David Porter, cultural critic, lecturer and writer, 1945-2005

David Porter was a prolific writer, editor, moralist, lecturer and journalist, whose intellectual curiosity, suffused with wit and humour, was irrepressible and highly infectious.

His 36 or so books, which indicate his wide concerns, include 13 ghost-written for others, such as Rita Nightingale (imprisoned for drug-smuggling in Thailand), Charles Fraser-Smith (the original ‘Q’ of the James Bond movies), Harry Bagnell (vicar of Port Stanley during the Argentine invasion), Bishop Lazlo Tokes of Romania (instigator of the 1989 revolution), Ram Gidoomal (entrepreneur, academic and politician), and Nigel Goodwin (pioneer in evangelical involvement in the arts and media).

His own books range in subject from biographies (Malcolm Muggeridge, Mother Teresa) to social issues (such as the nurture of children, voting and politics, and the arts and faith). In addition, he wrote accomplished poetry (collected as Sunday with the New Elizabethans) and fiction (The Vienna Passage). His future writing plans were to have included a popular biography of John Stott (whom he greatly admired), and a comparative study of Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, J.K. Rowling and Philip Pullman, and certainly much more.

Merseyside

David Robert Lester Porter was born in Bootle, Lancashire, on August 10 1945, and, he said, ‘wrote no poetry for the first five years’. The family soon moved to Birkenhead where, in his primary school, the class was asked what their fathers did. His reply was: ‘My daddy doesn’t work — he’s a teacher.’ An early ambition was to be a museum curator. The son was very like his father in temperament and in his teens David (who made a Christian commitment at 13) would accompany him on preaching engagements, and sometimes took part in the services. He also participated in Crusaders.

He was the only boy among the four Porter children. He gained a scholarship to Birkenhead School, where his love of literature, and aversion to athletics, soon became apparent. (In later life, his concession to the sporting life was to watch wrestling.)

After leaving school, David Porter worked for a time in Birkenhead Public Libraries, while at the same time studying on a sandwich course at Liverpool School of Librarianship to qualify as Chartered Librarian (A.L.A.). He entered Widnes Public Libraries in 1969 as Reference and Local History Librarian with responsibilities in the music library. While at Widnes, he was appointed Visiting Lecturer in Music Bibliography and Librarianship at Liverpool Polytechnic, where he taught weekly classes between 1969 and 1972. By then he had entered the University of Liverpool, gaining a First Class degree in English and subsequently going on to postgraduate research in 18th-century evangelical literature.

During this period David came into contact with student workers from IVF (later renamed UCCF), who were pioneering among those studying in the arts and media. David attended a number of weekend conferences, where he met other students like Tim Dean and myself, and IVF staff such as Meryl Fergus (now Meryl Doney) and Tony Wales. These conferences brought him into excited contact with the ideas of Francis Schaeffer and the art historian Hans Rookmaaker, who was a frequent speaker for the IVF events. At this time the Arts Centre Group came into existence, begun by Nigel Goodwin, Cliff Richard, David Winter, and others, with whom David was to be highly involved until his final illnesses. David was to take up the ideas that were buzzing around in the IVF and ACG, intellectually deepened by Schaeffer and Rookmaaker. He added his own unique insights, applying them to the fast-moving world of popular culture. His development of these themes, and his own engagement in the lives of many people, shaped his subsequent career, and was always the shaping factor in his life.

Understand culture biblically

Theologically, he attempted to understand the mystery of humanity and culture through a biblical view of our being made in God’s image — the key to knowledge of ourselves being a knowledge of God, revealed pre-eminently through Jesus. This gave him a humble confidence and point of integration in approaching the teeming diversity of contemporary culture. Connected with this was an attentive attitude to other people and to the messages and forms conveyed in the arts and media. This listening attitude, together with his articulate understanding of ideas and cultural meanings, gave him a rare voice. This voice was powerful and engaging, both when he spoke and when he wrote.

The bare bones of his subsequent career are as follows. On leaving university, David Porter took a short-term contract in the Information and Research Department of the Confederation of Health Service Employees. After this, he was appointed Book Editor with Scripture Union Publishing (subsequently Ark Publishing). In 1980, he left SU to begin a freelance career as author and editor. He subsequently worked for almost all the Christian publishers in the UK on a wide range of editorial projects, as well as writing his own books (some of which also appeared in the USA and in many translations). One of his tasks, which he approached with zest, was to write his distinctive column for Evangelicals Now. An important late development was his association with Ram Gidoomal, for whom he researched, wrote books, and even speeches.

Tricia and Greatham

I first got to know David as a student (he was still lecturing in librarianship then) and went to stay at his home in Birkenhead. I greatly admired his poetry, so he took me across the Mersey to hear him read with others of the ‘Liverpool Poets’. That evening he read with Adrian Henri. David read from his repertoire at this time (including ‘Dada wouldn’t buy me a Bauhaus’ and the elegiac ‘Prelude’). Adrian Henri read his magnificent ‘Entry of Christ into Liverpool.’ David and I became fast friends, and many years later collaborated on The Inklings Handbook — sharing a deep interest in Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams.

It was while he was a student that Tricia, who later became his wife, went up to Liverpool to work with him, putting together an exhibition of text and photographs. It was the first of a number of collaborations (she is a professional photographer), including their book on the life and work of the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins (Over the bent world). After marrying, they made their home in a little, book-crammed cottage in Greatham, Hampshire, next door to L’Abri Fellowship (the organisation created by Francis Schaeffer).

David contributed to the Fellowship with many lectures and in other ways. Access to London by train was easy, and he made many trips to the capital for meetings, to give lectures to The London Institute of Contemporary Christianity, and to fit in visits to bookstores, art galleries or computer shops. London was one of his great loves. In Hampshire his two daughters, Ellie and Lauren, were born, and grew up among his books, music CDs, and tapes of The Simpsons.

His first book (apart from poetry booklets) was, characteristically, The Media, written for Scripture Union, for whom he later worked for a time as a commissioning editor. The content was lively and engaging, but he and Tricia were very disappointed by the cover — an eye-numbingly plain royal blue with the title in white lettering along the top. It was aimed at teenagers from Christian families. This did not sell well, and had little response, in contrast to a pair of books written much later called Children at Risk and Children at Play. David received invitations from small groups and large from all over Britain to go and speak to them about the issues he raised in these books — how to help children engage with the culture in which they were inevitably immersed. The books covered topics like television, films, role-playing games, and what books to read.

An example of David’s thoroughness, and engagement with his work was when he was given the opportunity to interview Terry Pratchett for Third Way. He read 39 of Pratchett’s books in about a month and when he went to his diabetic clinic his blood pressure was up more than usual. This was because he was so worked up about interviewing Pratchett. In the event he had a long and pleasant meeting with Pratchett, resulting in a major interview that gave vivid insight into the comic fantasist’s writing and thinking.

After a long illness in which he made a substantial recovery, David then suffered a series of strokes. He was deprived of speech and mobility, a terrible blow for someone so articulate, and fond of verbal play; as a friend put it, a brilliant mind trapped in a failing body. He died on Friday June 10 in the hope of the resurrection and the chance to pun and tell jokes once more.

Obituary

Merseyside

Understand culture biblically

Tricia and Greatham

Colin Duriez

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