A Tribute to our Founder, Ben Jupp

Ben Jupp, founder of our Amnesty group along with his wife Pauline, died on 25 February this year. Ben had initiated many of the activities that we undertake, and was a stalwart member until illness forced him to retire from it a few years ago. His energy and enthusiasms were evident in all that he did, not to mention his doggedness in pursuit of his aims. These were always humanitarian and religious, the two coming together when he brought Fair Trade to Ely and the Cathedral, persuading the Chapter to extend it right through the Diocese, and in the annual Ely Amnesty Group Lecture at the Cathedral which he started and which continues to this day.

Ben had a very varied life, from growing up in a non-denominational family in a rural Sussex village, being the first police candidate to study Law at Cambridge University, becoming a financial advisor, joining and then leading chapel congregations in Cambridge and surroundings, helping Pauline bring up their son and two daughters, and spending time on many other activities. All this and more can be read in the memoir Born in a Bucket he wrote with the help of his children and which, frail but unbowed, he was delighted to be able to launch in the Cambridge Manor Care Home in November 2013.

His spirit never weakened despite the incurable and rare disease, Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, that assailed him in his last years, and he was determined not to be confined to his home – or, finally, to his care home room – any more than was essential. His life, and his spirit as he approached his death, are an inspiration. He will be sadly missed by those who knew him, but his spirit lives on in the work of our Amnesty group as in much else. (Tribute by Colin Lester)