Monday, November 02, 2015

Thank you, Your Grace, for your kind advice

On his retirement Fisher advised Harold Macmillan against appointing Michael Ramsey as his successor. The conversation, as reconstructed by Ramsey, went as follows:
Fisher: I have come to give you some advice about my successor. Whomever you choose, under no account must it be Michael Ramsey, the Archbishop of York. Dr Ramsey is a theologian, a scholar and a man of prayer. Therefore, he is entirely unsuitable as archbishop of Canterbury. I have known him all his life. I was his headmaster at Repton.
Macmillan: Thank you, Your Grace, for your kind advice. You may have been Dr Ramsey’s headmaster, but you were not mine.
Macmillan duly appointed Ramsey, who was a reforming archbishop, making his mark as a supporter of the liberation of homosexuality, as a strong opponent of apartheid and of the Smith regime in Rhodesia, and as an influential voice opposing curbs on immigration for Kenyan Asians.