My brother, Alan Powers, who has died aged 81, was a Methodist minister who worked around England and in parts of the US. He was a socialist radical thinker and, although also recognising his duty to his congregations, in the 198os in Dover he walked and picketed with striking miners.
Born and brought up on a council estate in Acocks Green in Birmingham, Alan was the sixth of 10 children of Frank, a bricklayer, and Beatrice (nee Edgington). He attended Severne Road nursery, infant and junior schools and Pitmaston boys’ school before gaining a place at Bordesley Green technical school in the city in 1954.
He was a keen football fan – an Aston Villa supporter – and played in goal for the Bordesley Green school team, winning the league and the cup in the south Birmingham schools fixtures.
On leaving school in 1957 he trained as a structural engineer in Birmingham. His interests, however, were set on church ministry with the Methodist foundation, and in 1962 he was awarded a scholarship to Richmond Theological College, University of London, where he gained a diploma in theology in 1966.
In the same year he married Sheila Meridith, also from Birmingham – they went on to have two sons, Paul (known as Kingsley) and Conrad. Together, Alan and Sheila boarded the SS Groote Beer in Rotterdam, sailing to New York then travelling on to the Christian theological seminary in Indianapolis, where Alan gained his master’s degree in 1967. Before he returned to Britain he took the opportunity to use Greyhound bus services to see more of the US, and especially to visit the grave in Taos, New Mexico, of his favourite author, DH Lawrence.
Alan’s ministry began in Redcar in North Yorkshire in 1967, followed by a posting to Brixton, London in 1970. In Meanwood, Leeds, he took a doctorate in ministry between 1974 and 1982. He then worked in Dover (1982-85), County Durham (1986-94) and Manchester (1994-97). His final posting was to Stockton on Tees, from 1998 to 2005. He retired to Northallerton in Yorkshire that year. In 2020, Alan and Sheila moved to Darlington to live with Conrad.
He is survived by Sheila, Kingsley and Conrad, and me.
