Oak Hill principal remembered at memorial service

Church of England Newspaper 26 January

The Rev Dr Mike Ovey, principal of Oak Hill theological college, who died suddenly on 7 January, was remembered at a thanksgiving service on Monday 23 January in their family church, Enfield Free Evangelical Church.

Five hundred people, most under 40, heard heartfelt and affectionate tributes spiced with humour.

Nick Tucker, Vicar of St Bartholomew’s Edgbaston, formerly on Oak Hill staff, said Mike would be remembered even more for his kindnesses than his brilliance: “He was like the A team. If you were in trouble, if no one else could help, and if you could find him.”

At the first meeting of his tutorial group the principal was offered tea or coffee. “Port please,” replied Mike who was then brought a tumbler of undiluted Ribena, which he drank smiling. He once addressed them on “How not to become a cult leader.”

To compel attention in his lectures, where he never got to the end of the notes, he used Sooty and Sweep puppets to illustrate the Trinity. But staff feared that the meat cleaver sitting on his study chair might make visiting DDOs nervous.

His love of PG Wodehouse found expression in exam questions in which a couple of pages of Woodhousian narrative were populated by various ecclesiastical figures espousing different theological nostrums to which the candidate was invited to respond.

The Rev Andrew Cornes from Crowborough, his training vicar, recalled him as a fierce fighter for justice. Dr Dan Strange, now acting principal, said: “He had so little ego and no interest in self-aggrandisement.” His local pastor, Jonathan Prime said he was the best of listeners.

Present were his wife of 29 years, Heather and their children, Charles, Harry and Ana. Before they were a ‘couple’, they had led a Bible study group at St Helen’s, Bishopsgate, while Mike was a Parliamentary draftsman and living in Clapham. Heather told Mike he should devote his life to teaching the Bible.

Mike’s parents, John and Ruth and sisters Elizabeth and Margaret were present. Dr Mark Thompson, principal of Moore College, Sydney, where Mike had done post-graduate study and lectured, led prayers.

Speakers noted that it was hard to understand a strange providence that the Lord had taken the best player, “a towering brilliance”, off the field just as the second half was starting. But the devastation of his sudden death and an extraordinary outpouring of grief had led to a determination in the college.

The service was filled with hope: “I know where he is now,” rejoiced Dr Dan Strange, “which is more than I ever did here. ‘Just Mike’ never got the point that the point of an action point was to do something.”

Other speakers rejoiced that “Mike now sees clearly the God he loved and always saw rather more clearly than us”, and is where “his sense of humour will be miraculously sanctified.” They look forward to catching him up one day.

A Thanksgiving service will take place in central London on Monday 13 March at 2pm.

Oak Hill principal remembered at memorial service