Whether it was science, medicine, politics, economics, theology or philosophy, philanthropist and humanitarian Crispin Rope always placed the person at the centre of the picture

Ash Wednesday 1990, Jesus College, Cambridge: I nearly ­stumbled over a man in a ­crumpled raincoat, trainers, and straggly white hair, sitting on the floor outside my office. The porters had warned about ­homeless men squatting on ­college staircases. “Can I help you?” I asked briskly.

Little did I know that this man was helping countless people across the world, and was about to change my life. His name was Crispin Rope (inset), and he said he was hungry. Over tea and a Marmite sandwich, he told me of the family charity he ran with his mother, Lucy. In the previous year the charity had supported some 400 individual projects, many with Catholic associations, including a leper colony in Brazil, an Aids ­hospital in Uganda, a fishery cooperative in Ecuador … the list went on, right down to a bicycle for a district nurse in Kenya and a suit for an unemployed man to attend a job interview in King’s Lynn.