ANDY RADFORD, Suffragan Bishop of Taunton since 1998, had a natural aptitude for communicating God’s word.

For many years he was a Bristol radio personality, an admired producer of religious and social action programmes and a prominent figure at Church House, Westminster, where he supervised the training of hundreds of clerics and laymen in communication and the media.

For the first 25 years of his life, Andrew John Radford had no intention of becoming a priest. His father, John Radford,was a canon of the Kingswood and South Gloucestershire Deanery, and a vicar at Holy Trinity Church in Kingswood, and Radford left grammar school determined not to follow him into the Church.

Instead he trained as a building inspector and in 1965 became a joint founder of a Bristol building company, which he ran for seven years.

Nevertheless, Radford found himself becoming increasingly involved with the Church. Searching for a more contemporary interpretation of the gospel, one attractive to young people like himself, he found inspiration in making music. He began to compose hymns and led a popular gospel-pop group called New Life.

In the early 1970s Radford started to work part-time at BBC Radio Bristol. In 1974, the year he became an assistant curate at St Mary’s, Shirehampton, he became religious programmes producer. He was ordained in 1975.

In 1980 he was put in charge of two parishes in the Diocese of Bath and Wells. The city parish of St Barnabas, Bath, and the smaller, rural parish of Englishcombe both thrived under his charge. After five years in this role he was appointed diocesan communications officer in Gloucester.

This appointment was in recognition of his fine work in the media. After a two-year stint at the BBC he had moved into commercial radio; first with Radio West, for which he presented a late-evening gospel show on Sundays, and then for Severn Sound, where he was religious programmes co-ordinator. He won a number of awards for his work in radio, including, in 1987, the Sony Local Personality of the Year award.

In 1991 he was made an honorary canon of Gloucester Cathedral and two years later he left radio and moved to the communications unit at Church House in Westminster as the development and training officer for the Church of England. There he developed much needed programmes in communication skills, at both national and regional levels and involving laymen and clerics alike.

After 1996 and his appointment as mentor to the national network of diocesan communications officers, Radford was routinely consulted by the Archbishop of Canterbury on matters concerning the media.

He enjoyed his role as a behind-the-scenes adviser, and spoke and wrote on the subject.

In 1998, a few months before he was asked to become a bishop himself after the sudden death of his predecessor, Will Stewart, he became archbishops’ adviser for bishops’ ministry. This position involved the co-ordination of the training of bishops. Radford’s own consecration, celebrated in December that year, allowed him to put much of the theory he had taught into practice.

Radford proved to be a popular bishop, an efficient administrator and an eloquent preacher. Two of the many roles he fulfilled with distinction and humour were the chairmanships of the pastoral committee and council for ministry in the diocese.

A malignant brain tumour was diagnosed last September. He is survived by his wife, Christine, whom he married in 1969, and by two daughters.

The Right Rev Andrew Radford, Suffragan Bishop of Taunton, was born on January 26, 1944. He died on May 21, 2006, aged 62.