Remembering Tony Rawlingson Plant, 1939-2009

By fcharles

BRUTON's parish church of St Mary was crowded last Friday for a memorial service for Tony Rawlingson Plant, co-founder with his wife Trish of Mill on the Brue activity centre in Bruton.

Friends and members of his family paid heartfelt tributes to Tony, who died at the end of last year, after a long battle with cancer.

They painted a warm and moving picture of a remarkable and much-loved man who was an inspiring leader as a schoolboy rugby player, soldier and at Mill on the Brue, a passionate lover of the natural world, an enthusiastic traveller and explorer, a man of deep faith, and a great family man.

Tony was an old boy of Douai School, and a friend from schoolboy days, Terry Damer, gave an address in which he described his friend of more than 50 years as "a visionary."

He recalled the schoolboy rugby hero - Tony was a member of the Douai team that won a famous David-and-Goliath victory in the school rugby sevens - the soldier, adventurer and environmentalist.

Mr Damer also spoke of the importance of the Benedictine ethos of Douai, with its emphasis on modesty.

During his years in the Army, Tony was seconded to the Outward Bound organisation, and this inspired him to work in the field of outdoor activity. He was at the Blue School at Wells for some years, and he and Trish founded Mill on the Brue in 1982.

They had a three-tier approach - providing outdoor activities for youngsters, environmental education and awareness, and team-building for adults.

Others who spoke at the memorial service, which was led by Father Louis Beasley-Suffolk, included Sue Cox, Tony's nephew Jonathan Rawlingson Plant, Mike Welch (a member of the Douai sevens team), and his daughter Vicki, who read a deeply moving tribute, full of happy memories of a wonderful father, "our cornerstone, our foundation, a heart so warm and a spirit so strong."w.