Simon Phipps, says the cover of this slim but engaging volume, was ‘the last of his breed of Bishop’. One hopes not. Does Eton, the Guards and Cambridge now preclude preferment in the Anglican episcopacy?
This aside, what is the edification or entertainment in recollections by the great and the good of the varied life of the Right Reverend Simon Phipps MC? Could Eamonn Andrews have made an audience of millions feel better for having heard ‘Simon Phipps, This is Your Life’?
One hopes so. There would be nothing breathtaking, but the testimonies would mount, until by the end of the programme belted earl and rude mechanical alike could feel that his life would have been enriched by contact with Phipps, that, in the words of a fellow bishop at his memorial service, here was someone, like George Herbert, ‘little less than sainted’. They might even be moved to gush, as does one contributor, a fellow Westcott ordinand, ‘Love you, Simon!’
Eamonn Andrews’s first testifier would be the Olympian General Sir David Fraser, Phipps’s contemporary at Eton.
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