Reverend Richard Coles announces death of civil partner David
‘Celebrity vicar’ and Radio 4 host Reverend Richard Coles announces death of civil partner David who had ‘been ill for a while’ in heartbreaking tweet thanking hospital medical staff
- Richard ordained in 2005 and entered civil partnership with Rev David Oldham
- He tweeted news of David’s death in poignant tweet to his
- He partnered Jimmy Somerville in The Communards before turning to God
- Couple were celibate and lived together in Fineden, Northamptonshire
The long-term partner of Reverend Richard Coles has died after a long illness, the star vicar revealed today.
Rev Coles, 57, who partnered Jimmy Somerville in the 1980s band The Communards before being ordained in 2005, said Reverend David Coles, 42, passed away having been ‘ill for a while’.
The celebrity vicar, who appeared on Strictly Come Dancing in 2017, entered into a civil partnership with David after the Church of England allowed it in 2005 – but they were celibate.
Reverend Richard Coles has revealed his partner David (left) has died in a moving tweet posted this morning
Rev Coles was in The Communards with Jimmy Sommerville and they made millions from a string of hit singles before he turned to God
The couple, who lived together in the vicarage of St Mary’s in Finedon, Northamptonshire, revealed the sad news on Twitter this morning and posted a moving picture of them together.
Reverend David Coles with Mary Berry recently – he met Richard while in neighbouring parishes and were in a celibate relationship
He wrote: I’m very sorry to say that Rev David Coles has died. He had been ill for a while. Thanks to the brilliant teams who looked after him at Kettering General Hospital. Funeral details to follow’.
He then quoted Isaiah 60:20: ‘The Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended’.
In his previous life he had been the instrumentalist half of the Eighties pop duo The Communards, who had a Number One single Don’t Leave Me This Way, and a number of other hits which made him millions.
He grew up in Northamptonshire and his parents, who were shoe manufacturers, sent him to a minor public school where he was a chorister and, to his horror, realised he was gay.
In his late teens he took a drug overdose, partly because in the Seventies being homosexual ‘was like being a paedophile now — it was a life which seemed to offer only disgrace’.
Coles moved to London where he met Jimmy Somerville, the Scot who became his singing partner in The Communards. Success came fast and they had the UK’s biggest-selling single of 1986.
But Coles was not entirely at ease with this sudden fame. He felt he was the gawky, bespectacled, musically trained geek who physically towered over the extrovert Somerville, but was otherwise lost in his friend’s shadow.
Friction grew, and it was against this backdrop of drug-fuelled rowing that Coles invented the deception which eventually drove him towards God.
In 2005, he was ordained into the Anglican priesthood, and now lives a celibate life, albeit in civil partnership with David Oldham, a 37-year-old curate in a neighbouring parish. They met when Oldham went to hear Coles preach in Norwich seven years ago.
Church of England rules dictating the celibacy of ministers in civil partnership coincided with their own sex life ‘fading away’. They sleep side by side and kiss, but only chastely.
Coles says there is ‘nothing creditable in the Church of England’s position on gay relationships . . . the Church should repent of its hostility to homosexual people and beg forgiveness for its treatment of the gay community’.
In the meantime, he might have to rely upon the tolerance, if not forgiveness, of his bishop.
Coles is ready to be unrepentant: ‘Sex in lay-bys and telling a lie about being HIV might be too fruity for the Church of England,’ he has said. ‘But I’m not going to apologise for telling the truth.’
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