It’s true in a way, I suppose, that every man’s death diminishes me, but in the case of John Wilkins, the world has been diminished.

It’s true in a way, I suppose, that every man’s death diminishes me, but in the case of John Wilkins, the world has been diminished. We are minus a good, kind, wholly lovable man, who left things better than he found them. Certainly he left The Tablet in a better state than he found it, for he devoted himself to the paper for more than 21 years. You could say that he had the merits of the nonconformist background from which he came – the moral scrupulousness, the work ethic, the truthfulness – and the universal sympathies of the Catholic he became. He was a convert, having been brought up by an Anglican mother and a less than observant Anglican father, both shaped by their Congregationalist origins, and in a way he fell into the Church. He became an Anglican first, and at university he encountered Catholics, and found that he was in sympathy with them. He told me, he felt that he was a Catholic rather than having to be argued into it. In short, he found his home.

Of those people who live their religion in their lives, I can’t think of a better example. He was, perhaps, the most charitable person I knew, though if he thought someone’s conduct was wrong he would say so, though framing his remarks with the utmost care. He was a huge favourite of my women friends – he was partial to female company – and all of them would call him “lovely John Wilkins”.

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