Tristan : Patrick Rogers Rest in Glory
Submitted by Tristan Times (Sarah Glass) 11.04.2008 (Article Archived on 25.04.2008)

Paddy, like those first disciples called by Our Lord, was a fisherman who put his faith and trusts in Jesus.

THE DEATH OF PATRICK ROGERS

Born 6-9-1910   Died 9-4-2008

Paddy, like those first disciples called by Our Lord, was a fisherman who put his faith and trusts in Jesus. Like Peter and those first disciples he was not a man of letters; he did not possess great learning in a formal sense but like those first disciples chosen by Jesus, he possessed a deep faith and a fund of practical wisdom and shrewd common sense. He knew what it was to endure hardship with patience and fortitude and, like those first disciples, he knew that if you have Christ in your life, sharing the journey then we are safe eternally: nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ.

Paddy was born in September 1910. His long life of almost a century spanned a period of dramatic change on the island. Just four years before his birth there were only 75 people on Tristan. By the time Paddy was aged nine the island community had grown to 111 persons living in eighteen houses. For Paddy, growing up as a child on the island there was no school, hospital, church building, and government or factory buildings. He knew life on the island before the arrival of money, radio, television or motor vehicles. It was a very different way of life and only the toughest and strongest survived.

Paddy was the son of William and Jane Rogers described in the Register of Births as “ Farmers” and Paddy learned all the essential practical skills of rearing and caring for sheep and cattle and like everyone else of his generation undertook the endless and strenuous work of gathering firewood. Gradually, as an older youth he learned to handle a longboat and acquired the skills of fishing,

Paddy’s main interests were his family, his church his fishing and his farming. He also loved camping but never went without taking waterproofs which year after year, without fail, Paddy always needed!

On the 15^th January 1911, Paddy was baptized by Andrea Repetto, one of the Italian sailors of the “Italia” shipwrecked in 1892. Andrea was appointed a Reader by Bishop Holbech and Paddy is one of the infants baptized by him. The register records that Paddy was later received into the church on August 24^th 1924 by the Revd. Rogers. Paddy was then fourteen and he honored that commitment to Christ and to his church faithfully to the end.

It has been my very great privilege to minister to Paddy during the closing year of his life. He was a deeply prayerful and faithful Christian. I never once heard him complain and being in his presence I found affirming and strengthening. He was a man at peace with God and with the world. He enjoyed a deeply loving marriage to Laurie his wife for sixty years and he was blessed with children who loved and supported him to the end.

Message by Father Christopher