Here are my memories of Life on Sunday.
Charles & I first met with Clifford, both Hill and Denton, in 1999, I cannot recall the trigger for it.
However, I do recall Clifford Denton recommending a meeting with Richard Teideman.
On 2nd February 2000 Charles & I met Dr Brian Mawhinney at the Houses of Parliament, it was the first all even number date in over 1100 years.
John Huckett made contact through the first coverage in PT, he was a Professor of Business Studies at Warwick University. Sadly he later suffered from dementia and passed away about 10 years ago. His son Richard was also part of the group.
I also spoke on Life on Sunday at a UCB conference in early 2000 in Belfast.
There was a German brother called Ulrich who lived in London engaged with us. He tragically died when a fish bone lodged in his mouth.
There was also a designer guy that Charles introduced who lived out in Greece with his Greek wife, only came to the UK every so often if I remember right. He conducted our design work which was outstanding.
We met with Tim Green of Mastercard, Malcolm Matson of Colt Communications fame, the gentleman who ran Ultraframe up in the North West, Eddie Stobart Snr, the stockbroker who was involved in premier Radio - I do not recall his name among others.
Clifford, myself and I think Charles spoke at the Moses Room in the Houses of Parliament.
We came very close to raising the funds through a Christian Tech Entrepreneur in late 2001/early 2002, but he went bust in the Tech Stock Crash in February 2002.
That was on the back of producing a dummy edition on the back of 9/11. It was an impressive piece of work, made possible by some individual brothers and sisters whose generosity along with our own funds covered those costs and the starting of an internet Life News, edited by Charles with some contributors providing material.
John Widdows, FD with News International worked/walked with us for a while.
Around 2010 we began talking around an online news site that would lead into a print edition. Clifford, yours, got Nat Wei involved and we had a number of meetings with us but again the funding did not come through.
I often reflect on where we were out of step, I believe recent events have demonstrated the need for such a news vehicle, but The Lord did not see fit to progress the idea and so we submit to His will and continue walking.
Cliff’s reply:
Your memory is excellent and it is such a help to recall the steps we took and all the efforts that you and Charles put into life on Sunday. You were holding a vision for a Christian newspaper before I joined you and then we had regular meetings up in Bawtry. Dear John Huckett used to drive me in his Volvo and we had wonderful fellowship.
You were right about Tim Green who was the man who developed credit cards for NatWest, but I don't think we ever asked them for money – that was HSBC – you and I went to see the head guy at Canary Wharf – I forget his name – I think it was Stephen someone but I must look up my records – we asked him for half £1 million to get us going. I do remember that it was Rowan Williams who put us in touch with him – I was a personal counsellor to Rowan at that time.
I remember we produced a mockup of life on Sunday. I think it was Charles who did that, and I think I still have got a copy somewhere in the garage.