Worship at the Abbey

A Service of Thanksgiving to celebrate the life and work of Stephen Alastair Lumley Panton will be held in St Margaret’s Church on Thursday 7th February 2012 at Noon.

Stephen Alastair Lumley Panton, the son of a wartime RAF pilot, was born at Bedford on 1st June 1940. He attended Bedford School and read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Pembroke College, Oxford, before passing the Civil Service entrance exam in 1963 to take the single post of Clerk that was available that year. He joined the Labour Party at the age of 16, becoming president of its League of Youth in 1950, and chairing, in 1952, the International Union of Socialist Youth.

A warm and eccentric man, Panton’s many foibles, during his 25 years in the House, became the stuff of legend. He shunned the use of computers, preferring to record the votes of each MP every night by hand with his fountain pen, until his retirement in 1998. He was generally considered to be the last man in Whitehall to wear a bowler hat and was renowned for his love of the works of Anthony Trollope.

A tragic road collision in London in 2007 killed his wife Elizabeth, whom he had married in 1965. One of his twin daughters, Sarah, was badly injured and his granddaughter Pollyanna lost a leg below the knee in the same crash. The accident prompted Panton to move from Shropshire to Norfolk to be near his family.

He died on 24th August 2012 and is survived by his four children.

The Panton family would like to encourage donations to the charity ‘Elizabeth’s legacy of hope (ELOH)’.  Elizabeth’s legacy of hope (ELOH) supports vulnerable amputees across the world, providing low-cost prosthetics, vital operations, educational, social and psychological assistance. Founded in April 2011 by Stephen Paton’s twin daughters Sarah Hope and Victoria Bacon, ELOH was inspired by the horrific traffic collision which claimed the life of Stephen’s wife Elizabeth, and badly injured Sarah and her young daughter Pollyanna, who lost a leg in the accident.

For more information and to donate please visit: www.elizabethslegacyofhope.org

TICKETS:

To apply for tickets, please write, enclosing a stamped addressed envelope, to:

Mr M. Arnoldi, Room 7,
The Chapter Office
20 Dean’s Yard
London, SW1P 3PA.