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Who was Rev'd Terry Ranson?

Terry was born in 1942 and brought up in Norwich in the east of England. He got his degree in Kings College, London and he was ordained in Liverpool in 1965 at the age of 23 which is quite young to be ordained.

Terry commenced his ministry in an inner city parish in Liverpool in 1965. From 1969 – 1971 Terry was curate at the civic church in his home town of Ipswich. He was then invited to return to Liverpool, this time to the port, where for the next three years he was Chaplain of the Mersey Mission to Seamen. He lived in a penthouse on Pier Head.

In 1974 Terry was appointed Vicar of St Thomas’ Plymouth, and in 1976 took on the additional responsibility of being also the Industrial Chaplain of the Royal Naval Dockyard.

In response to a telephone call in 1979, Terry found himself as the Senior Chaplain of the Missions to Seamen (now The Mission to Seafarers) in Fremantle, Western Australia, and also State Secretary for the Society, covering the ports of Esperance, Albany, Bunbury, Geraldton, Dampier, Port Walcott and Port Hedland – a coastline of five thousand miles – half the distance between Western Australia and the UK – and he only asked for a coastal parish!

After twelve years, Terry returned to UK to be Vicar of North Mymms, living on a private estate with a gatehouse, a bridge over a stream and a third of a mile of plane trees along the driveway which led to a thirteenth century church. This is situated between St Albans, Hatfield and Potters Bar and means that he could be in London within forty minutes. Idyllic!

In 2003 Terry was obliged to take early retirement on the ground of ill health and moved to Hereford.

He then worked most Sundays within a group of country churches known as the Staunton and Weobley Group of Churches. He also worked most years for at least a month in the Diocese of Europe, and was locum chaplain at Cadenabbia in N. Italy, Taormina in Sicily, Tangiers in Morocco, and Kyrenia in northern Cyprus.

In addition he usually worked as a cruise chaplain for P&O at Christmas or Easter. Incidentally, when Terry worked in Australia, he used to work as a cruise chaplain for a couple of months a year around SE Asia.

Terry’s final cruise found him in the vicinity of Cairns, Queensland, Australia in March 2014. He became ill and returned to the UK by air and died shortly afterwards at the age of 71.

Terry left behind this collection of sermons and it was decided to put them on a website as a memorial to him. You are welcome to copy them and use them. If you do copy any, it would be appreciated if you would acknowledge the authorship of Rev'd Terry Ranson.