M is for MAUD

I only got to know her in her senior years. She was a bit of an institution around our parts and having been born during the reign of Queen Victoria, shared a middle name with the same lady and was very much a lady herself. I think my first real contact with her was sometime around my seventh birthday, when mum decided that I should play the piano and, to be honest, I guess I wasn't initially averse to the idea. I had seen the old lady they called Maud many times because she had been playing the organ in our church since shortly after the resurrection. Well at least that's how it seemed for nobody every told me about any other church organist who had gone before her. She seemed a pleasant woman though many people said she ruled the choir with an iron fist, figuratively speaking but I was prepared to take a gamble and go along with mum's plan for my tuition.

Her organ sat in the middle at the front of the church, just in front of and slightly raised above the choir which she surveyed from her throne. It wasn't a modern instrument and relied completely on the energy she could transmit to her legs to pump the bellows and thus make a sound. She was a well qualified musician, knew the difference between sharp and flat, could sing in tune and had a thorough grasp of the keys in front of her, even into her very latter years. Every Sunday, she would play the introduction to the first hymn or Psalm and as everyone was rising to their feet, would raise the singing to her accompaniment in a voice that was loud, clear and assured. As long as I can remember, she drove an old black Austin car, the sort where the indicators appeared out of a gap on each side, just behind the doors and the car would 'roar' up to church every Sunday morning without fail and also during the week for the choir practice. Mum and dad though, remembered a time when she had no car and regularly completed the three mile journey both ways by bicycle, even in the unkindest of winter weather. She was a marvellous choir leader and always had the choir in perfect working order. It was her life and very clearly her calling and she undertook her role always with enthusiasm and dedication.

Wednesday night was music night. Sister and I would be whisked off by dad the few miles down the road, sometime after tea and deposited in the old one storey house that had seen better days. It seemed to consist of three or four main rooms with the music room at one end and separated from the kitchen by a bedroom, all of which were reached by a small corridor just inside the front door. Dad spent the time chatting to her husband, beside the old hearth, where turf burned and pots and griddles still hung, suspended in the past. The music room itself was overcrowded with three people as we competed with the piano, an organ, a few stools and an armchair for space, but we were joined most evenings by Maud's Cocker Spaniel, who lay slumped in front of the fire or on the armchair along with the occupant. A small fire struggled to stay alive in the grate and all manner of things seemed to exist behind the piano, but I never dared venture northwards to explore. And she was a great teacher, belying all rumours that her rhythm beating stick often beat knuckles that didn't play properly. We got along famously and the half hour flew. She thought I was great because I could sight read pretty good and to be honest it helped me get through many lessons when my home practice had been almost non-existent. When the lessons finished, she would mumble something and disappear into the middle room, always returning with a chocolate bar or sweets for each of us and there was method in her madness, for the lure of the sugar always brought us back the next week, even if we had to share a seat with the Spaniel. We both passed several exams with her and because she was highly regarded by the examiners, so were her pupils.

In her final years, they put up a plaque in the church to commemorate her faithfulness in over forty years as organist and I think it also represented a heartfelt thank you from all those parents who had taken their first musical steps under her guidance. She and her husband are long gone now and often I drive past the entry where her house once stood and remember fondly of the lady who gave her life in the service of others. That's true Christianity to me, for it's too easy to talk the talk and not walk the walk. When the disciples argued over who would be the greatest among them, Jesus rebuked them by saying 'If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all." He further reminds us that to serve him we must serve others when he says ''I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' And after all, we are only following the example of the Servant King.