Porteous, Christopher Selwyn

Author

b London 1935. Dulwich Coll. Articled clerk in local govt with Malling (Kent) Rural District Council 1954-60; he qualified as a Solicitor in 1960, first with London County Council (till 1962), then worked at New Scotland Yard as Legal Asst, Senr Legal Asst, Asst Solicitor, and (from 1987) Solicitor to the Commissioner of Police, until retirement in Beckenham, Kent, in 1985 and latterly to Birchington, nr Margate. He was active at Christ Ch Beckenham, as an authorised Reader (CofE appointment from 1958-2004) and wrote the history of that church; he has had other voluntary church responsibilities in Rochester Diocese and Board of Social Responsibility as well as the Law Society, the Assn of Police Lawyers (of which he was President, 1995-98) etc. At Birchington since 2004, he is a Pastoral Assistant at All Saints’ Church. He enjoys walking, gardening, music and writing; has published several articles in law magazines and verse in poetry anthologies including some in the Assn of Christian Writers (ACW) collections. Some 30 of his hymns are in print, written from 1970s onwards, featuring in Scripture Union, Jubilate and other books, his best-known text being published in several hymnals, as here. He has a concern for the current lack of reverence in worship and ‘the poor quality of some contemporary choruses’. No.647.