being "Pretend it's Sunday Reverend, and keep your hands together", or that it was Sheppard who said "Sorry Fred, I should have kept my hands together". One couple in Australia asked Mrs Sheppard if the Reverend could christen their baby, but she advised them not to as he was bound to drop it. Sheppard played his last Tests against New Zealand in early 1963. Ecclesiastical career Sheppard was converted to evangelical Christianity whilst at Cambridge, influenced by Donald Grey Barnhouse, and trained for the ministry at Ridley Hall, Cambridge from 1953 to 1955, where he attended the lectures of Owen Chadwick and Maurice Wiles, and was much impressed by a visiting lecturer, Donald Soper. He was involved with the ministry of E. J. H. Nash. He was ordained in 1955, serving his title as curate at St Mary's Church, Islington, but continued to play Test cricket sporadically until 1963, being the first ordained minister to do so. From 1957, he was warden of the Mayflower Family Centre in Canning Town. Sheppard became Bishop of Woolwich (a suffragan bishop in the Diocese of Southwark) in 1969, and Bishop of Liverpool in 1975. When installed as Bishop of Liverpool, he was the youngest diocesan bishop in England. He was an active broadcaster and campaigner, especially on the subjects of poverty and social reform in the inner cities, and opposition to apartheid and the tour to England by the South Africa national cricket team scheduled in 1970. Sheppard worked closely with the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool, Derek Worlock, on these issues, and was often an outspoken critic of Margaret Thatcher's government. The Queen visited both Liverpool cathedrals in 1978 to celebrate the long-delayed completion of the Anglican cathedral, and Pope John Paul II visited both cathedrals during his tour of England in 1982. The bishops worked together in the aftermath of the 1981 Toxteth riots, the 1985 Heysel stadium disaster and the 1989 Hillsborough Stadium disaster. Sheppard also worked with other church leaders in Liverpool, including the Methodist chairman John Newton. He gave the Dimbleby Lecture in 1984, on "The Other Britain". In 1985 he was appointed as a member of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Commission on Urban Priority Areas, culminating in the publishing of the controversial report "Faith in the City". He was national president of Family Service Units from 1987 and chaired the religious advisory committee for the BBC and