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This is a text-only version of an article first published on Thursday, 16 October 2014. Information shown on this page may no longer be current.
IAN Bensted has devoted his life to ensuring people in the south-east of England, and parts of south-west Uganda, have adequate water and sanitation services.
The retired civil engineer and Licensed Lay Minister tells Jo Duckles his story.
Ian and Ellie Bensted.
Ian, who was born two months after the start of World War Two, was brought up in Orpington, Kent, and now lives in Oxfordshire with his wife, retired adoption worker Ellie.
I met the couple at their home, around the corner from St Nicholas Church, Fyfield.
They had just come from a Bible study group for 10 people. Ian, a founding member of the charity WATSAN Uganda, described his childhood: "I remember crouching under the dining table with my mother, sheltering from the doodlebugs, and the disturbing images of the relief of Belsen.
I asked my mother why those poor people couldn't be given food. " Ian was walking home from school as a five-year-old when the last but one German V2 demolished homes nearby. Despite the War, Ian had a secure upbringing with parents who were churchgoers and a father particularly who had a real Christian faith.
"I became really interested in Christianity through a school friend whose family were missionaries in Burma during the war.
They had recently come home and impressed me.
The way they lived and behaved showed me what being a Christian was really about. "I gave my life to Christ when I was 16 after I had begun to understand the all-embracing nature of the Christian gospel.
It's given me a moral compass, meaning, purpose and inspiration for my life ever since. "Ian studied civil engineering at Bristol before joining the Metropolitan Water Board, the organisation then responsible for London's water supply.
Later he was involved with the reorganisation of around 140 water and sanitation organisations that became what we now know as Thames Water.
His career saw him working on the planning and construction of deep tunnels that bring water to customers across the Thames region, and reservoirs, including the Queen Mother Reservoir at Datchet.
His involvement with developing countries began in the 1980s when he became the newly founded WaterAid's voluntary Engineering Advisor in Uganda.
He ran the London Marathon 12 times for WaterAid. Around that time Thames Water was privatised and Ian later led the planning and development of the Thames Water Ring Main, an infrastructure deep below ground, much of it underneath the London Tube system, which now supplies water to homes and businesses in the capital. "It was in the year 2000 that WaterAid decided they needed to move into some particularly challenging areas of northern Uganda", says Ian.
To enable the work in North Kigezi to continue, Ian, with WaterAid's blessing, got together with friends in the UK as founder members of the UK support arm of WATSAN in 2002, serving the project jointly managed in the field by the Church of Uganda Dioceses of North Kigezi and Kinkiizi. Ian became the chairperson in 2006, and WATSAN became a registered charity.
The WATSAN Ugandan team provide health and hygiene education, as well as fresh, clean water and basic sanitation to villages, including eco-toilets, which produce fertiliser for crops.
"As far as we are concerned encouraging and supporting this work is a way of demonstrating our Christian faith in deeds as well as words. " WATSAN UK's support and fundraising work is carried out by Ian and Ellie together with four other experienced Trustees, several of whom have previously worked in Uganda. Having met in their church youth group, Ian and Ellie were married 47 years ago, after Ellie had graduated with a degree in German and English, and completed her social work training in Oxford.
They lived in Blackheath, London, for 35 years, and moved to Oxfordshire after Ian retired and began international consultancy work, advising Thames Water on new businesses across the world, and governments in the Far East on the management of water services. Ian had been an LLM in the Southwark diocese since 1978, and continued with that role in Oxford.
"I was fortunate to receive a pretty good grounding in the foundations of Christian faith at Christ Church, Orpington, particularly in the authority of the Bible, and that it is 'by grace we are saved'.
There is no way we can earn our salvation by doing good works, but obedience to the moral compass set out in scripture is paramount. "Ian's main hobby is golf, and he and Ellie are keen walkers who have climbed all the 188 peaks over 2,000 feet in Wales.
Three years ago 30 WATSAN supporters, including their patron, Bishop Andrew of Aston (now Bishop elect of Guildford), walked the 26-mile Mary Jones Trail to raise funds for a new vehicle for WATSAN.
Ian is an LLM in Fyfield with Tubney and Kingston Bagpuize, and he and Ellie have links with St. Ebbe's in Oxford.
They have three children and seven grandchildren.