A Tribute to Anthony Foster by Andrew Buck.
No man’s mein so contradicted his true character as that of Anthony’s. First encountered he appeared dour, taciturn and uncommunicative. In reality he was gentle, kind and, while undemonstrative, highly empathetic with those in distress, as I experienced when Leslye had her stroke and at the terrible time when Mr Cowley was found dead under our car when we were returning from a Halifax Philharmonic Club concert at Square Chape, as some of you might remember.
Anthony’s strong Christian faith was accompanied with a real sense of duty towards his fellow man. After Cambridge, where he read chemistry, mathematics and crystallography, he went to Nigeria to teach and to evangelise. That is today regarded as patronising, but there was nothing patronising about Anthoy. I know from conversations with him about my own Hindu heritage – including Brahmin and Thakur great-grandfathers who were converts to Christianity – that he was free of such failings. When I told him of my Brahmin great-grandfather (on my grandmother’s side) who had become a Methodist minister, taught theology at St. John’s College, Agra – the founding college of Agra University – and, subsequently, made the first translation of the New Testament into Urdu, and that I had seen the plaque in his honour at the Zahur Baksh Methodist Church in Lucknow and also a copy of that translation held in Agra University library, he said, “You must be very proud.” I realised that; yes, I should be proud.
In one conversation with him he told me that discovering the real truth of scripture was a hard task. It required the penetration of the text, meditation on it, bringing to bear all the resources at one’s disposal, and to wait for meaning to emerge. Reading the Bible, he said , places huge demands on one. Anthony was not in the least simplistic in thought despite his evangelistic bent!
After we attended the concerts under the auspices of the Halifax Philharmonic Club I always enjoyed his insights into what we had heard. Laconic but full of hidden intelligence.
Anthony had all the Roman virtues once characteristic of the British people: an admirable stoicism in the face of trouble and sorrow, and “to meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same.”
Like all of you, I was greatly distressed to learn of his passing.
I wonder if we cannot now stand and keep a minute’s silence in memory of our dear friend Anthony and pray that God grant him eternal rest.
Sepr 23rd 2024 Delivered by Andrew Buck to the members at the meeting of 17th September 2024
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