Anderson, John G, Reverend – 1966

Email from Martin Rigg, 25th August 2017:

This was Rev. John G. Anderson in the early sixties. The photograph I think was taken in the new manse at Rawdon. He was friendly with my father Edward Rigg and came to tea at our house but on his own. He had a slightly nervous delivery from the pulpit and you would say was a quiet but very nice man. I think he had the beginnings of a stutter I remember when he came to preach at Providence his text was Zechariah 4:10 ‘Who hath despised the day of small things?’

His children’s address was something on the lines that it was easier to carry two cases than one because you were not weighted down to one side – the moral of which escapes me.

After Rawdon he left the ministry to become a probation officer in Leeds I think but sang in a choir which remained his contact with the faith. I met him at a book fair and asked him why he had left. He said that he felt he lost his faith in the sixties when so many did and felt he wasn’t getting anywhere. I said to him rather boldly ‘who hath despised the day of small things? I never heard anything about him after that.
Apparently he died earlier this year having suffered mental deterioration at the end. It was Scholes to which he moved after Rawdon.

His wife and two children survive him. He had a North East accent – not too marked but obviously came from the Newcastle region and had auburn hair as I recall. He was a very nice man and very good with children. I will try to find out more for you on the subject.

Hope that this is of use but you may have more on it from others.