Memoirs of a Very Dangerous Man

Book excerpt: 'A Visionary with Attitude' Jack Dee The most extraordinary clergyman in the Church of England' The Times 'A very dangerous man' Baroness Thatcher Donald Reeves is a cult figure in religious and political circles. The former Rector of St James` Piccadilly, is a man of action and vision who lives out his religious belief through political activity and struggle. He is charismatic with enormous personal charm and persuasiveness. After a conventional middle-class upbringing, Reeves felt pushed by God to be ordained. Following an apprenticeship at Maidstone, where he was already a controversial figure, Reeves became Chaplain to the notorious Anglican bishop Mervyn Stockwood. He was thus trained in an atmosphere of socialist politics with a tinge of sexual ambiguity. Stockwood is just one of the figures about whom Reeves writes with relish and acuity in this volume of memoirs. After being radicalized in Chicago in 1968 he carried the revolution to a housing estate in South London. Reeves' heyday was as Rector of St James`s Church in Piccadilly, a space he filled with extraordinary worship, celebrated pulpit dialogues, a coffee house, street market and through which there was an endless march of gurus, leading international film-makers, writers, theologians and politicians. Reeves had several brushes with Margaret Thatcher. He has also been an adviser to Rio Tinto on corporate responsibility and worked for Mittal Steel in Bosnia. Today he devotes himself to working for peace in the Balkans, a region he argues which could so easily disintegrate into messy conflict again. Reeves never lets the grass grow under his feet. His energy is inexhaustible (even in his seventies) and this energy pulsates through the pages of this fascinating book.