Constable-turned-reverend dies after short illness at the age of 82
A former Shropshire police officer who caused headlines when he left the force to become a priest has died after a short illness at the age of 82.
The Rev John Durnell was also a prolific taker of notes, ranging from his bus trips and cycle trips, to recording local events and incidents.
The funeral was being held today at Llanfyllin church at 11am.
Mr Durnell lived at Hirnant, near Penybontfawr, Oswestry. As a youngster he lived in Barnfield Crescent, Wellington.
His working life was nothing if not varied. After leaving school he went to work on the railway at Newport in 1948, then served in the RAF, including at RAF Bridgnorth.
After leaving the RAF he returned to the railway at Donnington. Then he served 12 years in the police at various places including Nesscliffe, before taking a completely new direction – becoming a man of the cloth.
Ordained in 1966, he was a curate at Newport and then was rector at Church Aston for 11 years until 1977, before later taking up the role at Weston Rhyn and Welshampton.
During his wartime childhood, he kept notes and diaries, recording aerial incidents and accidents and often visiting crash sites.
In his collection of memorabilia, he had a rare, and possibly unique, memento of a V1 flying bomb which landed close to Newport on Christmas Eve in 1944.
It had a payload of propaganda leaflets purporting to be letters home from British prisoners of war.
Apparently, these leaflets were considered so sensitive that the authorities assiduously went round collecting them and forcing anybody who had picked them up to hand them over.
Later Mr Durnell was given one of the leaflets by a woman who was a lorry driver on the railway at Newport.
His habit of taking notes seemed to run in the family as his father Alf kept a series of diaries of his service in the Great War, and his grandmother also wrote everything down.
