Charlie Jordan

Alastair Brett writes: There are few people I know whose gravelly laugh and wicked, uplifting smile could lighten up a room like Charlie Jordan’s (obituary, Oct 26). He must rank as one of the kindest, most natural and thoughtful people I and thousands of others will have ever met.

His commitment to social reform on a professional level was matched only by a quite remarkable warmth and charisma that started with his family and extended out unstintingly to people across Brighton and Hove. From colleagues to bartenders to shopkeepers to barbers, he was a much loved member of his own community.

Perhaps his most significant achievement was his contribution to the growth of the Emmaus movement in the UK, an organisation devoted to the rehousing of homeless people. He was among the founding trustees of a large and thriving Emmaus community in Brighton, and contributed to the establishment of another in Hastings and Rother shortly before his death.

While his work for Emmaus was on a large scale, and came to be very important to him in the final decade of his life, it grew out of a long-term commitment to social justice that took many forms. Charlie was closely involved in an astonishing number of community projects, charities and local organisations, first in Oxford and then in Brighton, where he was a passionate advocate for social reform. He was as fervent in his criticism of the voluntary sector as he was devout in his service to it, seeking always to think more clearly about its role, to understand better who it served and to make it more effective in achieving progressive social change.

A gifted debater and fiercely creative thinker, he always sought to place local needs and difficulties within a broader context, to find large, inclusive solutions to seemingly intractable problems.

David Shepherd

Derek Barnard writes: I was a contemporary of David Shepherd (obituary, Oct 29) at St Luke’s College, Exeter, and he was always immensely proud of his Devonian background. In the early 1960s St Luke’s possessed strong cricket XIs and provided a host of players to minor county teams, such as Devon and Cornwall. Some like Doug Yeabsley went on playing minor counties cricket until their late fifties.

Sport was a religion at St Luke’s in the early Sixties and I can recall a geography exam being cancelled for a few days because Shep was involved in a representative cricket match. At the time I never thought of David becoming an umpire but all I can say is that the teaching profession lost a great character when he decided upon a first-class cricket career. He always displayed copious amounts of enthusiasm for all sports but none more so than that which he took out on to the cricket field.