Tributes to ‘gregarious and affectionate man’
THE clergyman who died in Mayo in the storms was also a top actor who had recently acted in a t elevision drama alongside Michael Palin.
Retired Reverend Roger Grainger, 81, was on his way home to the house he had just bought on Achill Island when he got trapped in his car in a torrential downpour near Dugort Beach around 10pm on Sunday.
Neighbour Paul McNamara, a Mayo county councillor, was one of the first on the scene.
He said: ‘We noticed the boot of his car and I had a life jacket and waded in to help him, but there was nothing I could do.
‘He had driven into the flood and then his car must have floated out into an old storm drain. His whole car was submerged, except for part of the boot. It’s a real shock. I had only seen him the day before and he was in great form.’
Mr McNamara alerted the fire brigade. The Coast Guard arrived but the pensioner was already dead.
Rev. Grainger had been to see friends at the Bervie Guest House in Keel, where he previously stayed with his late wife Doreen.
The Anglican priest, a former actor at London’s Old Vic theatre, had moved to Achill with his wife as they loved the west of Ireland.
Rev. Val Rogers, the rector who runs the Westport (Aughaval) Parish, said: ‘He was close to his own house when he drowned in a flash flood. There was a biblical torrent and an absolute downpour which washed out everything.
‘He probably couldn’t see out the windscreen. He was on his way home from the Bervie and went into a deep flood of water which was moving very strongly.
‘It swept him off the road and into a ditch, right beside Dugort beach.’
Rev. Rogers said: ‘I was phoned about it at around 11.15pm but I don’t know when his death occurred. It can’t have been long before that.
‘I believe a neighbour came on the tragedy and he contacted the fire brigade and it was, by all accounts, obvious that he had drowned.’
The clergyman paid tribute to Rev Grainger last night.
He said: ‘Roger was a lovely fellow and a good colleague.
‘He had the energy of a man of 50 at times and was perpetual motion
personified. He had been an Old Vic actor, he had been a psychotherapist and a psychiatric chaplain.
‘He was an old Englishman who had a great love affair with the west of Ireland learnt through his wife Doreen, who died some years back.
‘He was officially retired but he was perpetual motion and was licensed to officiate in our diocese and he was a very generous helper and good brother to me.
‘He was a most affectionate, gregarious man.’
Although Rev. Grainger had retired as a vicar to Co. Mayo just over two years ago, he was still involved in acting and was an accomplished pianist. He was about to start his eighth doctorate. Last year, he was one of the actors who starred in Yorkshire TV’s series Remember Me, which starred Monty Python comedian Palin.
His previous roles included parts in comedy, a soap and a policing drama.
Rev. Rogers said: ‘ He just was fascinated by and moved by the cross-over between drama, healing and liturgy and that was what occupied him in all his books.
‘He had seven doctorates earned and he was about to start on an eighth one on Irish expressionist theatre in Galway University.
‘He was absolutely bursting with brains.’
Rev. Grainger was a registered drama therapist and chartered counselling psychologist and occasional TV actor.
He held a PhD in sociology from Leeds University as well as doctorates i n theology and implicit religion.
He worked as a psychiatrist psychiatric chaplain to the Stanley Royd Hospital in Wakefield, West Yorkshire.
He worked as an actor from 1956 until 1968 before going to theological college and training for the ministry and as a therapist.
He retired after leaving Stanley Royd, where he was chaplain, and returned to acting.
His Actorsdirect.org profile listed TV series he appeared in, including Heartbeat in 2001 and 2006.
He also acted in Mrs Bradley Mysteries, Hetty Winthrop Investigates and Emmerdale.
In 1995, he appeared in four episodes of cult BBC series Last Of The Summer Wine.