Remembering the inspiration of Br. James Kimpton

Br John Deeney remembers one of the truly inspirational Brothers of our time, Br. James Kimpton who spent his life living the Lasallian values. He was an English Brother who went to work in Ceylon and then in India. He began in Tamil Nadu a work now called Reaching The Unreached (RTU). Br. James, sometimes known as Brother Lionel, died in India after a short illness aged 92, in 2017, but his legacy will continue to have an impact for many generations.

Continue reading for an obituary published by a colleague in the RTU that sums up the man who gave so much to help others.

Rarely can a single person have touched so many lives in such a positive way. Through his vision, energy and loving actions he brought better futures to thousands of children and families over a lifetime of service to the poorest people in south India. He has also left the legacy of a well-respected and immensely effective Indian-run organisation – Reaching the Unreached – based in a small village north-west of Madurai.

Born in Conwy north Wales during the 1925 slump, his family - evicted from their lodgings - were taken in by the local parish priest. James was born in the presbytery and apparently placed on Our Lady’s altar. The family returned to Chester where he grew up alongside three brothers and a sister. Whilst attending St Werburgh’s primary school he served at Mass each morning at the nearby convent, and it was here that the idea of becoming a missionary first took root.

At the age of only 14, James applied to join the De La Salle Brothers after being deeply impressed when a member of the order visited his school and the order's focus on educational service for young people in need.  This choice meant that he would not be ordained as a priest, but would still take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.

A picture James painted of Our Lady, to whom he was especially devoted

He joined the order in 1943, adopting the name Brother Lionel, and from 1947 taught general subjects and art at St Peter’s School, Bournemouth (a school where his subsequent work is still well known and actively supported). After making his final vows and expressing his wish to work with the very poor, he went in 1952 to a school in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) where as well as teaching art he was in charge of the middle school and coached the cricket 1st XI. A subsequent posting saw him starting a printing project to generate income, and a School of Printing for deaf and blind boys. Along the way he became a Master Printer with the British Federation of Master Printers – one of many skills he acquired and developed over his career.

In 1964 the Ceylon government asked all foreigners arriving after 1948 to leave the country, and Brother James found himself in Madurai, a large city in south India. He built a new ‘Boys’ Town’ (an industrial training school giving a trade to destitute boys). This grew to be a big concern with a farm, canning shed and woodwork rooms. Again, along the way he studied mechanical engineering back in Crewe, and also studied child-care.  In 1974 he moved to Batlagundu, 35 miles north-west of Madurai, where he established and developed St Joseph’s Boys’ Village (for younger poor children). His work here made use of volunteers, including several from Britain who are still actively involved with supporting his work. He handed over the Boys’ Village - which then had about 100 boys - to the Indian De La Salle Brothers in 1985, but the work for which he will be most remembered had actually started 10 years earlier.

One Sunday after Mass in 1975 the parish priest presented Brother James with four orphans – two boys and two girls – whose father had starved to death trying to keep the already motherless children fed. But Boys’ Town couldn’t accommodate a family that included girls so Brother James said he couldn’t help. Half way home on his motorbike he sensed a voice telling him to go back for them, and despite his protestations the way ahead became clear – hire a foster mother to care for them – and the organisation he named Reaching the Unreached (RTU) was born in the tiny village of Kallupatti. From those first four children 40 years ago, RTU now cares for almost 1,000 orphans and other disadvantaged children, from the youngest through to those now being supported through college or university. The single family with a foster mother (herself a widow in need) has blossomed to more than 60 foster family groups living in small houses in four ‘children’s villages’, plus seven ‘hostels’ for teenagers and high-performing schools serving RTU’s own children and those from local disadvantaged families. Financial support for the work has come from both secular and religious sources around the world, and in 1978 some of his UK friends set up a charity (with the same name) that is now a key funder.

Brother James always sought to respond to every human need he encountered, with a special focus on the very poorest children and women. So Reaching the Unreached, which he ran full-time until well into his eighties, has provided medical care, built more than 8,700 free village houses for homeless families and the elderly, and drilled more than 2,400 wells for communities and schools. And much more! Brother’s skills developed alongside the needs – he was a qualified member of both the British Society of Dowsers and its American counterpart; his building designs adorn the RTU sites and his paintings of ‘his’ children were appreciated by many. He combined the technical skills needed to direct and manage operations as large as Boys Town and RTU, with the compassion to make certain that these organisations were imbued with values of love and care that always put the beneficiary first.

Brother set the highest standards of integrity and commitment for himself, and he certainly expected it from others. Like many true leaders he was not always easy to work with, but most - perhaps all - respected him, and many loved and admired him. In the recent years he increasingly took a back seat (or so he said!), and has ensured a smooth transition to an entirely Indian team, now led by a Capuchin Friar, Father Antony Paulsamy. But at this time, without Brother James, all at RTU will feel bereft at the loss of their inspiration and guiding light, and the children will mourn their ‘Tatha-ji’ (honoured grandfather).

Despite the early ‘missionary’ calling, Brother James has not knowingly made a single convert. His non-proselytising stance of course fitted with the Indian government’s attitude, but it ran deeper than mere pragmatism. His world-view was truly Christian, and this was well-known to the people in and around Kallupatti. He is quoted as saying, “They know that we don’t try to change anyone’s religion. God converts people, not us. We just hope to make people better Hindus, Muslims, or Christians.” And his spiritual resource was deeply Christian: he depended on prayer and regular Mass to maintain his living out of the gospel.  Maybe no reported converts, but Brother James Kimpton has undoubtedly transformed the lives of many through his dedicated and loving Christian service.   He liked to quote the words of Jesus: “Whoever welcomes a little child welcomes me” and in doing this he found his fulfilment.

There were many tributes paid to Br James by those who knew him best that sum up the impact he had on people’s live:

RTU child

God's gift, I didn't receive, God gifted himself, it was you. Amidst of many gods, you stand tall. Your love has no equivalence. Yathavan

Ajit Mani, Action Aid India

Brother James's reconstituted families were by far what impressed me the most. During the 1980s, the Genguvarpatti area was famous for female infanticide. Brother James didn't think I would want to know, but when I showed an interest, he actually showed me a fairly ubiquitous shrub of Calotropis species, the sap of which would be mixed with milk and fed to female infants. It guarantees a slow death with no trace of the toxic agent. Another method was to add a few grains of paddy to mother's milk in a glass. The grains would get stuck in the infant's throat and cause it to choke to death. Brother James told me that he has actually paid money to mothers to give him the female infants marked for death. Such rescued children would go to one of Brother James's reconstituted families in the Children's Villages. He used to call these children 'eight anna babies' (eight annas is fifty paise or half a rupee). A widow who was prepared to work as a foster mother was given a proper house and monthly payments to bring up 4 to 5 children

 “Where God decides/guides, God provides.”

Two of the many children's portraits created by James

Ian Brady

He was dogged, driven, determined to reach out to the poorest. He would get angry with petty officials who got in his way, angry if things didn’t happen quickly enough. He set high standards – he lived out his personal values every day. Through all this shone his love for the children and the poorest in the villages. He had a simple, but deep, devotion to Our Lady and a strong belief in Divine Providence. He would build houses, open new schools, drill more wells, increase the health outreach confident that the money would come in. He told me never to worry about money – where God guides God provides he would tell me. And he was always right. He kept very few possessions. However he did like his Enfield Bullet motorbike. People knew he was coming to their village as they could hear the sound of the bike from far off. When he did relax he liked to paint – particularly up in the hill station at Kodaikanal when he went to stay with the Sisters at Presentation Convent. I also enjoyed the odd occasion when I persuaded him to go out on a Sunday with his binoculars to do some bird spotting with me. He also loved of an evening to sit and listen to classical music on his Walkman – although now and then he would throw his Walkman away as he thought it was too flashy.

Paul Abbott

In 1978, as a newly qualified teacher, I had offered around 35 missionary or medical organisations three years of my life to work as a volunteer. I received no positive replies, apart from an offer to teach English in a posh school in Jamaica. Disenchanted with the result, I wondered what direction my life would now take. I had become frustrated because I was keen to do something good, perhaps to try to make up for my talent for doing the opposite. This all changed when my mother visited her cousin, a Carmelite nun at Upholland Convent. When asked what the members of her family were up to, my mother explained that four of the five children were happily heading in the right direction but that Paul didn’t quite know what he was going to do. The sister then passed her a letter she had received from Brother James, together with one of his newsletters and she asked my mother to give them to me when she got home.

In the letter, Brother James had asked the nuns to pray for him and his work, so that his efforts might bear fruit. This was a letter that was never meant for me, but reading it changed the course of my life. The newsletter described the work that Brother James was doing. It was proper missionary work - building houses for homeless poor; looking after people with leprosy; feeding malnourished babies and their mothers; medical programmes; providing clean water; assisting the aged, the destitute, the desperate, the people without hope, the orphans, the widows and the dying. Every word was like a laser into my soul and I vowed to help him, if I could. I knew the work would be right up my street. I felt I could trust this man. I also learned that he had some angina at the time and needed to step back a little from the intensive work that he was doing. It appeared he needed a hand.

So I wrote to him the same day, offering him three years. He said, "Yes, but best to come in November because it was over 40 degrees in the shade!". And he added "….and whilst you’re at it, could you also bring 25 turkey eggs with you, some dental amalgam, ten pairs of secateurs, a typewriter …" and a huge list of other things.

Scott Preston

Reaching the Unreached was founded by Brother to meet for the felt basic needs of the poor people with whom he worked and lived with in Tamil Nadu, South India. He could wake up in the morning, walk down to the gates of RTU and find a small bundle wrapped in rags, a baby, abandoned on his doorstep. With gentle and loving hands he would gather up the child, and they would be brought into RTU. They would be washed, fed, given clothes, but more important than all of these things, the child would be given love.

They would now be safe and stay with a family headed up by a foster mother whose sole job would be to love that child with all her heart. Over the years he would sit outside his office, as he did every morning, and these small bundles would grow, and wave to him on their way to school, sometimes shy at first of this tall man in glasses. With confidence that can only be gained through the encouragement and love of others they might say “morning ‘Thatha” and a small smile would rise from the corners of their mouths.

“Do you know what it is like to wait for a first smile on the face of a lost little child? Do you know what it is like to long for the day when the child will recognise security and love and the warmth of acceptance and to show that by a tentative smile? That for us always means a victory.”

Brother had a great belief in Divine Providence; God would provide the tools that he needed to help those around him. It wasn’t uncommon for the Brother to ask his staff to start cleaning a site for the construction of new homes, without having the necessary resources in place. As you can imagine this caused a few sleepless nights for some of the staff! In 1980 when RTU was only just up and running he wrote that

“Of one thing we can all be very sure: God will take full responsibility for the support and continuation of the work we undertake for the very poor.

I now know from long experience all these years that He will work real miracles as astounding as the feeding of the 5000 for work started and continued in the Spirit of Faith that the Holy Founder so frequently asked for from his first followers. This Sprit of Faith is our own particular hallmark and should accompany us in all we do - and that implies complete trust in God's total love, omniscience, gentleness and caring.”

He always said that he had countless stories to show how divine providence always supported his work. One such stories he shared from his time in Sri Lanka involved, “walking along the road wondering where I would find the money to redeem a poor family’s debts to a moneylender. A car drove up and a hand appeared out of one of the windows to give me an envelope. In the envelope was the exact amount I needed.”

Although this belief in the ability of Divine Providence, he was always grateful for the support from everyone who helped him in his work. He saw himself as an ambassador to the poor stating that, “I am only an extension of yourselves who cannot hope to administer to the poor you love. It is you who keep my hands filled with the things I need for the children and people in this remote part of village India”.

Due to the nature of the work Brother found many hardships in working with the rural poor. He fully immersed himself in the lives of the people he worked with and personally felt the deep hardships that these people felt, especially for children and lepers. He wrote in 1993 that, “Things happen in my life among these simple villagers which are so tragic that it is a wonder that tears, real tears, do not flow. Often they seem to flow somewhere inside, deep down and can go on for days, as now”. Although his strong belief in his faith and his love for the poor helped to support him through many of these hardships, it should not be forgotten the thanks and gratitude that he felt to those who supported and prayed for him.

Although there will be a record to count how many children came through RTU’s doors over the decades, you need to look deeper than those figures to see the impact Brother had on those around him. From the leper who had nowhere to go, to have someone, a stranger take them in and care for them, this would make their heart sing. From a villager who used to have to take their water from a dirty stream, to seeing this tall man walking the narrow streets and alleys of their home, with a strange string and crystal swinging in his hand, divining water for them. Many will not have spoken to this man, though would be grateful for the safe water he provided for their families.

Parents of some of the children who had no other option than abandon their child at the gates of RTU, to have heard of a place in which they knew that their child would be safe and loved, this may have given them some comfort when they were in such a hard place in their own lives. Those small bundles left at the gates of RTU who grew up, gained a good education, were supported through college, found a good job and married, their children and grandchildren will hear stories of ‘Thatha’, the man who helped those around him. 

An example of James' calligraphy