By Mandy Rathjen (From Seeds April – May 2025)
Dear Augustine friends,
I wanted to say a heartfelt thankyou for all the love, understanding and good company over all the years since Mum and Dad (Ian and Elizbeth Rathjen) first joined the Augustine community.
Augustine was central to their social and spiritual lives in Edinburgh and has been a constant through all the years when Dad was a carer for Mum and managing his own various health conditions with characteristic positive pragmatism.
We were held as a family in the weeks and months before Dad died and in the Thanksgiving Service, with all the usual Augustine behind-the-scenes thoughtfulness and action.
I first came to Augustine to help Mum and Dad on coffee duty about eight years ago, and with nice circularity I was ‘retrained’ this month to come back onto the coffee rota. I may now be almost trusted to operate the dish washer and the coffee machines, which were Dad’s domain, but his legacy on the finance committee, new membership groups, Bible readings, and enthusiastically taking part in all the quizzes, concerts and tea parties is his alone.
Love and peace, Mandy
Mandy adds that Ian had been editor of his school magazine and was happy writing the occasional article for Seeds. So, it’s fitting that we include here some of the memories of Ian gathered by his family for the Service of Thanksgiving, held at AUC on 7 January this year.
——————————–
If starting not at Dad’s birth but at his 90th birthday celebration in April of 2024 seems all a bit back to front, that may be true.
But that event was Dad in his element: smartly dressed, hosting a gathering, and addressing an audience with a well-prepared speech; that, and there being a big cake. There was, throughout his life, time for cake… biscuits… but, most importantly, pudding, without which no meal was truly complete and for which, to the consternation of the medical profession, he claimed to have an extra tummy. He was lucky in marrying Elizabeth, who didn’t have a sweet tooth but diligently cooked a multitude of sweet treats for nearly 60 years.
Dad was born in 1934 and grew up in Tolworth at the south-west edge of London, the first baby to be baptised at Tolworth Congregational [later, URC] Church. His parents had been very much involved in getting it built.
This is where he met Elizabeth, and they got engaged on a church holiday to Norway. His notable performance of ‘King Rat’ in the church pantomime (pictured right) had the dubious success of reducing the front row of small children to terrified tears, to the acute embarrassment of his teenage children. He had to ‘tone it down’ for the next performance.
“Dad sailed across the Channel, which showed the adventurous spirit of the times”
Dad was not infrequently in trouble as a boy, a symptom of an active and enterprising mind. He bought doughnuts on the way to school and sold them at a premium at the school gate. Sadly, this entrepreneurial initiative was frowned upon by the headmaster. He set up a fully timetabled model railway in the attic and would often annoy his Mum, saying he couldn’t come for tea until the 6.20pm had left the station.
London was a significant part of Dad’s life, from childhood shopping trips to working in Whitehall, and then for so many years visits to the opera at the London Coliseum that he and mum enjoyed.
Rivers were also important to him. As a teenager he built a canoe and a punt in his garden. He and friends travelled up and down the Thames on many weekends, with Elizabeth cycling along the tow path with a bag of sandwiches. In his 20s, Dad sailed across the Channel with his brotherin-law Roger, which showed the adventurous spirit of the times.
He and Elizabeth began married life living in an old mill above the river Waveney, a basic home but a happy time. Having excelled at the London School of Economics, he was working as an accountant in rural Norfolk – a job he enjoyed, visiting many local businesses, exposing accountancy irregularities, saving up, and looking ahead to being able to buy a house and start a family. Accountancy was to take him into the Civil Service and, from there, to become General Secretary of the Civil Service Benevolent fund, a post he enjoyed until retirement.
Service was important to Dad in his working life but also running the youth fellowship at church, and acting as a magistrate in Kingston upon Thames for about 20 years, ultimately chairing the bench, and the Probation service committee. He was very committed to developing probation services and worked almost fulltime hours in this voluntary capacity for many years. This was really Dad’s education and insight into the lives of many people less privileged that he had been. His attitudes and view of the world evolved, and this openness to new ideas and willingness to rethink remained a positive quality throughout his life.
He was a natural teacher, and latterly this was exemplified in the new membership classes at Augustine, which he helped to lead with Fiona for over ten years. Even in his last year, he attended the carbon literacy course at AUC and thought carefully about the need to change habits.
But if service was important, the family was more so, and while Mum very much ran the house, Dad was a keen reader of bedtime stories, the homework champion, a keen player of French cricket in the garden, and never too easy to beat at card or board games.
He had a keen mind and memory, which he liked to keep busy and agile. He sent off The Telegraph newspaper’s prize crossword every Saturday, even into his 90th year.
Dad was proud that his great, great, great grandfather, a young disinherited German farmer’s son, arrived in Leith and ended up married to the Customs officer’s daughter, living in the grand Customs House still standing near Leith harbour. This German/Scottish family ended up in Liverpool and then Dad’s parents moved to London. Dad returned to Edinburgh and enjoyed the last 18 years living in the same city his ancestor knew two centuries before.
Dad was a devoted husband and ultimately carer for Mum in her ten years of living with dementia. He came out of his comfort zone and began to take on much of the cooking and support for her. In his very last days, he continued to enjoy seeing family and friends, but when he lost the love of food, even pudding, it’s how we knew his time was at an end.