Many in the St Stephen’s church family in the 1980s will remember Mark Ashton, then leading CYFA and living at 4 Thornton Road, and an integral part of our parish and its youth work. He went on to be vicar of the Round Church and St Andrew the Great in Cambridge.

Before Christmas 2008 he was diagnosed with terminal gallbladder cancer, and in the early hours of Easter Saturday it claimed him.

Some of us met Mark for the last time last July, at a party thrown for him by Mark and Jenny Aston with many invited from the St Stephen’s family, mostly past—including several from the 1980s youth group, now in their 40s and with children of their own—and a few present. At that time the cancer was not giving him any outward trouble and he gave a truly inspirational talk on how much he was looking forward to meeting Christ. His passing will no doubt be hard on his family and the rest of us who mourn, but Mark has most definitely achieved his life’s ambition.

John Forrest filmed the talk.

Mark’s short and strikingly honest meditation on facing the final stages of life, On My Way to Heaven, appeared in Evangelicals Now. It has been also been produced in booklet form and is available to purchase.

Obituaries have appeared in Cambridge News and The Times.