Canon Gordon Watts, former treasurer of the Diocese of Cork, Cloyne and Ross, rector of Fanlobbus Union of parishes (Dunmanway) and of Douglas Union with Frankfield (Cork city) died on July 8th. We buried him in Douglas Churchyard after a musical and uplifting service with contributions from many of his clerical colleagues, protΘgΘs and relations.
Gordon Watts was born into a Cork city family of the Protestant "middling classes" in 1921. He was educated at Rochelle School for girls (a matter of some ribaldry in later years) and at Portora Royal School in Enniskillen. after completing his studies in Trinity College, he was ordained in the priesthood of the Church of Ireland in 1943. He first served as curate in Tralee, where he met, wooed and married Pearl Peet. This "mixed marriage" between Kerry and Cork worked wonderfully well - and the jokes were about honours even.
Gordon's first parish in charge was Coolkelure, in his native diocese, in 1946. He then moved to Drimoleague with Caheragh in 1951, and, in 1956 to Dunmanway. It was rather piquant that by 1975, with the inexorable amalgamation of parishes in West Cork, he had again acquired Coolkelure and Drimoleague.
Happy days were spent in Dunmanway. Parish visiting could be fraught with danger. Gordon would tell of well-meaning but excessive alcoholic hospitality, manageable only thanks to empty roads and compliant policemen. His stories about West Cork and, particularly, its idiosyncratic Protestant population - most named Kingston, it seemed - were never condescending or malicious.
He raised two daughters and a son in Dunmanway Rectory; and both daughters were married by him in his own parish church. When I sought his formal approval to marry his younger daughter, he was more embarrassed than I, I think, but when the interview was over ("Do you want the rest of her as well as her hand?") his innate sense of fun took over. Tiptoeing over to the drawing-room door he flung it open, anxious wife and daughter, as expected, falling in a heap at his feet.
Pearl and Gordon made a rather surprising move to a populous suburban parish in Cork (Douglas) in 1976. But Gordon was back in the environment in which he had been raised, and he threw himself into a very different parish life with gusto and vim. He was heavily involved in diocesan administration and served on the board of management of Bandon Grammar School. Music was a particular passion. His faith was deep and broad, with a firm belief in the "Christian stewardship" approach to spiritual renewal.
He never needed faith's sure support more than when, in 1980, Pearl died quite suddenly. This was a devastating blow, but Gordon picked himself up and got on with life. In 1986, when he married Jennifer Ebsworth, the family was delighted to see him blossom again. But he was widowed for a second time by Jennifer's death in 1996.
Frailer of body (but not of mind) in recent years, he had retired in 1988 and lived independently of, but close to, his caring elder daughter in Carrigaline until his death.
I suspect that what people will remember most was his preaching, his meticulous ordering of church services and his speaking voice - a voice that, as Canon Michael Burrows said at his funeral, "would have put the manufacturers of microphones out of business". His sermons were always models of clarity, consistency and common sense.
He had his faults - who doesn't? - but it is the overall impression which counts.
He was enormously proud of his children and grandchildren (typically, his last few conscious moments involved joking with his grandson) and a particular quiet pleasure was the ordination of his son to the priesthood in 1993.
A man for whom family was so important - his own, and that of the wider Church - Gordon Watts was an exemplar of how rapid change in both spheres could be managed without aggression, ill-feeling or wounded pride.
I. d'A.