Dr Sam Hutchinson, Clerk of the Presbyterian Assembly, officially retires on Monday.
In a memorable tribute last June, former Moderator Rev Dr John Dunlop said he was "a peacemaker par excellence - one who calms troubled waters. Unlike some people, who at the sight of troubled water jump in to create a jacuzzi. His indeed is a steady hand and wise head."
Dr Hutchinson was appointed deputy Clerk of the General Assembly in 1985 and Clerk in 1990. Speaking to The Irish Times he recalled "great changes in the whole climate of Northern Ireland. I remember sitting in my office, hearing a loud bang and seeing a car dropping from the sky." There had been a bomb near the Opera House, not far from Presbyterian headquarters at Church House in Belfast. That was in November 1985, the year of the Anglo-Irish Agreement. He remembered seeing 100,000 people outside City Hall opposing that agreement and chanting "Ulster Says No". "Now if there was anything of that nature it would get a sparse attendance," he said. When the old Stormont was prorogued there was great concern. "Not now. Life goes on as normal. I don't think people are too worried whether it comes back or not."
He was Moderator from June 1997 to June 1998, covering the period leading up to and the signing of the Belfast Agreement. He recalled in May of 1998 visiting a community in the Protestant heartland near Limavady and realising the agreement could be accepted when a minister there said to him "our people will vote for it. They have had enough." He did not expect a majority of Unionists would vote for it.
For six years he was on the European Ecumenical Commission on Church and Society, having a particular interest in EU affairs, and he complimented the Irish Government for its assistance in ensuring the Churches were exempted from EU Employment legislation which "could have meant we would have had to employ people unsuitable for the job", he said.
He also complimented the former Taoiseach, Mr John Bruton, for his work on the European Convention in drafting an EU Constitution and in helping to have its original secular humanist preamble toned down.
He has visited Downing Street four times with the main Irish Church leaders to whom he and Rev Edmund Mawhinney of the Methodist Church in Ireland were joint secretaries.
In 1992 he was responsible for a visit by Princess Diana to Church House in Belfast.
