The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
Globe-trotting priest is man of God and science
Jon Hebditch meets a man of God who is an expert on potatoes and fleeing war-torn military juntas
He crossed borders to flee pursuing soldiers, partied in swinging London in the 60s, has been the star of a TV documentary and is even an expert on the science of potatoes.
The Rev Dr Richard Hines is unlike any minister you’ve met.
Yesterday the 69-year-old Episcopalian priest delivered his final service at St James’ Church on Aberdeen’s Holburn Junction.
He will retire tomorrow and move to Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, which neither he nor his wife Jennifer have even visited before.
Before bidding farewell to the Granite City, which he has called his home for the past three years, Dr Hines gave an insight into his ministry, which took him from South America, to the south Atlantic, and finally to the north-east of Scotland.
The man of God first pursued a career in science.
He said: “I started uni as an undergraduate at the University of London in 1969 and eventually left seven years later in 1976 with a PhD.
“I studied a degree and then a master’s and finally a PhD, I really focused on plant pathology. I was in the centre of the action in the Kings Road and Chelsea for my first degree which was a key motivation for going to London because that’s where the scene was then.
“If you saw photographs of us back in those days, I could be confused for Jimi Hendrix.
“My PhD was on a fungal disease for potatoes; in those days there was something called the Potato Marketing Board and they provided the funds.
“But that was an important time for me because it taught me to think a bit more clearly, to write succinctly and I was in the midst with students from around the world.”
But the clergyman had a Damascene conversion of his own when he finished his studies and felt the urge to change career.
He said: “While I was growing in my ability as a scientist, I was also growing in my conviction that I was a Christian and began to see that in fact the two weren’t mutually incompatible.
“We knew at that stage we were unlikely to have our own family so we took the opportunity to serve somewhere abroad.”
It was in 1977 when the pair saw a potential posting for the Anglican diocese of Northern Argentina, which they seized despite never having set foot outside the UK before.
They were tasked with living with the indigenous group of Wichi Indians, numbering around 7,000 people with their own language.
Mrs Hines said: “The move was incredibly challenging. You go from a western lifestyle to the most primitive. We had no running water, no electricity, you were 100 miles from the nearest civilised town.
“I became an expert at cooking goat and fish from the river. It was incredibly hot, it could be up at 42C or 43C.”
But the Falklands War soon put a stop to their work in the South American country.
Mr Hines said: “All of that came to a bit of a rude halt in 1982 when we woke up one April morning to hear military-style music playing on the radio and it was the Galtieri junta, announcing to the world that they had triumphantly taken the Islas Malvinas as they called them.
“Rumours started to fly around that we were going to be arrested. We got a radio message saying we should go to Paraguay ‘by the normal means’ which was code for cross the river – which was somewhat illegal.
“Subsequently the border guards did turn up and take the radio, the vehicle, bits and pieces of our home.”
Mrs Hines added: “If we had been there I think we would have been arrested,
“I became an expert at cooking goat and fish from the river. It was incredibly hot...42or 43C”
euphemistically ‘for our own protection’.
“The day after we left they came. They even crossed the river themselves to come after us.”
The couple returned to the UK in May 1982, and Mr Hines began training for his new life as a priest.
He was ordained in 1985 and worked in a number of churches across England.
By 2007, an opportunity arose to become the rector for the islands whose war had forced him into exile decades before.
The BBC took interest and made him the star of their popular An Island Parish series.
He added: “I suppose we prepared for a small community but it isn’t until you get there and walk around Stanley that you realise just how small it is. We are talking about a total population of about 3,000 in the town.
“We were delighted when we realised that they were going to make (An Island Parish) because it would project the Falkland Islands apart from the ’82 war.”
With retirement approaching, the pair felt that they were keen for one more challenge – this time in the north-east of Scotland.
Mr Hines added: “Our then Bishop Bob Gillies, through a mutual friend who had served in the Falklands, came to me in 2013 and said ‘If you can handle the weather in the South Atlantic you will cope well in Aberdeen’.
“It wasn’t a difficult decision and we moved in 2015.
“We now have to start the process seriously of settling down and being old so it is time to move on.
“But we have grown to love the north-east of Scotland.”