The Reverend David Johnson
High Church eccentric whose practical joking included guying senior prelates with spoof letters
THE REVEREND DAVID JOHNSON, who has died aged 66, was a priest of the Church of England the like of whom may never be seen again. He was keen of mind and sharp of wit; but he was also possessed of an eccentricity which led some to revere him as an institution and others to opine that he ought to be confined to one.
Johnson’s gifts as public speaker and raconteur were evident in adolescence when he was one of a team which won a national schools’ debating competition. On going up to Cambridge he set his sights on becoming president of the Cambridge Union debating society, an ambition he achieved for the Easter Term of 1976.
He used his time at Cambridge to hone his skills as a prankster, or at least to persuade others to put his ideas into effect. These included marking the visit of Archbishop Coggan to Selwyn College by hanging the organ scholar’s underwear on a washing line between the west towers of the chapel; and, more memorably, a mock academic procession through the streets of the city for “The Immersion of the High Professor” in the River Cam.
Publicised on posters replicating official proctorial notices, the exercise achieved Johnson’s aim of persuading a significant number of tourists to stand on one leg as the “High Professor” (alias Father James Owen of Little St Mary’s Church) dipped his toe ceremoniously in the water.
Johnson’s fondness for practical jokes attracted national attention with the one-off publication in September 1981 of “Not The Church Times”, a facsimile of the Anglican newspaper, complete with almost credible advertisements and errata.
The front page reported on the enthronement of the new Bishop of London, Graham Leonard, as though the event was on a scale akin to the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer.
In 1994 Johnson collaborated with the priest-author Toby Forward to send spoof letters to church dignitaries on a variety of subjects, ranging from requests for tickets to the races or the details of the recipient’s toupee makers, to the possibility of installing a monument to the Cumberland sausage in Carlisle Cathedral.
Their targets included the Rt Rev Alec Graham, then Bishop of Newcastle, whom the pair had heard was “a first-rate Tory”. Perhaps, they suggested, he might lead a new Right-wing leather-clad boys’ group “liberated from the restricted old-fashioned sexual morality which causes such unnecessary gossip”.
The Bishop replied that, alas, he did not have much to do with youth organisations and suggested they try someone with a more popular image: “But you are certainly right about my political views.”
The letters of inquiry and replies were published in a book, The Spiritual Quest of Francis Wagstaffe. It was described by Johnson’s own bishop as “contemptible”, but the profits were shared with a charity for the young homeless.
David William Johnson was born on December 5 1953, the son of a civil servant. Educated locally at Ponteland on the outskirts of Newcastle upon Tyne, Johnson proudly claimed that his greatest childhood achievement was winning the Ponteland Sunday School’s Twist-and-shout competition, more by virtue of his ability to shout rather than to twist.
He went up to read Theology at Selwyn College, Cambridge, before training for Holy Orders at Ripon College, Cuddesdon. It was typical of his style as a bon viveur that he arranged for the ordinands’ bar, hitherto a beer barrel on a trolley, to be replaced by a cocktail cabinet in the college common room.
He was ordained in 1978 to a curacy at St Etheldreda’s, Fulham, where it soon became apparent that all was not well. Following his ordination to the priesthood a year later, Johnson presided at Holy Communion for the first time, an occasion which he choreographed with ceremonial and vestments so ornate as to make the Vatican seem low church by comparison. Significantly, his training incumbent did not attend the occasion.
Nevertheless Johnson remained in Fulham until 1982, when he took up a five-year post as Communications Secretary of the Church of England Board of Mission and Unity.
Based in Church House, Westminster, Johnson, who was always generous in sharing his talents, made good use of his networking abilities. Ecumenical dignitaries visiting from abroad were charmed to be greeted with a hamper from Fortnum and Mason. It is said that on one occasion, when a French Catholic bishop needed to return home in a hurry, Johnson used his contacts in the military to fly him back.
During this time, he also served for three years as a Priest-vicar (Honorary Minor Canon) at Westminster Abbey. Life in central London offered Johnson many opportunities for socialising, which he took up with alacrity. He frequented, among other venues, the Chelsea Arts Club, where he staged what he publicised as “A Fathers’ Day Fuddle”. Chaired by Bishop Bill Westwood, the cabaret was performed entirely by Fathers in the ecclesiastical sense.
As the television critic of the Church Times, Johnson ranged further than one might have expected for that newspaper, but his comments were always sharp and entertaining. On the occasions when he failed to submit copy, the Church Times explained to its readers that “David Johnson is unwell.”
In 1987 Johnson left London to become Rector of Gilmorton with Peatling Parva in the diocese of Leicester. Unfortunately, while Johnson’s ability to reduce an argument and its proponent to the ridiculous within a couple of sentences might have enhanced his performance in the debating chamber and amused his peers, he did not always find it easy to summon the pastoral tact and patience required in rural ministry.
Deeply unhappy, he was rescued after four years by Bill Westwood, by now Bishop of Peterborough, and installed as Rector of Cogenhoe and other villages in Northamptonshire.
Sadly, this move to another rural benefice proved if anything even more disastrous, leading to a severe breakdown of pastoral relationships in the villages. Johnson even found himself banned from a village pub which he had patronised assiduously. His mental and physical condition was in decline to the point where Bishop Westwood arranged for him to retire early on health grounds.
Johnson settled in Oxford. With typical perversity he named his house “Seaview Cottage”. His telephone answering machine would inform callers that he was either all at sea or out with the tide.
Pottering about in a Latin cassock and shovel hat, he became a familiar feature of life in the city and, for a while, at the Oxford Union, of which, by virtue of his past role at Cambridge, he was an honorary member.
A frequent writer of letters to newspapers, in 2005, apropos a Telegraph reader’s observation that “giving gin to wasps causes them to take off in everdecreasing circles before collapsing in a flower bed”, he wrote: “I have found the same treatment works equally well on Oxford undergraduates.”
But as Johnson’s health further deteriorated, with one or more strokes, he had to move into residential care.
David Johnson was unmarried.