EXACTLY 35 years ago a Purton clergyman and his wife were starting a long stay in one of the most dangerous places on earth.

We said: “Looting, smuggling and appalling starvation are just a few of the nightmares in store for a Purton couple who left for a six-month mercy mission to Uganda at the weekend.

“Canon Roy Blake and his wife, Peta, have left their sleepy rural parish to try to help bring back some normality to the lives of natives in Mityana, just 35 miles from the capital city, Kampala.

“Uganda is still reeling from the effects of the Amin regime, when thousands of Christians were persecuted, tortured and even killed.”

(It’s worth mentioning that use of the word “natives” in this context was still par for the course in British newspapers in 1980.) The risk the couple faced was only too real. Brutal dictator Idi Amin, deposed and driven into exile in 1979, had all but destroyed the nation’s infrastructure and left the population reeling and traumatised.

We added: “Home for Peta and her husband will be two rooms in the house of Bishop Yokana. They will have to take six months of basic supplies because stores are depleted.

“Through teaching, advice and encouragement, the Blakes hope to be able to help the bishop rebuild his diocese.”

Peta Blake told us: “It is perhaps the most adventurous thing I have done in my whole life.

“But all I want to do is get out there and help the people.”

The Blakes took with them more than £2,000 in cash and gifts from people in and around Purton, and returned to their home community after their stint in Uganda.

Roy Blake, who had been Vicar of Purton since 1974, retired in 1993 and died in 2005.

Peta Blake became a prominent figure in the campaign for the ordination of women. She was a deaconess by the late 1980s and later studied for a doctorate at an American college of divinity.

A small article in a Purton Parish magazine back issue suggests she eventually relocated to South Africa.