Lady Runcie, who has died aged 79, was the widow of the late Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Runcie; never entirely comfortable in her role as clergy wife, in her own bouncy and unorthodox way she made an important and valuable contribution to the life of the Church.
Lord and Lady Runcie at home in St Albans in 2000
They became a couple in 1956, when Runcie was appointed Dean of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. She was Rosalind (“Lindy”) Turner, the pretty and vivacious daughter of a Law don at the college. A gifted pianist and passionate gardener, she was determined to be a person in her own right and had little time for Church socialising and flummery.
She confessed that she was “not terribly religious”, famously remarking that “too much religion makes me go pop!” Sermons “switched her off”; she could not bear the sound of church bells; and she had little time for “running round the parish dispensing calves-foot jelly, whatever that is”.
With a keen dislike for phoniness and pretence, Rosalind Runcie particularly dreaded having to accompany her husband to formal occasions, complaining that “lots of times they do not really want me there. I’m only there as a decoration. I resent having to go there, smiling.” She rarely accompanied Runcie on his weekend visits to the Old Palace in Canterbury, and travelled with him overseas only when she herself had been invited to perform as a concert pianist.
As their son James recalled: “When she met my father she was larky, jolly and vibrant, like a naughty girl in the sixth form. She didn’t have much time for saying the right thing, wearing the right thing and curtsying. She was keen to have her own private life and friends, where she could be herself. So there was a lot of physical separation.”
Her sense of humour was always irreverent. In the 1970s, when Runcie was Bishop of St Albans and the homosexual Labour MP Tom Driberg was employed by Private Eye as a compiler of obscene crosswords, it was noted that on one occasion the prize was won by a Mrs Rosalind Runcie of St Albans.
During the early years of her husband’s archiepiscopate, press opinion tended to regard Rosalind Runcie as a breath of fresh air, enjoying her outspokenness and sympathising with her determination to be her own woman. But things took an unpleasant turn after Runcie preached penitence and reconciliation at the service of thanksgiving after the Falklands conflict in 1982, instead of the triumphalism the press and politicians had looked for.
The tabloid campaign against him soon began to focus on his “bizarre” marriage, with one newspaper splashing privately-taken photographs of Rosalind Runcie, including one of her in evening dress draped, vamp-like, across a piano, and another in a swimsuit. The implication was that the marriage was breaking up, and that Runcie should resign as archbishop.
This persecution surfaced at intervals over the middle years of Runcie’s archiepiscopate, until he and Rosalind were forced to issue a formal statement that they had been “a happily married couple for nearly 30 years, and we both look forward to our rewarding partnership continuing for the rest of our lives”. In 1987 Rosalind Runcie herself launched a legal action against the Daily Star, on the grounds that stories about her and her husband did not fall within the definition of the public’s right to know. The newspaper is believed to have paid substantial damages in an out-of-court settlement.
Contrary to tabloid insinuations, those who knew the couple well observed that Rosalind Runcie’s sense of humour and vivacity were a source of strength to Runcie as he coped with an ever-increasing workload and a series of bitter controversies. Runcie himself described their marriage as “a union of duty with delight” and, though he acknowledged that her reluctance to attend official functions had sometimes caused friction, he paid warm tribute to her contribution to his office and, more importantly, to the survival of his own personality, highlighting her refusal to allow him to take himself too seriously, her down-to-earth practicality and her independent-mindedness.
Moreover, Rosalind Runcie made an important contribution to the life of the Church, raising more than £500,000 for charity from concerts and recitals; organising restoration work at Lambeth Palace, and conducting a remarkable personal fund-raising campaign to finance the replanting and designing of the gardens at the palace, which she made available for charity events.
When speculation about the state of her marriage was at its height, Rosalind Runcie held a long pre-arranged press conference to publicise her appeal for funds in the gardens. More than 50 hacks turned up. “I knew they were only there for one thing,” she recalled. So, after glancing at their inadequate footwear, she put on her smile and her Wellington boots and led them into the garden with its ankle-deep mud and numerous puddles.
One of six children, Angela Rosalind Turner was born at Cambridge on January 23 1932 and educated at the Perse School for Girls, Cambridge, and at the Guildhall School of Music, London, where she trained as a pianist. Robert Runcie was a friend of her sister’s at Oxford and she first met him as a schoolgirl when her sister brought him home. “I thought: what a gorgeous man,” she recalled. “My sister said, 'Of course he’s going to be a celibate priest.’ I’d never heard the word, so I looked it up in the dictionary and I was rather depressed. I thought, 'what a waste of a lovely man’.”
She met Runcie again when he became Dean of Trinity Hall in 1956, and began working part-time as his secretary. When they became engaged, her parents were horrified. Her father, Cecil Turner, was an atheist who took such exception to the proposed match that for a time he refused even to look at his daughter — and she considered calling the whole thing off. In the end she decided that her love for Runcie transcended her feelings for her father.
The wedding, which took place at Great St Mary’s in Cambridge in 1957, was a curious affair, the nave representing a division, not only between the couple’s respective family and friends but also between warring factions: “Talk about the sheep and the goats,” she recalled. “The anti-clerics were on one side and the clerics were on the other.” But she did not let it bother her, reasoning that she was “marrying the character of the man, not his profession”.
After her marriage, Rosalind Runcie taught piano, played in recitals and devoted her time to tending her various gardens and bringing up their two children, James and Rebecca. It seems that the couple were happiest at St Albans, where Runcie was appointed Bishop in 1970. In anticipation of his retirement in 1991, they bought a home in the city, where they enjoyed a happy twilight of married life.
“To see them together was redemptive and beautiful,” their son recalled. “They did infuriate each other, of course, but they saw their friends a lot and went travelling together. They would pretend they were much more doddery than they were, calling each other 'duck’.”
Lord Runcie died in 2000. Lady Runcie is survived by their two children.
Lady Runcie, born January 23 1932, died January 12 2012
The tabloid campaign against him soon began to focus on his “bizarre” marriage, with one newspaper splashing privately-taken photographs of Rosalind Runcie, including one of her in evening dress draped, vamp-like, across a piano, and another in a swimsuit. The implication was that the marriage was breaking up, and that Runcie should resign as archbishop.
This persecution surfaced at intervals over the middle years of Runcie’s archiepiscopate, until he and Rosalind were forced to issue a formal statement that they had been “a happily married couple for nearly 30 years, and we both look forward to our rewarding partnership continuing for the rest of our lives”. In 1987 Rosalind Runcie herself launched a legal action against the Daily Star, on the grounds that stories about her and her husband did not fall within the definition of the public’s right to know. The newspaper is believed to have paid substantial damages in an out-of-court settlement.
Contrary to tabloid insinuations, those who knew the couple well observed that Rosalind Runcie’s sense of humour and vivacity were a source of strength to Runcie as he coped with an ever-increasing workload and a series of bitter controversies. Runcie himself described their marriage as “a union of duty with delight” and, though he acknowledged that her reluctance to attend official functions had sometimes caused friction, he paid warm tribute to her contribution to his office and, more importantly, to the survival of his own personality, highlighting her refusal to allow him to take himself too seriously, her down-to-earth practicality and her independent-mindedness.
Moreover, Rosalind Runcie made an important contribution to the life of the Church, raising more than £500,000 for charity from concerts and recitals; organising restoration work at Lambeth Palace, and conducting a remarkable personal fund-raising campaign to finance the replanting and designing of the gardens at the palace, which she made available for charity events.
When speculation about the state of her marriage was at its height, Rosalind Runcie held a long pre-arranged press conference to publicise her appeal for funds in the gardens. More than 50 hacks turned up. “I knew they were only there for one thing,” she recalled. So, after glancing at their inadequate footwear, she put on her smile and her Wellington boots and led them into the garden with its ankle-deep mud and numerous puddles.
One of six children, Angela Rosalind Turner was born at Cambridge on January 23 1932 and educated at the Perse School for Girls, Cambridge, and at the Guildhall School of Music, London, where she trained as a pianist. Robert Runcie was a friend of her sister’s at Oxford and she first met him as a schoolgirl when her sister brought him home. “I thought: what a gorgeous man,” she recalled. “My sister said, 'Of course he’s going to be a celibate priest.’ I’d never heard the word, so I looked it up in the dictionary and I was rather depressed. I thought, 'what a waste of a lovely man’.”
She met Runcie again when he became Dean of Trinity Hall in 1956, and began working part-time as his secretary. When they became engaged, her parents were horrified. Her father, Cecil Turner, was an atheist who took such exception to the proposed match that for a time he refused even to look at his daughter — and she considered calling the whole thing off. In the end she decided that her love for Runcie transcended her feelings for her father.
The wedding, which took place at Great St Mary’s in Cambridge in 1957, was a curious affair, the nave representing a division, not only between the couple’s respective family and friends but also between warring factions: “Talk about the sheep and the goats,” she recalled. “The anti-clerics were on one side and the clerics were on the other.” But she did not let it bother her, reasoning that she was “marrying the character of the man, not his profession”.
After her marriage, Rosalind Runcie taught piano, played in recitals and devoted her time to tending her various gardens and bringing up their two children, James and Rebecca. It seems that the couple were happiest at St Albans, where Runcie was appointed Bishop in 1970. In anticipation of his retirement in 1991, they bought a home in the city, where they enjoyed a happy twilight of married life.
“To see them together was redemptive and beautiful,” their son recalled. “They did infuriate each other, of course, but they saw their friends a lot and went travelling together. They would pretend they were much more doddery than they were, calling each other 'duck’.”
Lord Runcie died in 2000. Lady Runcie is survived by their two children.
Lady Runcie, born January 23 1932, died January 12 2012
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