Charles will have been known to many WCCM members, as a committed meditator, who along with his wife Jill, was WCCM Regional Coordinator in the North-East for many years. After a long illness, Charles died on 3rd January 2025.
Born in Leicestershire, Charles attended Bristol University where he studied law. He loved to travel, and as a young man, he worked in New Zealand and Australia and trekked back to England through the Far East, Asia and the Middle East, along routes that were more remote than they are now. Through his travels, Charles developed an enhanced awareness and respect for different cultures, traditions and religions that lasted throughout his life.
Charles moved to Newcastle upon Tyne where he worked as a solicitor. He met Jill, who he was married to for 49 years, had three children and subsequently six grandchildren. Charles was very much a family man, close to his immediate family as well as his siblings and their families.
Charles had many hobbies and interests. He loved the outside world, especially the hills and particularly the Cheviots in Northumberland. He was a qualified mountain leader. From the 1970s onwards Charles kept a log of all the hill walks and days out that he enjoyed. His log reveals his considerable knowledge of the natural world, his attention to the present moment and his gratitude for the things he saw. He also wrote a book of walks in Northumberland, combining walks he had done with hand drawn maps and chapters on the geology and history of the area. Charles was a skilled artist and paid great attention to detail.
Charles was an avid reader, who loved poetry, particularly the works of R.S. Thomas, George Herbert and Mary Oliver. He loved his garden. He walked daily and even when he was very ill; he would walk slowly up the street on his way to the local park, talking to neighbours. Charles was always interested in people, keen to hear other views, and very non-judgemental. Over the years he was an active member of Amnesty International, Oxfam and Newcastle’s Listening Post. More recently he raised funds for the Linda Norgrove Foundation, helping women and children in Afghanistan.
Throughout his life Charles was a committed Anglican. His spirituality was greatly influenced by the work of Rev Francis Dewar, who he met in the early 1980s. Through his contact with Francis, Charles discovered meditation as a form of Christian prayer, and he developed a lifelong meditation practice.
Charles came across WCCM in the early 1990s.For many years, Charles and Jill hosted a fortnightly meditation group in their home, that I was part of, and he also led a fortnightly group in a local church until only a couple of months before his death. Charles would hold the meditation session even if no-one else turned up; he felt it was important that the silence was held. Silence was very important to Charles. He believed that words can never capture the true meaning of whatever God is, but that through meditation and silence, whatever your beliefs, there is a way of getting closer to understanding. Charles saw the importance of learning from a variety of sources and was influenced by a variety of spiritual teachers including John Main, David Wood, Eckhart Tolle, Thich Nhat Hahn, and Marcus Borg, as well as seeing the spiritual in the natural world around him. During the Covid-19 pandemic, when the meditation group was unable to meet, Charles e-mailed a weekly reading to group members. He did this for 80 weeks.
Charles and Jill were WCCM regional co-ordinators in the North-East for many years. They organised regular meditation days with a variety of speakers. They brought together group leaders, sought to engage with meditation in schools, provided local meditators with information about national events and worked together to support the developing WCCM community in the North-East. When I took over as regional co-ordinator, I often visited to seek their wise counsel and to be given practical support around running quiet days.
Charles was ill for a number of years and in pain for a significant time. However, he continued to have days out with Jill until shortly before he died. His journals show that he maintained his interest in what he was doing, his attention to the present moment and his gratitude for the pleasures the day was bringing him. Charles came to a place of acceptance and peace, and the day before he died told a friend, an Anglican vicar whom he had known and walked with for many years, that “We are nothing, all is God”.
Charles wrote his own funeral service and chose a non-religious woodland crematorium for his funeral so as not to exclude people who were uncomfortable in church buildings. He wanted a Church of England service without too many words, and with times of silence. It totally reflected who Charles was. While it was a sad occasion, the service was also a lovely celebration of a life well lived, a life that had touched the lives of many others.
On a personal meditation note, it was a privilege to have been Charles’s neighbour for thirty years and member of the same meditation group. Charles embodied the idea that meditation is “caught not taught”. Charles’s own faith, his love of silence, his ability to be present in the moment, his acceptance and his openness to wisdom from many sources have influenced my own life and that of many other people. He will be remembered with gratitude.
Angela Foley – North East Area Team