Peter Rutter’s greatest gift was a profound faith in the goodness of life, which led him to trust others as he expected to be trusted. I knew Peter, who has died aged 95, as a friend and as a Friend (a Quaker) for 25 years and never heard him disparage anyone.
The son of Hester and Farley Rutter, Peter was born in Shaftesbury, Dorset, to a lineage of Quaker lawyers, and was to become a partner in the family firm, Rutter & Rutter where his father was also employed. But at 18 his legal studies were interrupted by the second world war.
Peter served in the Friends Ambulance Unit (FAU), as his father had done in the first world war. Sent to Germany in 1944, he was one of first civilians into Auschwitz where his team nursed emaciated survivors of the Holocaust. A lifelong delight was to recount how one of the girls they restored to life visited him from America 20 years later as a fit and healthy young woman.
In 1954 he married Jenny Ibbetson, a vet he met at Shaftesbury Friends, and they had six children. Notwithstanding Peter’s popularity as a solicitor, they longed to put their interests in organic farming and animal welfare into practice. So in his mid-40s Peter resigned from Rutters and purchased a derelict farm in the nearby village of Stower Row, where they restored the land and established a dairy herd. But he remained involved with the town, helping to create Shaftesbury Arts Centre and Compton Abbas airfield, where he flew a Tiger Moth until a serious crash made him consider his responsibility to his young family.
But it was as their children left home that Peter and Jenny Rutter began the work for which they will be long remembered. They opened their large house to anyone who needed temporary accommodation – and in doing so embodied the answer to the question: “Who is my neighbour?” People from many paths regained some stability in the tranquility of Cottage Green.
After Jenny’s death in 2009 Peter moved to Shaftesbury town centre and renovated a terrace house to high eco standards. Aware that he was losing his sight he set about recording his wartime memories of the FAU, which led to him appearing on Songs of Praise, Radio 4 and the One Show. Bouts of severe illness reduced his mobility but nothing daunted his faith and courteous concern with the welfare of others. He remained alert to current affairs and music until the day of his death.
Peter is survived by four of his children, Frank, Helen, Hazel and Shirley, seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
