - asked for bread; but they were given a stone. This is exactly what was predicted by some of their friends and relatives who have already abandoned the institutional Church. They say ’’There is no point in trying to get justice in the Church. The Church is run by clergymen for their own benefit. They will close ranks; they will turn the blind eye; they will simply bend the rules to suit themselves. It is naive to think that the Church is any less corrupt than secular institutions.”  Sentiments like these express the attitudes of many outsiders. Such criticisms - which are by no means uncommon - cannot be written off as if they were simply the product of ignorance or perversity. Unhappily there is plenty of evidence to support them. But if these criticisms are justified in the case of the Scottish Episcopal Church, this Church surely has no future. 

Therefore we give an abridged outline of the events as they happened. We think that they make a gripping story, albeit a very sad one. But these events are important because of their implications for the future of the Episcopal Church, and so we pose a number of additional questions. We ask you to consider the facts in the light of the questions, and, when you have done so, to take whatever action you can to help the Church in a very dangerous situation. We doubt if many of you will feel that everything in the Episcopalian garden is fresh and blooming. Those of you who recognise that all is not well, and that the Church’s finest traditions - its sense of fairness and tolerance, its commitment to both Catholicity and Reform - are endangered, must act.  Talk about it with your friends. Bring the subject up at Vestry meetings and Congregational Meetings.  Those who are members of Diocesan Synods, press for explanations. Above all, those who are members of the General Synod, remember that any changes to the Code of Canons require a two-thirds majority in each of the three Houses. Press for changes which will help to restore the authentic spirit of Episcopalianism.  Refuse to countenance changes towards greater intolerance, autocracy, secrecy. The obvious trends in this direction are not irreversible. But it only needs undue complacency on the part of good people to enable folly and fanaticism to triumph. Be in no doubt; an intolerant, autocratic, and secretive Church will, by the end of the twentieth century, be an irrelevant anachronism”.

 

Other disputes over modernism in the Anglican community  

Over the period starting in1984, it became clear that the root cause of the problems at St Devenicks, ie a conflict of opinions on the forms of service to be employed and the role and style of music in Christian worship, proved not to be unique to Bieldside.  An article by reporter Brenda Parry in the Daily Telegraph of 15^th February 1984 noted “The increasing number of disputes between clergymen and their organists...”.  There was a consistent pattern to the disputes, “...many of the recent problems had arisen as a result of the introduction of new services where everyone was much more involved.  In some cases organists had felt insecure and threatened ...”.  Clergy then took the view that they had the authority to decide on the form of worship and that led to the resignation, or dismissal, of the organist.

Malcolm Love learned of a number of cases with similarities to the St Devenick’s dispute and made contact with some of the traditionalists who had been ejected from their positions.  John Dyer of Saffron Walden in Essex told him that their choir had similarly been summarily disbanded and forced to go independent, singing in other churches.  The Wymondham Choristers, Norfolk, similarly had to become independent in the 1980s.  Very recently, a similar dispute arose at Wymondham Abbey with many choristers complaining to the Bishop that the new vicar was employing “high-handed management” and local speculation suggesting that the root cause was “modernisation”.  Another dispute occurred at St Andrew’s, Bishop’s Auckland, which the Deeside Choristers had visited in 1983 during their annual camp, in 1990.  The organist of 35 years, Keith Crosby, had been fired by a new vicar, Rev John Marshall.  One of Crosby’s “crimes” was alleged to be playing too loudly and drowning out Marshall during prayers.  This event followed the resignation of the 39 members of the Parochial Church Council en bloc, claiming that Marshall was “not spiritual enough”!  Malcolm Love had been in contact with Crosby, presumably to offer him moral support.  He probably needed it, as the Bishop of Durham urged the congregation to back their minister.  Another, typical example of a dispute between a modernising minister and a traditional congregation occurred at St Aiden’s Church, Billingham, Teesside in 1988.  The Rev Colin Hurford wanted evangelistic music at his services rather than traditional hymn-singing.  The organist of 18 years standing, Tom Hudson said that he did not mind playing modern music but resigned after getting an instruction on how to play the new tunes.  Malcolm Love had been in touch with Tom Hudson.  The choir planned to walk out on Sunday 30^th October.  One choir member said, “The vicar will not give us traditional music, so what is left for us.  We go to church to pray, not to jump about singing.  It’s like a circus”.

This type of dispute had even afflicted the most prominent Anglican church in the land, Westminster Abbey.  “The Times” reported in December 1987 that –

“Mr Simon Preston organist and Master of Choristers at Westminster Abbey is leaving the abbey later this year partly as a result of a gradual change in music policy towards more modern settings of the liturgy, the Rev Alan Luff, the abbey’s Precentor and Sacrist, said yesterday.  Since 1981 the abbey has used one of the modern versions of the Church of England service of Holy Communion, the Alternative Services Book, which it has proved difficult to combine with classical settings of the Latin rite by Haydn or Mozart, or 16^th century composers such as Palestrina, Tallis and Byrd.  Mr Luff who is responsible to the dean and chapter for music in the abbey, said that Mr Preston who had achieved a world reputation as an organist and choral conductor, preferred those classical forms to music specially written for the new Anglican liturgy.  He said, “I am sure that Tallis and Byrd would be clapping Simon.  They based their music on Latin rather than English texts”.  He added, “The Anglican music which exists for the ASB is not very high quality”.  Relations between Preston and the abbey authorities remain cordial allegedly.

At least the disagreement was handled openly, honestly, with respect and, at least on the surface, without rancour.  Something that should have happened at St Devenick’s, but did not.

 

The St Devenick’s situation becomes a national issue

Newscan was the independent news magazine of the Scottish Episcopal Church.  Any issue of interest to Episcopalians could be debated within its pages, its balanced editorials likewise analysed thorny issues and individuals could make their personal views known through letters to the editor.  Freddy Gowar, Iain Marr, Brenda Parsons and Mary Robertson had authored a letter in The Scotsman in April 1984 which drew attention to a number of issues of authority within the Scottish Episcopal Church which had been raised in an editorial in the then current issue of Newscan.  This proved to be an effective way to turn the St Devenick’s affair from a parochial dispute to a national issue.

In June 1985 the same news magazine published a substantial article on the St Devenick’s affair, summarising its essential features and commenting on the strong sense of grievance felt by some members of the congregation which led to the wide circulation of the document that the authors hoped and intended to be a wake-up call to other congregations to be vigilant concerning any proposed changes in personnel, constitution, procedures or liturgical content.  The article then went on to deal with the dispute over the access to the roll of congregants which the Rector was using to prevent the circulation of letters to the congregation from the Vestry of which he did not approve.  Did he have authority to take this action?  To try to get a resolution of the question, the Vestry had first appealed to their Bishop, who declared that the Rector did enjoy this authority, and then to the Episcopal Synod.  The Synod, sitting as a court (the first time this had happened for more than 100 years) since the matter involved the interpretation of Canon Law as it applied to this point, declared, “Having heard the parties, the Episcopal Synod dismissed the Appeal and found the appellants liable to meet the expenses of the Appeal, restricted to £300.”

This judgement was disappointing for the appellants but in some ways the Synod’s additional comments were even more so.

“It is unnecessary for us to go into the rights and wrongs of these incidents, since the appeal before us is of a legal and technical nature, but it would be wrong for us to deal solely with the legal and technical aspects of the unfortunate position which has arisen without referring to the deep distress caused not only to the congregation but also to the whole Episcopal Church when Rector and vestry are unable to work together amicably, and with tolerance for each other’s shortcomings, in spreading the Gospel and maintaining and extending the Christian family ... the Canons cannot cover all possibilities and they rather embody the spirit of how the Church expects its affairs to be conducted; proceedings ... should be irradiated with tolerance and  conform to the higher norms of human conduct, to say nothing of the grace of the Gospel. The challenge to all parties concerned is to find a way in which the Gospel of Reconciliation can change accusations into understanding and bring all concerned to seek for a common solution rather than to see their cause triumph.

It appeared to be being even-handed in apportioning blame between the Rector and the Vestry and it told the warring parties to solve their problems locally through the pursuit of Christian virtue.  The majority of the Vestry, as then constituted, felt that they had consistently sought compromise and that it was Kenneth Gordon, through his various controlling and blocking manoeuvres, who was lacking in Christian spirit.  The attempt to levy costs on the appellants also caused irritation and they refused to pay.  What was the Synod for if not to decide such issues?  Could it be that this was a subliminal encouragement by the Synod, directed to other potential appellants, to think twice before taking legal issues to the highest authority?

The national discussion of issues emanating from the St Devenick’s situation was further stimulated by two letters to the editor of Newscan from prominent members of the St Devenick’s congregation both appearing in the July 1985 issue of the magazine.  The first from Ian Nicholson continued the warning that things which had happened in Bieldside could be expected to arise elsewhere in the Episcopal community.

“There are, or there are perceived to be, certain things seriously amiss in the way we in the Eposcopal Church are currently conducting our affairs.  The underlying issues touch on such matters as the obligations and rights of the clergy and lay people; the role of Bishops; and the proper place of the Canon Law in the Church’s life.

Problems similar to those which have arisen at Bieldside can be anticipated elsewhere precisely because of the continuing deficiencies in the Church’s institutional arrangements.

The St Devenick’s Vestry asked the Church’s highest court to rule on a controversial issue that had been damaging relationships.

The Episcopal Synod has indicated that there were reasons of law why a Vestry does not have access to the Register of Baptised Members and Adherents.  There were also other grounds, which were clearly reasons of expediency.  As regards the latter the Synod concluded “If the Register was known to be open for inspection by the Vestry or congregation, the Rector would be restricted in what information he could safely record in it.”  I must confess that the force of the Synod’s legal analysis is not clear to me.  However, if the same standard of reasoning as is applied by the Bishops to the non-legal aspects underlies their approach to the legal issues, there must be some grounds for scepticism about the whole judgment.

With regard to the legal basis of the judgment, the Chancellor of the Aberdeen Diocese has advised the Vestry that there was no justification for the imposition of the Episcopal Synod’s own costs.

Surely the Church must now decide whether or not the canonical position, as defined by the Episcopal Synod, is in need of reform?  Is it really defensible that Registers which are the property of the congregation should be secret documents?

The second letter was from Mary Robertson who accused the hierarch of double standards when it came to the ordination of women, the need for better protection for the rights of the laity and the failure of Kenneth Gordon, without mentioning him by name, to engage meaningfully in the process of seeking reconciliation through discussion and compromise.

“Why is it that our Bishops invoke the requirements of Canon Law when the majority of them do not want the ordination of women, yet Canon Law is ignored by Episcopal authority when our congregation at Bieldside invoke it on other matters, eg Canon XXIII (11) which is of sufficient importance to be printed in our Scottish Prayer Book though numbered there as XXIV (11).

This section protects the rights of congregations when a Rector tries to introduce changes in worship unacceptable to the congregation generally.  Our Church is governed by Laws which protect the laity as well as the clergy.  In spiritual matters the people are entitled to expect from clergy of all ranks justice and impartiality.

May I also make a simple factual comment on the final paragraph of the article headed “Problems at Bieldside in last month’s “Newscan”.  For around two years our congregation have been pleading for reconciliatory measures to be initiated.  Far from struggling to maintain an entrenched position, or to score “victories”, our Vestry have worked unceasingly on our behalf to try to achieve peace through compromise.  They have not succeeded because peace is only possible where both sides seek reconciliation”.

 

Ten years of Malcolm Love’s choirs on Deeside

Nineteen eighty five was a signal year for Malcolm Love’s choral activities on Deeside because it marked a decade since he was informally put in charge of the choir of St Devenick’s Church, Bieldside.  Since that initial assumption of responsibility he had been officially appointed as choirmaster at St Devenick’s in 1978 and fired from that post in 1983.  Malcolm immediately formed the Deeside Choristers, different in name but essentially the same choir as its predecessor in both philosophy and membership, the St Devenick’s choir ceasing to exist, having been completely denuded of personnel.

A free admission concert was held at St John’s, Crown Terrace on Saturday 28th September to celebrate this decade of devotion to excellence in choral music.  Composers whose works were featured included the classical masters Bach, Monteverdi, Stanford, Palestrina and Handel, but with a surprising extra, “The way you look tonight” from the 1936 film “Swing time”, the music for which was composed by Jerome Kern.  Was this a favourite of the youthful Malcolm Love?  When an account of this performance appeared in the P&J it was written by a music critic (“AC” – Alan Cooper) for the first time, not by a reporter.  For Malcolm Love, that was recognition that the Deeside Choristers were being taken seriously as a musical force in Aberdeen.

Many of the youngsters who received their choral training under Malcolm’s tutelage remarked subsequently that they had found him to be inspirational.  When they finally left the choir, typically to attend university, those who had developed a fatherly relationship with Malcolm often kept in touch and several letters were uncovered in Malcolm’s archive from his musical sons.  One from “Mark”, who had become an undergraduate at Dundee University, was particularly interesting.  He found himself living close to Dundee Episcopal Cathedral, which had a choir.  Mark had attended practices there for a few sessions but had decided not to join the choir formally, even though he assessed the trebles as being “good” but the underparts as “terrible”.  In his opinion the choir was not as competent as the Deeside Choristers.  However, his main gripe about the choir was the style of discipline.  “If you make a mistake you have to put your hand up and get yelled at”.  This practice was not a bit like Malcolm Love’s style.  He was demanding in his musical standards but did not resort to humiliating the authors of musical errors.  Mark finished with, “I’ll be home to sing with a proper choir at Christmas”.

Chorister cartoon from Malcol Love's archive

 

The intervention of the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church

There is a brief and enigmatic exchange of letters in Malcolm Love’s archive between him and the Very Reverend Andrew Herron from late January – early February 1986 which is highly informative about the Scottish Episcopal Church’s final attempt to solve the St Devenick’s problem.  Enigmatic because Andrew Herron was a high ranking member of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, having served as Moderator in 1971 – 1972.  In 1986 he was in retirement but still active as the Editor of the Church of Scotland Yearbook.

Malcolm’s justification for writing to Andrew Herron was that his friend Miss Mary Robertson had been in correspondence with Andrew Herron in 1985 and had shown his “understanding letter” to Malcolm.  The subject of Mary Robertson’s letter to Herron is unknown.  Malcolm’s immediate purpose in sending his letter to Andrew Herron was to tell him that Mary Robertson had recently died, suddenly.

“I write in sorrow.  Mary died very suddenly in November 1985 in her 71st year, and her passing has removed one of the biggest-hearted and loving souls from our midst. It occurred to us that you might not know this, and a group of friends asked me to get in touch. She left £100 to 'her beloved choir boys' and never ceased to support them after the disgraceful happenings at St. Devenick's three years ago”.

This paragraph seems to imply that Andrew Herron knew of the goings-on at St Devenicks and possibly had expressed some interest, or opinion, on the situation because Malcolm then opened up on the most recent developments at Bieldside.  This concerned a visit in November 1985 by the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, with the Bishop, to Bieldside for a meeting with the Vestry and with Kenneth Gordon present.  The Primus at the time was Bishop Alastair Haggart.  He retired from this post in December 1985, so this visit must have been one of his last missions in office.  Malcolm Love’s account of the meeting, which must have come from one of his supporters who was present, follows.

“You would, I'm sure, be interested at the latest development.

In November, the Primus of the Episcopal Church came to BieIdside, having offered to mediate. He and our Bishop met the whole Vestry of St. Devenick's in the presence of Mr.Gordon, the rector, and in a formal speech which he was virtually too upset to give, the Bishop told everyone that after long consultations with both sides, he and the Primus had decided that for the good of the whole congregation he ought to encourage the Rector to look elsewhere for his future in the church. The Rector replied that if he felt directed by the Holy Spirit, perhaps between two and twenty years hence, he would move. The Primus said that he thought the Rector had not understood. He was being recommended to make himself available for a possible, but not yet identified, move to take place in six to twelve months' time. This did not exclude the direction of the Holy Spirit and would be for the good of the congregation as a whole. THE PRIMUS RECOMMENDED THE RECTOR NOT TO IGNORE THE 'GODLY ADMONITION’ OF HIS BISHOP.

What is now being kept very quiet, for some reason, is that Mr.Gordon has since written to the Primus and informed the Bishop that he does not intend to move for at least seven years.

Our Bishop is very upset but maintains he is powerless. I should perhaps add that the Bishop is a kindly and caring man, who gives the choir (i.e. the Deeside Choristers, formerly the choir of St.Devenick's) considerable support behind the scenes, but he is quite incapable of dealing with a problem of this magnitude.

When Mr. Gordon was installed at St.Devenick's, he took a solemn vow to 'promote peace and harmony within his congregation' and 'to obey his Bishop’ (I haven't got the exact wording here). His reply at the time to both items was 'I will so do, God being my Helper’.  The utter meaninglessness of the procedure is now, alas, apparent.

The day after the sacking, nearly three years ago, it was, you may like to know, on the shoulder of a Church of Scotland Minister that I went to weep. However, when an old lady from our congregation told me recently "After 45 years I now have no spiritual home", I realised again that we must soldier on.

The Choir flourishes, and I enclose a Diary for your interest. It is much harder work to keep it going without a permanent home, but we have made so many friends in the last three years and are welcomed by all sorts of churches - Church of Scotland, Episcopal and even Roman Catholic. St.John's, in the centre of town, has been marvellous to us. We sing there regularly, once a month, and last year their Rector prepared six of our youngsters for Confirmation - a great joy. We cannot be his own choir, though, because there is already a resident choir of large size.

Finally, I can say that part of the boys-and-men’s choir hope to sing at St.Giles', Edinburgh, at 6 pm on Sunday, May 25th. It would be a great thrill to meet you, and you would find that we don't look downtrodden in the least!

With every good wish.

Yours sincerely”.

What a breath-taking revelation!  I was previously unaware that this meeting had taken place and there is no mention of it, in spite of its incendiary subject, in the local press.  Was information not notified to the print media, or, as noted previously, had the St Devenick’s story become such old news that it was now judged to be unlikely to sell copy?  Surely, the former explanation seems the more likely, in which case, bearing in mind the only solution to the problem now seemed to be the retirement of the incumbent or a visit to the Bieldside Manse by the grim reaper, perhaps the traditionalist activists had decided that there was nothing to gain from further publicity.  Perhaps they would just have to allow the effuxion of time to solve the problem?

There are several aspects of Malcolm’s revelations which deserve further comment.  Firstly, the comment that Fred Darwent was incapable of solving the St Devenick’s problem.  He was too nice, too indecisive and afraid to step out of the middle ground.  Secondly, the church hierarchy, even employing the authority of the Primus, whose advice to Kenneth Gordon, was brutally frank, lacked the power to move Kenneth Gordon against his will.  Thirdly, Kenneth Gordon clearly knew his legal rights and showed the hierarchy the same unbending determination that he had employed to deal with his local detractors.  God’s will, or guidance, was being employed on both sides of the argument!

 

The 1985 Annual General Meeting 

This meeting took place on Tuesday 3^rd December and, like those of the previous two years, it proved to be controversial.  However, none of the proceedings were reported in the local newspapers and the events are imperfectly known only from various documents discovered in Malcolm Love’s archive.  This omission of the event by the local press confirms that the St Devenick’s dispute, though far from settled, had become passé for the readership of the P&J and the Evening Express. 

One of the most important tasks of the attendees at this AGM was to elect new members to the Vestry, bearing in mind the existence of two opposing factions within the congregation.  The rule governing voting procedure was contained in Article 8 of the St Devenick’s constitution whose wording, in the amended version that I discovered, follows.  It is not clear to me that this was the definitive version in force at the time of this AGM.  The wording of a document produced by George Patterson suggests that it might not have been.

“8. VESTRY.- The Vestry except for provisional appointments after mentioned shall be elected at the Annual Meeting by the Congregation from among their number, and shall consist of not more than twelve Members, who shall have management of the temporal affairs of the Congregation.  Of these twelve members, the Rector the two Churchwardens and the Lay Representative shall be ex officio members and the Rector shall be Chairman of the Vestry, and he – or, in his absence, the Chairman elected by the Meeting – shall have a casting as well as a deliberative vote.  The Vestry shall meet at least twice a year.  Four shall be a quorum.  Of the Members of the Vestry, two shall retire at the Annual Meeting each year according to a rotation to be fixed by the Vestry and such Members shall be eligible for election to the office of Member of the Vestry only after an interval of twelve months; if more than two members are nominated to fill the vacancies thus created the election shall be decided by the vote of the Members present at the Annual Meeting.  Vacancies occurring during the year may be provisionally filled up by the Vestry, and provisional appointments so made shall continue until the next Annual Meeting of the Congregation, when the provisional appointments may be confirmed or new appointments made by the Congregation”.

In the middle of the election process, after the retirement of two ex-officio members, Canon Gordon, who, of course, was in the Chair, sprang upon the assembled congregation a new interpretation of Article 9, that is that the two retiring members of the Vestry had to be Ordinary Members, ie people who were not his supporters in the 1984 – 1985 Vestry.  He said this interpretation of Article 9 had been suggested to him by the Registrar for the diocese.  This is not an obvious reading of the wording given above and it is not how Article 9 had been interpreted at AGMs over the past decade.  It was an interpretation favourable to Kenneth Gordon and his faction.  Further he had given no prior indication to the Vestry that this change would be introduced.  In the past the Vestry had decided who would be stepping down.  This was very unusual and irregular behaviour by Kenneth Gordon but, it has to be said, not out of character given his previous manipulations of process.

Another matter of great concern to the traditionalist faction was the inclusion of substantial numbers of Trinity, Westhill congregants in the meeting with voting rights.  Trinity at Westhill was a new interdenominational church which was completed in 1981.  Today (2026) it appears to be essentially a Roman Catholic community, though it was built for interdenominational use.  On 24^th November 1985 the Episcopal congregants at Trinity, Westhill, elected their own provisional Vestry and, of course, St Devenick’s members took no part in that election.  It looked clear to many of the congregants present at the St Devenick’s AGM that, in view of the pending independence of Trinity, Westhill, it would be morally improper for members of that nascent congregation to participate in the election of Vestry members at Bieldside.  When this matter was raised at the 1995 AGM, the Assistant Curate, Rev Ian Ferguson, claimed that he had been given no indication by the Bishop that Westhill would become independent and the status of the Westhill congregants present was deemed to be valid.  (in early 1996, this issue was put to Bishop Darwent and he was clear in his assertion that Rev Ferguson had been given a clear indication that independence would happen, in the presence of people from Westhill.  Subsequent voting for three members of Vestry was very close so the votes of Westhill congregants could well have been decisive.

The role of a meeting chairman should be to regulate the speaking so that no one speaks without the invitation of the chair, all voices are heard and no one is allowed to dominate the discussion to the exclusion of others.  The chair should also refrain from expressing personal opinions unless in the context of needing to exercise a casting vote.  Also, voting must be in accordance with the constitution of the body concerned.  A chairman behaving in this model fashion can then expect to be granted the respect of all those present in the meeting.  Unfortunately, Kenneth Gordon did not know of, or failed to conform with, these simple principles on various occasions but particularly at the 1985 congregational AGM at St Devenick's.

Some Vestry members were still unhappy with the presence of Westhill representatives and a motion was duly proposed and seconded calling for the election of ordinary members to be postponed until the status of Westhill attendees had been resolved.  The Chairman refused to allow the congregants to vote on this motion, so voting for Vestry membership went ahead with Westhill attendees voting, or not, according to their consciences.

Kenneth Gordon was also accused of time-wasting by planning a long initial musical section and by reading a letter from a non-member, yet congregants who wished to speak on the topic of the visit by the Primus (presiding bishop of the Scottish Episcopal Church) were time-limited to three minutes each.  Could this have been because they wanted to discuss the recent visit by the Primus?  Did Kenneth Gordon deliberately burn time to limit debate on issues he was not keen to see discussed?  Who knows?  But that interpretation could be assigned to his behaviour.  The blunt advice given to the Rector at the meeting with Vestry, Primus, Bishop was, of course known to all members of the Vestry including the Rector’s Warden.  He ridiculed the Bishop’s “flawed logic” on this topic at the AGM but was not called to order, as would have been the apprpriate function of the Chairman.   

One further set of actions by the Rector appeared to be detrimental to the chances of some candidates being elected.  Immediately before the voting took place Canon Gordon described one candidate as having only a “tenuous connection” with St Devenick’s, though it was later demonstrated that this person was qualified to vote, being a confirmed member of the Scottish Episcopal Church.  Canon Gordon then went further in his critical comments both upon the above candidate and on three others, claiming that their nominations had been received “late and on plain paper”, yet neither alleged breach of procedure made by Canon Gordon was a requirement for qualification, either by Canon Law, or in the St Devenick’s Constitution.  All four candidates were supporters of the traditionalist faction in the congregation, which may have been a significant factor.  Again, it looked as though Kenneth Gordon may have been denigrating these people as a device to influence the direction of the impending vote.

By the end of 1986 following the AGM, more than three and a half years since the sacking of Malcolm Love, it had become clear to the activists seeking reconciliation for the disaffected and former congregational members, that Canon Gordon was not going to change his attitude, that the church, locally and nationally was powerless to compel him to change, or leave, and thus that Malcolm Love was unlikely to be reinstated as choirmaster at St Devenick’s and the Deeside Choristers would probably not be seen in its choir stalls.  Kenneth Gordon, by his obduracy had fractured his congregation, reduced his attendance and suffered a substantial decline in income, and he had no choir to sing either classical music or his preferred modern, lightweight, participatory replacements.  The church hierarchy, while not covering itself in glory through failing to take decisive and timely action must have heartily wished that Kenneth Gordon had shown an ability to negotiate and compromise with his detractors.  The Deeside Choristers, Malcolm Love’s Phoenix-like successor to the defunct St Devenick’s Choir on the other hand, had survived the split from its mother church, though not without major obstacles to overcome, such as no gowns, no hymn books, no adequate rehearsal space and, especially, no choir fund.  Its musical standards had been maintained and even enhanced, it had no difficulty recruiting new members and it was receiving a constant stream of requests from other churches, some Episcopalian, some not, to sing furth of Bieldside.  Malcolm Love, despite his advancing years, was maintaining his enthusiasm for the project.  It was not the outcome that he and his supporters desired but he, and they, would learn to live with it.

 

The 1986 AGM of the St Devenick’s congregation

 By the 2^nd of December, when this meeting was held, Kenneth Gordon was secure in the knowledge that he could not be displaced from his position but the dissidents, clear that their efforts to achieve reform at their church were likely to be ineffective, were becoming disheartened and their numbers were declining.  However, some were tenacious and held on.  But, unlike 1983 when the dissidents held a clear majority in the congregation, the two factions, progressive and traditional, for and against Canon Gordon, were now about even-steven.  Thus, should Kenneth Gordon be successful in removing the vote from any attendees at the AGM, as he had done in the past, the impact on the outcome of the election could be significant.

As night follows day, Kenneth Gordon did intervene before the vote for the election of four members of the Vestry took place to claim that three attendees, Mrs. Kay Carmichael, Mr. Steve Knowles and Mrs. Sue Knowles had not been invited to the meeting because they were not listed on the roll of people who had received Holy Communion in the last year.  All three disputed this claim and asked the Rector for an explanation, which was not forthcoming.  The matter was decided by issuing all voters with a coloured ticket to attach to their votes.  Green ticketed votes were immediately counted to give a provisional result but orange votes, which stigmatised the three congregants whose status had been disputed were kept in a separate envelope to be counted only if an appeal to the Bishop to declare them to be legitimate were to be successful.  Kay Carmichael was deeply upset by Canon Gordon’s behaviour.  “I was angry and hurt ... it’s such a nasty thing to happen in a church.  It should not happen in a church.  Subsequently she went to see Bishop Fred Darwent.  He listened sympathetically to her story without giving an immediate judgement.

Three days after the AGM, Bishop Darwent declared the provisional results should stand and that the orange votes need not be counted.  This decision by Fred Darwent was utterly baffling, especially as two of the results would likely have been overturned by the inclusion of the three additional votes.  Mr. Seamus Maclnnes would have been elected as People's Warden (by a majority of two votes), and Mrs. Midge Harbottle as Lay Representative (by a majority of one vote).  That was not the end of the matter.  In March 1987, the three excluded congregants appealed to the Episcopal Synod of Bishops sitting as a Court, to declare that they were legitimate members of the St Devenick’s congregation, which Court upheld the appeal.  Kenneth Gordon appeared at the Court accompanied by a solicitor, thus incurring more needless expense for St Devenick’s.

By 1988, Brenda Parsons appeared to be the only Malcolm Love supporter who was a member of the St Devenick’s Vestry.

 

Iain Marr resigns as Director of the St Cecilia Choir

At the end of June 1986, Dr Iain Marr was forced to resign as the director of the girls’ choir due to pressure of work.  This faithful servant in the cause of church music on Deeside last appeared with the girls of St Cecilia’s on Sunday 23 June at Glenmuick church.  He had initiated the girls’ choir and been its director and conductor for eight years.  Malcolm Love, as ever the willing horse, stood in as a replacement for Iain on a temporary basis.

 

The fate of the Choir Fund

Meanwhile, during 1986, with Kenneth Gordon clinging, limpet-like, to his post, the skirmishing went on, in particular concerning the Choir Fund.  To recapitulate, Canon Gordon removed the Choir Fund from the control of Malcolm Love and Richard Weddell in 1983 and then placed it under the control of the St Devenick’s Vestry.  No money was drawn from the account and, sensibly, it was placed under the care of the Treasurer for the diocese who invested it.  In financial year 1986 – 1987, £648 was withdrawn from the fund, though the purpose of the expenditure was obscure, St Devenick’s not having a choir at the time.  In January 1987, the control of the Choir Fund was returned to the St Devenick’s Vestry.  That body indicated that it was planning to have the church’s organ repaired at a cost of more than £6,000 and that it planned to take the money from the Choir Fund. 

At the 1987 AGM of the congregation the matter of the Choir Fund was raised again.  The following resolution was passed by 26 votes in favour to 13 against, there being 8 abstentions, “That this meeting affirms, in keeping with the expressed view of the Bishop, that morally the choir fund belongs to the DS Choristers".  Now, on an earlier occasion, Canon Gordon had pointed out to the Vestry that legally the funds were held in trust for the benefit of St Devenick’s but that the proposal to transfer the funds to the Deeside Choristers could be advertised and, if no one objected, the transfer of funds could take place.  What happened when the proposal was so advertised?  ONE congregant objected and the money stayed with St Devenick’s!  This story did reach the pages of the Evening Express which reported the 2:1 vote in favour of transferring the money to the Deeside Choristers.  It also reported another unusual Fred Darwent conclusion, which was that “part” of the money should go to Malcolm Love’s choir.  The Evening Express reporter also phoned Kenneth Gordon to ask for his view on the proposed transfer.  He declared that legally the money belonged to St Devenick’s.  On the moral position, all he would say was that he had “no view that he wished to publicise”.

Utter frustration with the intransigence of Kenneth Gordon caused three members of the St Devenick’s congregation, Edwina Clark, Brenda Parsons and George Patterson, all supporters of the Deeside Choristers, to write a letter (published on 11 December 1987) to the Aberdeen Evening Express, exposing the legal problem with transferring the fund to the choir and pointing out the very simple action that the rector could take to effect a remedy.  They did not spare Kenneth Gordon’s blushes, if he ever had any, when they wrote, “…and (in spite of the views of his bishop and the congregation) Canon Gordon has set his face against any form of reconciliation with the choristers.  Hence the legal obstacles”.  This letter essentially marked the end of the campaign to assert the moral right to some of the money raised on its behalf and for the reintegration of the Deeside Choristers with the church that, through the drive of Dr Malcolm Love with his supporters, had created one of the most successful church choirs that Scotland had ever seen.  It can only be counted as a tragedy for St Devenick’s Church, Bieldside and for the wider Episcopal movement.

Malcolm Love then re-entered the fray, engaging a solicitor to prepare a memorial on the origins and fate of the St Devenick’s Choir Fund.  The conclusion of the barrister instructed to provide an opinion on the ownership of the fund was clear-cut.  The funds legally belonged to St Devenick’s Church and could be used for any church musical purpose.  Unfair as the outcome was, Malcolm Love and his supporters had no option but to accept that they could not use legal process to regain control of the money, which they considered had been immorally purloined by Kenneth Gordon.

 

The music programme expands

The programmes of music undertaken by the two choirs went on as before, with repeated visits to familiar venues, such as the St Margaret of Scotland Episcopal church in Braemar, St Kentigern’s, Ballater, St Machar Cathedral, Aberdeen, All Saints, Buckie, St Andrew’s Cathedral, Aberdeen and, of course, St John the Evangelist, Crown Terrace, Aberdeen.  

New venues, such as the magnificent Salvation Army Citadel and the Mitchell Hall, Marischal College, both in Aberdeen, Cults Academy, the place of education of most of the choristers, the Phoenix Hall in the Camphill Community at Newton Dee, St Ninian’s Cathedral, Perth, St Drostan’s, Old Deer, the chapel at Blairs College after it ceased to be a Catholic seminary in 1986 and where an annual service of lessons and carols was held for many years, the Denburn church in Aberdeen, the Church of the Holy Rude in Stirling, and many others were added to its singing locations.  The range of musical offerings also expanded into such productions and works as the “Dracula Spectacular” described in the Press and Journal as “an outrageous send-up of horror movies” and the works of modern composers such as Benjamin Britten and John Rutter.    “Lenten Images”, a musical reflection on the period before Easter was performed in the chapel of Blairs College in March 1992 by the combined choirs of the Deeside Choristers, including a bass solo by long-standing choir member, Barry Fenwick and a contribution by Alan Moody, a graduate from the trebles, on the trumpet in “The Trumpet shall sound” from Handel’s Messiah.

Salvation Army Citadel, Aberdeen

Day of appearance of the Deeside Choristers in Perth

Blairs College, Maryculter

Malcolm Love’s attachment to the performance of choral music in cathedrals was well-known and he was justifiably proud of having secured engagements in York and Beverley Minsters, Ripon, Carlisle and Chester Cathedrals and several Scottish Cathedrals.  He also felt that another of his successes was being able to take singers to churches which lacked their own choir.  Malcolm Love was notably open-minded about where his choirs sang and relaxed about the family backgrounds of his choristers.  In 1990 he said “The youngsters come from families of all Christian denominations – or none; our main carol service in December 1988 was sung in a Catholic church, led by a minister of the Church of Scotland and in which we took a collection for the Salvation Army!

Overseas visits also occurred from time to time, such as the visit to Clermont Ferrand in France, a twin city of Aberdeen, in 1992.  The choirs also toured in Holland and Denmark.  Fred Darwent wrote to Malcolm Love in 1993, “I am pleased to hear the Camp went well.  You really do a superb job with the choirs and I am happy to be associated with you and them in some small way”.  This was a fair assessment of the progress of the Deeside Choristers under the charismatic leadership of Malcolm Love.  The praise came from a charming and well-meaning clergyman whose association with the choir went back to about 1982, but it is difficult to avoid the reflection that the path of evolution of the Deeside Choristers might have been entirely different if Fred Darwent’s leadership skills had matched his affable nature.

However, there was one familiar venue amongst the many in and around Aberdeen to which, as far as I can determine, the Deeside Choristers never returned.  The Episcopal Church of St Devenick, Bieldside, which deficit may have been the greatest regret of Malcolm Love’s life.

Just as there had been a celebration in 1985, when the choir reached a decade of existence, in 1999 Malcolm Love started to plan for another celebration on the Deeside Choristers passing their silver jubilee in 2000.  He wrote a letter to the editor of the MBC (Milltimber, Bieldside and Cults) News announcing that planning was underway and that boys might like to join the choir in time for the celebration.  In September of the same year, an open evening was held at Cults Primary School, showcasing the history of the Deeside Choristers and launching the Silver Jubilee celebrations.

I had been present in York Minster in the early 1980s when the Deeside Choristers, then still to establish their musical reputation, were invited to sing in that magnificent venue.  Fittingly, in 2000 as part of the Choir’s Jubilee celebrations they again sang in the seat of the Archbishop of York.  That event must also have given Malcolm Love pause for thought.  Did he reflect on how far his creation had travelled in the intervening years?

Matthew Duncan was asked by the Evening Express for his most memorable occasion with the Choristers and he related an occurrence during a tour of Holland in 1994.

“We had been rehearsing very hard and we finished perfectly at the exact moment the church bell rang in time.  There was spontaneous applause – which really shouldn’t happen in church.  It was an overwhelming moment”.

Another incident, equally unforgettable but for a different reason, was visited on the Deeside Choristers while they were singing in St John’s in 2002 as part of the Festival of Light.  Part of the ceiling collapsed around them but, with praiseworthy professionalism, they continued singing!

One musical performance during the Jubilee year, a performance of the Faure Requiem at St John’s, Crown Terrace, must have given particular satisfaction to Malcolm Love’s supporters – because Malcolm himself took one of the baritone solos.  The performance was reviewed in the P&J by music critic Alan Cooper in glowing terms.

“SUNG with heartfelt warmth and sincerity Faure's Requiem was the centre piece of this years Lenten Images from the Deeside Choristers. The performance, in St Johns Church. Crown Terrace, was conducted by Lynn Black. The organist was Dr Andrew Morrisson of St Andrews Cathedral. His steady rhythmical playing underpinned the certainty of all the choral and solo singing. Soprano Lisa Beare sang the Pié Jesu with power, confidence and real beauty of tone. The two baritone solos were shared between the seasoned experience of director Dr Malcolm Love and Matthew Duncan, one of the principal tenors who delivered the Libra Me with power. The opening section of the concert was devoted to music by Mendelssohn and CV Stanford. Mendelssohn’s I Wailed for the Lord, featuring soprano Melissa Hogenboom and treble John Pickup, was delight with a satisfying balance struck by the soloists, choir and organ”.

The main Jubilee celebration was a dinner held at the Aberdeen University Staff Club on Saturday, 16^th September.  Former choristers were invited to attend and over 100 people came on the evening.  Reaching 25 years was a significant achievement for the Choristers bearing in mind the many obstacles which had been encountered on their path to survival.  The year 2000 was also significant for Malcolm Love for another reason.  He was elected a Foreign Member of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences for work he did jointly with Prof Georgy Schulman on the biochemical ecology of marine fishes.

Another recognition for merit came Malcolm’s way in 2001 when his former chorister, Matthew Duncan, who had joined the choir at the age of eight, but was at that time an adult member of the Byrd Choir and a local councillor for Cults, nominated Malcolm Love for an Evening Express Aberdeen Champion Award.

 

Malcolm Love reaches the end of the road

Malcolm Love said during his career as choirmaster of the Deeside Choristers that he had no intention of retiring and, as far as I can determine, he never did formally step down from his role.  But the march of time spares no one.  By 1990, when Malcolm Love had reached the age of 63, Neil Cathmore was frequently being engaged to play the organ at services involving the choirs and he also started to conduct the boys’ and girls’ choirs, a role shared with Malcolm Love.  Malcolm was still active with the Choir during 2004, when he attended the choir camp on the Isle of Cumbrae.  His last engagement as the conductor of the choir appears to have been in December 2004 when the Deeside Choristers’ Service of Nine lessons with Carols was presented at St Mary’s Church, Blairs,  “Seasonal refreshments” were available after the service and a voluntary collection in aid of Shelter, the charity supporting the homeless, was made.  Neil Cathmore later assumed the baton when Malcolm was unable to continue through ill-health.

 

Life goes on for the Deeside Choristers – but not forever.

In 2009, the Deeside Choristers were still continuing to perform at about the same level of intensity as in Malcolm Love’s heyday.  In that year, Neil Cathmore described the choir as follows.  “We are an enthusiastic, friendly choir of over fifty girls, boys and men. Now in our 35th year, we have broadcast, recorded, sung in many of the great cathedrals, and toured abroad. Our mission is to teach children to sing from a musical score, to enable them to learn, appreciate and enjoy choral music of the great masters and to perform with modesty and dignity”.  Clearly, by this date, the St Cecilia Choir had been amalgamated with the boys’ choir, perhaps a pragmatic decision to dispense with two conductors,two separate sets of rehearsals and programmes and, perhaps also, to accommodate declining participation.

In 2014, the MBC (Milltimber, Bieldside and Cults) News reported on the Deeside Choristers as follows.  “The Deeside Choristers would like to wish all readers of the MBC News a Happy Easter. Some eight years since the death of its founder, Dr. Malcolm Love, this local Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass (SATB) choir continues to flourish and inspire. Our last engagement was on Sunday, 30th March when we sang “Music at 6” at St. Machar’s and our next will be participating in the Diocesan Choral Festival at St. Andrew’s Cathedral on Sunday, 11th May. Rehearsals are every Wednesday during term-time, 6.15 to 8pm, in the Main Hall, Camphill, Murtle Estate, Bieldside. We would like to encourage all youngsters, (aged 7 and above) who are enthusiastic singers to consider joining our ranks, especially after the summer holidays. Experienced Tenors and Basses are also warmly welcome at any time”.

Sadly, by 2018, the Deeside Choristers had ceased to exist as an active choir and the “Deeside Choristers” registered charity is currently listed as “inactive”.  As far as I can determine, the choir has not been reactivated to the present (2026).

 

Why did the relationship between Kenneth Gordon and Malcolm Love break down?

Kenneth Gordon arrived at St Devenick’s in 1971 and for the next 11 years he appeared to favour, or at least tolerate, a traditional form of liturgy as characterised in the “Grey Book”.  Malcolm Love took control of the St Devenick’s Choir in 1975 and appeared to work harmoniously with Kenneth Gordon until about 1981.  The two apparently met together at intervals when the Rector would approve the music that Malcolm Love was proposing for inclusion in forthcoming services.  At the time that Malcolm Love was recruited as the choirmaster he must have seemed an ideal candidate for the role, given his background and training.  But it appeared that sometime before 1981 that Kenneth Gordon developed an aspiration to make worship at St Devenick’s more informal, presumably because he believed that such a change in form of worship would be effective in retaining and enhancing the size of the congregation.  A small choir would not be an impediment to such a change and could play its part, perhaps by singing works which were not too long and not too highbrow.  Kenneth Gordon perhaps did not anticipate that the charismatic Malcolm Love would grow the choir both in its numbers and in its musical repertoire.  Both these aspects were problematic for the move to a more informal form of service.  Malcolm Love also commented later that during his period as choirmaster at St Devenick’s he noticed that more and more of the prayer book was being omitted from services and that only the modern English Bible was being employed, but he did not indicate a date when this trend started. The success of the choir became an impediment to Kenneth Gordon’s plans for liturgical reform and he tried to exert his authority over Malcolm Love both in reducing the size of the choir and in diminishing its prominence in services but appeared to lack the negotiating skills which would have allowed his aspirations to be delivered painlessly.  But it was too late.  By late 1982, the choir had become very popular both within the church and outwith its confines and a sizable section of the congregation resisted Kenneth Gordon’s modernising aspirations.  For him, the form of worship was dominant over the success of the choir, while for Malcolm Love, the development of the choir, singing a classical repertoire and taking part in traditional Anglican services, especially in the great cathedrals was what, as a committed Christian, drove him forward.  In this case, the success of the classical, ironically, stood in the way of modernisation!

Ruff Stuff cover

The Spring 1981 edition of “Ruff Stuff”, the magazine of the St Devenick’s choirs, contains a contribution by Kenneth Gordon which seems to outline his concerns about the appropriateness of sophisticated high church music in worship in a small suburban church such as his.  His invited contribution started by offering “heartfelt thanks” to everyone concerned with the St Devenick’s choirs but did not mention any individual by name.  His piece continued in an unusual form in that he simply quoted from the writings of others about the role and form of church music.  Thus, words of criticism with which he appeared to sympathise were not his own writings.  But he would hardly have included such pointed quotations if he had not meant to send a message to the choirs and especially the moving force behind them.  Two examples will suffice to make the point.  “Does scripture lay down any principles for the kind of music we should use in worship?  Certainly, the Old Testament holds up to us an ideal of musical excellence.  But it was an excellence that was meant to draw attention to the Lord rather than to itself, and to encourage rather than inhibit the congregation”.  “The choir is part of the whole people of God, and not some special hybrid group set apart from both clergy and congregation.  It is the servant of the congregation, leading and supporting the whole body … The music of worship is not the special preserve of a chosen few but the inheritance of all the people of God; it is the practical expression of the priesthood of all believers”.

Later in the same edition of “Ruff Stuff” there was surely entered a reply to the criticism I have attributed to Kenneth Gordon.  The author of this rejoinder was not identified but it is difficult to find anyone other than Malcolm Love as the leading suspect.  “In the late 1950s a Bishop said that poor music uttered with a sincere heart and voice was just as acceptable in God’s ears as the most finished performance of a Bach cantata; that God wasn’t a music critic, and that what music was performed in Church and the manner in which it was performed should not rest on the value judgements of trained musicians (you might ask “Why bother to employ them, then?”)  The writer went on with an even more mordant comment.  “Might one not say in reply that God isn’t necessarily tone deaf, and that he has endowed us with the faculty of taste?  Many of us would recoil from the thought of sending to someone we loved or respected a tawdry greetings card containing doggerel verse, yet it is precisely the musical equivalent of this which some are eager to inflict on congregations and suggest that the young should subsist only on such a diet”.  (author’s emphasis).

The incumbent at St Devenick’s was a determined and uncompromising man who clearly believed that he was in charge in his church and that his writ was law.  On the surface, Malcolm Love was amiable and affable but underneath this smiling exterior was an equally steely countenance unwilling to surrender the achievements of eight years’ hard work.  Given such opponents, a disassociation of the choir from St Devenick’s was probably inevitable, followed by a fracture in the coherence of the congregation.  Such a split might have been mended, ruffled feelings smoothed, and calm restored had different personalities been involved.  But Kenneth Gordon and his then supportive vestry felt their authority had been challenged and this hardened their approach.  Compromise to them might have appeared as weakness and loss of authority.  Malcolm Love might have been accommodated by taking his choir to other venues to sing the more highbrow and traditional compositions, while presenting a smaller choir at St Devenicks to satisfy the needs of Canon Gordon.  But such compromise could not be entertained by the incumbent.  Perhaps for him the matter had become personal, and he was determined not to work with Malcolm Love in the future.

Unfortunately, tactics were employed by both sides which inflamed the tensions.  Malcolm Love secretly recorded the proceedings of the meeting in late 1982 which presaged his dismissal as choirmaster and that riled the vestry and clergy.  They, on the other hand seemed to adopt the view that the end (removal of Malcolm Love) justified the means (fabricating reasons).  Accusations were made against the character and integrity of the ex-choirmaster which were baseless and later had to be withdrawn, leaving the emperor naked.

There were other issues, too, which grated with Kenneth Gordon and his loyalists, concerning the choir and they concerned the population from which the choir recruited its members.  During the 1970s and 1980s, Lower Deeside underwent a major expansion in house building to accommodate the incomers attracted by the North Sea oil boom.  These incomers were mostly in senior and well-paid positions, many of them from furth of Scotland, and they were used to both thinking and acting for themselves.  They added to the existing middleclass population of the area, which was already well represented with professionals and academics.  Such a population was proud of the success of the St Devenick’s choir and happy to stand up to be counted in its defence.  Not all were regular churchgoers which led to the telling remark of Kenneth Gordon’s spouse about those making the most noise.  Allied to this irritation was another.  The wife of a prominent couple, who had been members of the congregation for many years, upbraided this author because the parents of some choristers did not attend church at all, and she expressed the view that the offspring of such people should not be in a church choir or singing religious music.  There is one further factor which may have been significant.  Kenneth Gordon was a strong supporter of Scottish Nationalism at a time when this political movement was in its infancy.  He would not have found many amongst the incomers who shared his aspirations for an independent Scotland, which perhaps bolstered his determination not to be pushed around by eloquent incomers.

Most people in their journey through life will have experienced situations, often at work, where they observe two colleagues who simply cannot stand the sight of each other but could not clearly enunciate the reasons why this was so.  I saw such situations several times during my career, exemplified by one acquaintance who said of another “He lights my fuse”.  Did Kenneth Gordon and Malcolm Love share such an irrational, mutual antagonism?

 

The death of Kenneth Gordon.

Malcolm Love’s nemesis, Kenneth Gordon, retired as rector of St Devenick’s in 2001, though in retirement he returned to Bieldside as Honorary Assistant Priest between 2010 and 2018.  He died in 2021, aged 86.  A eulogistic obituary of him was published online.  Its author, perhaps wishing not to speak ill of the dead, or perhaps through ignorance of events from 35 years previously, made no mention of the Deeside Choristers affair which impinged heavily on Kenneth Gordon’s life between 1982 and 1987.  The obituary summed up his character as follows.  “We will all miss Ken for his intelligent and incisive contributions to discussions and for his humanity and shining faith”.  His friends may remember him that way, but there were many on Deeside who saw him differently.

 

The death of Malcolm Love.  

In 2001, Malcolm Love was diagnosed with cancer and though he survived with this condition for a further five years, it was probably responsible for his progressive withdrawal from active involvement with the Deeside Choristers, his last conducting engagement thought to have been at Christmas 2004.

Malcolm Love died, aged 79, on Easter Day, 16^th April, 2006 at his home of many years, East Silverburn, Kingswells.  The funeral notice, posted online, read as follows.  “LOVE.  R. Malcolm Love DSc, Fisheries Scientist, late of Torry Research Station, founder of the Deeside Choristers, died peacefully at home, on Easter Morning. Much loved husband of Muriel, loving father of Andrew, Ian and Timothy, proud grandpa to his ten grandchildren. Friends and colleagues are invited to the funeral at St. John's Church, Crown Terrace, Aberdeen, on Thursday, April 20, at 12.30 p.m., interment thereafter in Skene Cemetery”.

Malcolm's death was reported, along with an account of his life in both the P&J and the Evening Express.  His son Andrew said: “He wasn’t just a choirmaster, he took a real interest in the choir members as people and really did act as a father figure to them. He was much loved and will be sadly missed.”

Four months after his death, the Deeside Choristers organised a memorial concert to honour the memory of Malcolm Love.  It was held in St Machar’s Cathedral, Aberdeen, a Church of Scotland establishment, bearing silent witness to the regard in which Malcolm was cherished across the spectrum of Christian denominations.  The works chosen for performance were all favourites of the Choristers’ late leader and inspiration, which included Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem.  The concert was free and anyone was invited to attend and, if desired, to sing.  An orchestra and choir of about 70 performed to an audience of 200.  A collection realised £628 which was donated to Marie Curie Cancer Care by Muriel, Malcolm’s widow at a service of choral evensong held in Pluscarden Abbey, one of Malcolm’s favourite places of worship and a Catholic institution, where he was always made welcome.  

Although he is memorialised in stone at Skene, Malcolm Love’s true memorial lies jointly in his published scientific work and his music-making, but especially in the achievements of his magnificent, but ephemeral, creation, the Deeside Choristers.

 

Don Fox

20260623

donaldpfox@gmail.com

 

Acknowledgement

I am deeply grateful to Matthew Duncan, firstly, for preserving Malcolm Love’s archive and, secondly, for generously making it available to me.