Christopher Maxwell-Stewart, late Chair of the Burtons’ St Leonards Society

At the funeral of Christopher Maxwell-Stewart on the 28 November, at St Mary Star of the Sea Catholic Church, the eulogy was read out by his son Hamish, but was written by Prue, his wife. Here is the complete eulogy.

Christopher was born at Buxted, near Uckfield. In February 1936, the sixth of the seven children of Leonard and Connie Maxwell-Stewart, he was a sickly baby, born with rickets and weak lungs.

When he was four, the family moved to London where his father was offered a job. Sadly in 1941 his father died of cancer leaving his mother with seven children, the youngest, Dulcie, a new born baby.

At the outbreak of war the family were living in Wimbledon and the younger children were all evacuated to Solihull and placed with different families. Christopher was taken in by a French couple who had no children of their own and became so fond of him that they wanted to adopt him, however his mother was not going to agree to that!

Towards the end of the war they all returned to their mother in Wimbledon who had taken in a Jewish girl from the Kinder Transport as well as the next door family when they were bombed.

Eventually their house too was bombed and they were given a requisitioned one. Christopher always said that he and his brothers loved being in London and ran wild among the bombed sites seeing who could find the largest, hottest pieces of shrapnel.

When the war ended Connie brought her brood south to St Leonards where she had family connections. She took a lease on a house in the Mount and ran it as a small hotel. The children were all given duties to perform before heading off to school. Christopher’s job was to peel a bucket full of potatoes. He was then attending the small school for the Catholic children of the parish that was held at the Holy Child Convent.

His health continued to cause problems though and missed schooling resulted in him failing his eleven plus. He then attended a secondary school where he learnt carpentry and the use of tools, skills which he was very grateful for in later life. However, one of his mother’s long term residents, a retired professor, realised that he was a bright child and volunteered to coach him thus enabling him to move to the Grammar School where he gained his A Levels and a place at Queen Mary College London to do a degree in engineering.

After graduating, his first job was a brief spell with the GLC, and then with the Danish engineering company, Ove Arup and Partners. He loved working at Arups, he found it stimulating and fulfilling and was inspired by the other engineers many of whom were from Denmark and other countries. Christopher’s knowledge of French was appreciated and he was asked to translate for Le Corbusier who was then in London working on a project with Arups.

In 1958 he met Prue and they were married in 1961 and shortly afterwards Christopher was offered a position in Arup’s Lagos Office which he accepted, thus their first child, Hamish, was born in Nigeria in 1962.

They spent the next five years in different parts of Nigeria where Christopher’s health surprisingly seemed to improve when most other expatriates suffered from tropical ailments. At one stage they were posted to the Delta which was very hot, humid and extremely unhealthy. Hamish became very ill with a bad bout of malaria and it was decided that Prue should come back to England with Hamish and their second baby, Kate.

While on his own in the Delta, Christopher was befriended by nearby missionaries who asked for his help with some building work and he developed a strong relationship with them.

For the final tour Christopher was sent up to the North East, an area which they all loved, it was healthier, the countryside pastoral and the local Muslim population quiet and friendly until a coup happened which caused much unrest including a persecution of the non Muslim Easterners and the burning of their local Catholic mission church then inevitably to the Biafran war a few years later.

In spite of being offered the job of running the Lagos office, Christopher decided it was time to return home, Hamish needed to start school and there was another baby then due. They returned to St Leonards in 1966 to the house in the Mount which they had bought when the lease had expired, and their third child, Lucy was born there, delivered by chance by a Nigerian midwife.

At the time there was much unrest in the local area over plans for a College of further education being built on the old Archery ground, this led to the formation of the Burtons’ St Leonards Society and Christopher was elected its first chairman.

Christopher decided to stay local and accepted a job in Bexhill overseeing the demolition of the old Manor House and the design of the Manor Park gardens which on completion was given a Civic Award.

He later enrolled to do a second degree in transport management at City University. This lead to employment with an Anglo Canadian firm and he was asked to set up their London office. After several years of commuting, and much time spent away in the Far East, he decided to leave and start his own practice from home. This he did for several years but gradually became involved with the publishing of Prue’s books, after her publisher sold out to Penguin and Prue was offered her rights back.

They formed their own successful publishing Company under the name of Uplands Books and Christopher found he was again travelling the world. They both enjoyed working together from home and continued until 1986 when without warning Christopher had an unexpected and severe heart attack. On being discharged from hospital he was told to lead a quiet life as he was too frail for surgery and that nothing could be done for him. However Christopher was not prepared to accept that and found a surgeon in Brighton who agreed to do a triple heart bypass saying, it was less risky to operate than to leave him as he was. The operation was successful, however he was then sixty and decided to retire and the publishing company was franchised to the Medici Society.

Christopher however was not someone who could retire and put his feet up and was soon involved with other things.

He and a group of parishioners from St Thomas’ restarted the St Vincent de Paul Society which had gone into abeyance several years previously. Over the next twenty years the group did much work helping asylum seekers and poor families in the parish. By that time the children had all left home and there was plenty of space in the house and Christopher insisted that we should give refuge to homeless asylum seekers and our house became a place of sanctuary for many over the following years, including the birth of two babies.

Christopher was also approached by Charlie Jordon from the Emmaus Community in Portslade who said there was a need for an Emmaus Community in St Leonards. After much searching Christopher found the present site and became instrumental in forming a team of volunteers to oversee the running of it.

At the same time the Franciscans in Hollington were concerned about the increasing numbers of homeless people sleeping rough. Christopher worked with Father John to help set up the Night Shelter scheme where local churches took it in turns to offer the use of their church halls for rough sleepers to have a meal and a bed for the night. At the same time he was regularly visiting Lewes Prison with Father George Shmolski.

Following his retirement, the Burtons’ St Leonards Society asked him if he would take on the chair once more which he did, becoming very actively involved again until eventually ill health and old age forced him to take more of a backseat.

Over the last few years he enjoyed having more time with his extended family and delighted in being a great grandfather to the four youngest children. He will be much missed by all the family.