My brother, Barrie Scopes, has died aged 80. He was a talented mathematician, schoolteacher, missionary and mission leader, a man of prayer, an assiduous correspondent and a fun-loving family man.
Born in south India, Barrie was the third of four sons in a missionary family stretching back, on his mother's side, to 1838. After attending schools in India and England (Eltham college, south-east London), in 1950 he went to Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he gained a first in mathematics. After teacher training, and marriage in 1954 to Elizabeth (Betty) Robertson, whom he had met in Cambridge, he taught at Sir William Borlase's grammar school in Marlow, Buckinghamshire. The boys loved the way he taught maths: he was engaging, stimulating and induced curiosity in his subject.
He and Betty went with the London Missionary Society to teach in a school at Bishnupur, West Bengal, where he served from 1957 to 1970, during which time he acquired a bachelor of divinity degree from Serampore College and his four children were born.
Returning to the UK in 1970, he served the Congregational Council for World Mission (now the Council for World Mission) in secretarial posts from 1971 to 1976. After a spell teaching at Crown Woods school, south-east London, and Caterham school, Surrey, he served the Council for World Mission from 1980 to 1990, first as general secretary and then as secretary for administration.
He worked long and hard as research officer and then administrator for the publication in 1994 of Gales of Change: Responding to a Shifting Missionary Context – The Story of the London Missionary Society 1945-1977.
In 1985 Betty was ordained as a minister of the United Reformed Church, and Barrie supported her as a minister's husband. He followed her into the ordained ministry, after training at Mansfield College, Oxford, and he served congregations in Kilburn, north-west London, and Hounslow, west London.
He and Betty belonged to the Friends of the Church in India, and he served as secretary to that body for 10 years from 1992. He also helped to form a link between the Southern Synod of the United Reformed Church and the Rayalaseema diocese of the Church of South India.
Towards the end of Barrie's life Betty developed dementia, and he cared for her heroically until his own health required him to go into hospital and her to go into a care home. He will be remembered for his modesty, selflessness, generosity, determination and courage.
He is survived by Betty; his children Jane, Mary, Jim and John; and nine grandchildren.