The national heavies have published obituaries to Sir Eric (Eric to his friends for he had no pomposity) and there is no need for the monumental achievements to be reiterated here. From a humble cottage home and leaving school at 15, Eric become a giant in the field of education. That a grateful nation heaped honours upon Eric is not a surprise…
Neither is it the occasion to speak of his marriage to May – in her own right a significant Christian leader – or of his and the family’s sacrificial support as she battled (and still does) with the curse of Alzheimer’s disease. It is Eric as a man of God that will be the story here.
Typical of many of his generation in the North West of England, Eric was brought up a Methodist. He was steeped in the hymns of Methodism. The day came when the experience of Christ of which they speak became his own. It was a point of contact between us for we knew the hymns, debated them, argued over them and, best of all, sang them. Eric – a sound if unmelodic tenor – sang from a heart experience of coming to know the Saviour, and heartily concurred with Charles Wesley when he wrote, `My God, I am thine, what a comfort divine’. Eric was a man who had a personal experience of salvation in Christ.
