Tribute paid to former Lancaster professor and vicar who died aged 83

Rev Dr Stephen Hunt was chemistry professor at the new Greenfield Lancaster University in 1969.

He was later ordained in 1991 and went on to become curate at Broughton before moving on to be the vicar at Emmanuel Preston.

After retirement Stephen continued in active church service at St James Church, Shireshead, near Forton.

Stephen was born on October 7 1938 in Rotherham before the family moved to Sheffield. As a child he lived though the bombing of the city during World War Two, something which he blamed for his lifelong tendency to depression.

At the age of eight he moved to New Mills where he fondly remembered delivering milk on the horse drawn dray up and down the steep lanes.

At the bottom of the hill lived Ruth, the young girl at Newgates shop, and eventually at a church social she asked Stephen to dance and they married in 1964.

Via Bolton the married couple arrived in Lancaster in 1969.

Stephen loved poetry, and was an avid reader and painter. He loved coffee shop life and would always have time and change for those in need.

He was inspired to be a champion for the under-represented and marginalised in society by Martin Luther King’s I have a dream.

Stephen passed away on February 24. He is survived by his children Geoff, Rachael and Andy, and grandchildren Trisha and Joseph.