My father, Tony Crowe, who has died aged 87, was a brave, radical and controversial priest who was ahead of his time. He championed the ordination of women and gay marriage in the Church of England. He was a longstanding supporter of the Palestinian cause, and a regular letter-writer to the Guardian. He was sincere and wholehearted, but also took pleasure in rubbing the establishment up the wrong way and in the subsequent publicity.
Tony was born in Bristol, the middle of three boys, to Murray Crowe, a bank clerk, and Joan (nee Ehlers), a homemaker. He first felt his calling as a schoolboy at Clifton college, Bristol, influenced by Mervyn Stockwood’s social ministry in the city’s poorer districts.
