My husband, Hugh Dawes, who has died aged 75 of pneumonia and dementia with Lewy bodies, was a radical priest in the Church of England. A lifelong member of the Labour party, in 2002 he stood as a councillor in Village ward, in the London borough of Southwark.
In 1987 he was appointed vicar of St James’s church in Cambridge and director of the Focus Christian Institute. He believed strongly in opportunities for a wider theological education among the laity, and abhorred the tendency of clergy to talk down to their congregations.
