Paddy and Angela Coulter moved to Eynsham in 2007 after many years in Oxford. Their elder daughter Rachel also lives in the village with her family, while younger daughter Alice and family live in Oxford. This © photo was taken on 14 June 2016.
Born and brought up in Northern Ireland, Paddy was educated at the Methodist College, Belfast (where he was head boy) and at Queen’s College, Oxford, where he studied Greats (classics). As an experienced journalist and television producer, much of his career was devoted to improving the quality of reporting on international development, for which he was awarded an OBE in 2000.
He was Head of Communications at Oxfam, Director of the International Broadcasting Trust, Director of the Reuters Journalism Fellowship Programme at the University of Oxford, Communications Director of the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) and a Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford.
He sat on the boards of many charities, including Comic Relief, Oxfam, Cafod, Practical Action, Unicef UK, the Media Trust, and Equal Rights Group, and he chaired the boards of trustees of both Broadcasting Support Services and the human rights charity Article 19.
Paddy’s death on 3 November 2024 was marked by published obituaries in the Guardian and the Times, together with online tributes from many of the charities he supported, but in Eynsham he will be remembered as a governor of Bartholomew School and as the first chair of the Eynsham Partnership Academy Trust, a role he held from 2012-2018, carefully steering it through its establishment as a multi-academy trust responsible for several schools.
In all these activities, Paddy is remembered for his ebullient personality, intellect, warmth, humour and outstanding ability to connect with people of all nationalities and backgrounds. He is greatly missed by Angela, his daughters Rachel and Alice, his sons-in-law Ant and Ben, and his four grandchildren, Laurie, Ted, Jamie and Lois.