THE FOLLOWING PASSAGE WAS WRITTEN BY

KEN DRANSFIELD'S SON, MARTIN ON THE PASSING OF HIS FATHER.

"On 2 December 2017 Ken Dransfield, soldier, teacher, preacher and missionary in Africa left this world just short of his 98th birthday.

Over the last 12 years, after our Mum Jean passed away, I have spent quality time with Dad. Each week we Skyped and each Christmas I travelled from New Zealand and we would drive and admire the North Yorkshire countryside, and I would listen to his recollections.

There is a Chinese saying that you should not only listen with your ears but also your eyes, your heart and above all you should listen to each person as if they were a King. Dad was a King. His story had many chapters, and I want to share some excerpts, each of which contains significant individuals who created and shaped his values.

His fondest recollections were of his childhood in Hoyland and Dodworth, South Yorkshire, his 6 years in the Army during WWII, his life shared with Mum and with Kathleen, Robert and me in Africa, and over the last 40 plus years his experiences as a teacher and local preacher in Yorkshire.

His early life in South Yorkshire was against a background of extreme hardship, particularly when our Grandfather Colin, was laid off during the Miners strike in 1926. But despite that the community supported each other, with Colin taking the lead, and had as its cornerstone the Methodist Chapel.

After a tentative start at school it is obvious that Dad was a bright student and ended up training as an accountant. He also followed his father's footsteps as a local preacher, which was to play a significant role throughout his life.

His passions were football and harriers, and his best mates and team mates were "Jenny" Lee, Herbert Hodgson and Arnold Turton. Together they played in the local football league, ran for the harriers, and watched all Barnsleys home games at Oakwell. Sadly, all three were killed in the war at the age of 20. Dad never forgot them.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As the war drew to a close he made the decision to serve in Africa. His mentor was from the Church of Scotland, in fact David Steel's father. He told my Dad that to serve he needed a skill that was of use to the people. Dad chose teaching as his path, and hence ended up teacher training in Harrogate. Each Sunday he would attend Wesley Chapel and that is where he met the love of his life, our Mum Jean, he described "a row of remarkably pretty girls" in the Choir at Wesley, but one beautiful blonde stood out. Once married, they decided to become missionaries and went first to Kenya and then Uganda.

These were Dad's favourite years and he was surrounded by exceptional people. When I listened to Dad describe those years I marvel at what he achieved. In the Lango district he was charged with developing and executing a 5 year plan to build and bring into schools 24,000 pupils. He visited each community, spoke, got their support, personally marked out the school rooms, 8 paces, then 6 paces at right angles, pegs were put in place and then the locals, at no cost, built the school. Next he needed to solve malnutrition after a failed UNICEF program, so he again met the community and they agreed to establish successful school farms. In 5 years he had delivered the set goals, and more.

There were men and women he always spoke of: one of these was Joel Wacha-Olwol who became Dad's best friend and later the President of Uganda. Another was Janani Luwum, a parish priest who went onto to be the Bishop of Gulu and eventually Archbishop of Uganda before he was tragically killed during Idi Amin's reign of terror.

However, there was one group of people he developed an enduring working and personal relationship. These people were the Verona Fathers and the Catholic mission stations, talented men and women, who dedicated themselves to God and to the African people. Dad described them as 'men and women who were surely fashioned in pattern of the first disciples.

Dad saw how effective the mission schools were operating and, in his role as the district education officer, he forged a strong working relationship with them. Together they built schools, held teachers conferences and brought education and its associated opportunities to many children throughout Northern Uganda. Their philosophy was to include the whole community in educating and preparing their children for their future. Together they formed teachers clubs to exchange ideas between old and new teachers, next they invited parents to get involved in activities such as sports coaching, girl guides and cooking classes.

What shines through is that for Dad anything was possible and everyone became part his team. For example he built a church, called Christ Church, in Gulu, and as part of this process he got contributions from all religions and all places, from Celtic FC to the Sikhs and Muslim communities throughout Uganda. It was during this time that Dad developed a strong working relationship with Bishop Wani, who later replaced Archbishop Luwum as the Archbishop of Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.In the background, however, all was not well in Uganda, assassination attempts were common and opposition members disappeared. Yet as a family we were always safe, a reflection of the respect the Africans had for Dad, and for our Mum who, in their words, always listened to them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So to his final chapter, teaching and preaching in Yorkshire. It was tough initially, after Africa he struggled to get a job. At one interview he was asked if he had already given his best years to Africa, he replied that in fact Africa had given him his best years. But he still had much to give and he eventually became headmaster at Markington school, a job and in a community he loved. On retiring he continued to teach and preach, including a year with no pay teaching children in a makeshift school in Dewsbury during the 80s, and right up until two weeks before passing away at Pannal Primary School, Yorkshire. Moreover, he was preaching each month as part of the Methodist local circuit. Dad's mantra was, "a preacher has to do as well as preach", and possibly my favourite, "solutions not resolutions."

Living with Dad was an adventure, full of stories and possibilities. Dad always had a twinkle in his eye and loved to share the funnier moments in his life. One story he often recounted was related to his role as a preacher. A preacher arrived at a rural church to find only 1 person in the congregation, a farmer. He asked if he should proceed, the reply "if I only had one chicken would I starve it?" The service proceeded. At the end he asked the farmer for his opinion. The reply, "I wouldn't have starved the chicken, but I wouldn't have given it a bucket full either."

In closing my fondest memory was travelling by steam train from Kampala to Mombasa in 1968, marvelling at the pink sheet of flamingos on Lake Naivasha as we descended to Nairobi. This was Dad's Africa and we marvelled at its splendour together. I can imagine Dad standing there now".

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Martin Dransfield, Masterton, UM