A Goal Achieved – The life and times of Clive Shrimpton

FROM his early life in Thame, Long Crendon and Towersey, to the achievement of his goal to become a man of the church, Clive Shrimpton’s adult life became one of dedication and service.
A facinating biography of Clive, who was born in Thame in 1914, has recently been published by his daughter, Gillian Mary Webb. The book includes Clive’s early years at the old Thame National School (now John Hampden Primary School), Lord Williams’s Grammar school and early memories of walking off across Cuttlebrook to visit his grandmothers in Towersey and Long Crendon.

An idylic childhood of cycle rides to Oxford and the around the Chilterns, travelling alone from Thame railway station, aged 9, in the care of the guard to stay with relatives in London, singing in the church choir and playing the organ, led to a growing sense of vocation, more-or-less cemented by the age of 15.

Whilst working in a Thame solicitor’s office, Clive was recommended to the Bishop of Oxford by the then, vicar of Thame, and managed to fight for grants to enable him to study theology in London. Ministries in Hastings, Battle, Brighton and finally Ruddington in Nottinghamshire followed.

Along the line Clive spent six months in a sanatorium with TB, married and brought up a family and administered to his flock – including two exorcisms.

As Gillian writes in the book, “during his life as a minister, Clive touched many people’s hearts. So many friends and parishioners said how glad, how happy and how lucky they were to have known him.”

The book is available to buy in Thame Museum and the Bookhouse, price