[This assumes 4 previous speakers will have dealt with various reasons for Mary’s popularity. ]

Good morning and thank you all for coming. You may have wondered why the pipe music for the entry of the coffin to the Church. It's this – Mary has been helping me make decisions for almost 50 years, and she is still doing it!  Mary’s father was a Putney lad who was conscripted into the Highland Light Infantry during the war, and came back a committed bag pipe man, and even had his own set. He carried a war injury for years and was seriously ill when this version of Amazing Grace headed the charts in 1972. Mary had always said we should remember that. So we did.

Other choices you may think the boys and I made – the coffin, the planted tray, etc. were all Mary’s choices. The garland of flowers was actually bought by her in the weeks before she died to dress our windows. She was never strong enough to tell me how she wanted them, but she has them now.

On only one thing have I disobeyed her – she wanted a simple, no fuss, cremation. I had to overrule her – it was she who told me that funerals were for the living, and it is of them we should be thinking when making these arrangements. So I did.

You will have heard from [Susan, Alison, John, Michael and David] about many of the reasons why losing Mary from our lives is such a wrench for so many people, so I won’t dwell on that.

I do think a bit of her early history will help explain how she became the person she was.

Mary was born in 1948 to a mother who was an expert seamstress (having done much of the sewing on the little overcoats in the pictures of our Queen and her sister as children) and from a long line going back to the Huguenot influx which brought so much of our fabric industries to life. Her father was from an East End family which had relocated at the turn of the last century to Putney. He was a keen sportsman, and had represented the army at football, alongside many professionals, during the war. Sadly, because of war injuries, his lungs were failing, but at least he was able to coach Mary in her sporting endeavours.

Despite potentially crippling diagnosis of cancer of the nose at an early age, which left her unable to speak and (as she thought) much disfigured, she battled through. Her parents were both regular churchgoers at All Saints Putney, her father serving as an crucifer there, and Mary was put in the hands of the wonderful John Bate, the choirmaster. He taught her to speak again (hence the cut glass accent) and sing. Strangely, John can not remember doing anything special, but he did. What goes round comes around, and she was later overjoyed to return the favour by becoming a patron of the choir John founded, now known as the Thames Philharmonic.

Her father’s sporting pedigree told, and Mary became a county class swimmer, and represented England in the under 16s hockey team against Scotland, played at Wembley. Sadly, the hockey injuries left her with a continuing pain in her knuckles, and a damaged hip. The hip brought her early to her bedridden state, but her determination to not let her knuckles seize up partly explains the huge output of craft work she produced over the years.

While all this was going on, she went to the Mary Boon school in Kensington whose speciality was in fitting out girls to become expert housekeepers, and adept at all the relevant skills, from which we have all since benefited. Here she started developing the textile skills which dominated the rest of her academic career. We know she had a harder time there than she might, because her new posh accent made her different. Luckily her younger sister Jean created a protective group for her and I always thought ‘St Trinians’ whenever Mary referred to this.

Needless to say, she was a Girl Guide, with the 5th Putney (All Saints) group, and became a Queen’s Guide in November 1964. At Guide camps during this time, she was always the Quartermaster, responsible for supplies and cooking. We can tell how well she fulfilled that role, as ever since it was said of her that she never knowingly left anyone underfed!

She left school early and instead of A levels took her City and Guilds intermediate and final qualifications in Tailoring and design between 1964 and 1968, and then, extraordinarily, after a short period in Savile Row, left home to move to Leeds and there gained a first-class degree in textile chemistry.

It is a family tragedy that the textbook on the subject she authored at that time exists in university libraries (Michael found an example at Kingston when she told him what to look for) but we have lost the details – it had to be published under a male pseudonym because the publishers wouldn’t accept that a mere girl could possibly have anything to say on the subject!

This echoed the chastening experience following her high marks in the City and Guilds Finals, which would normally have meant an automatic invitation to become an associate member of one of the City Guilds at the graduation ceremony, only to have that withdrawn, on stage, when they realised she was female.

Being apparently overqualified, jobs were impossible for her to find, so she became a dental nurse at the Berwick’s surgery in Upper Richmond Road (and very good at it, sufficiently so that the nurses at the Brompton Hospital allowed her to support Bill Berwick when he attended there for the tooth extractions then necessary during heart surgery.)

She was still working there when we met in 1972, and subsequently when we got together 2 years later. By then I was already fully aware of her catering skills and had much quiet amusement when my mother thought that this ‘young thing’ needed to be taught how to cook and look after me. Mary let her down gently.

Although marriage seemed a happy inevitable, the final decision was accelerated by her father’s increasing ill health. We announced this in December 1975 and were able to arrange fix a date for the 28th of February 1976 (a Leap Year, of course!). Many assumed this speed was a prelude to a trip to the maternity hospital, and were disappointed whin this was not so.  Mary had every hope that by hook or by crook her father would walk her down the aisle. When it became clear his failing health meant that would not be possible, a church wedding was abandoned (because no one else could possibly take his place) and we married at Wandsworth Town Hall. Our first home together was in the flat I rented in Knightsbridge. Her father died in May shortly afterwards, but at least had been able to see us return home for the wedding breakfast.

Our first born, Louisa, came in August 1978 and then Michael in October 1979, at only 26 weeks and just under 2 lbs in weight. Michael’s long struggle at Kings College Hospital in Brixton inspired her to become an ardent supporter and fund raiser for BLISS (Baby Life Support Systems). We had by then moved to Wandsworth. Following David’s birth in 1981 we finally moved to Cherrywood Lane in May 1982, her death on May 7th this year marking exactly 40 years since then. Much work was needed here, and Mary moved in, supervised the builders, and made friends with the neighbours despite the noise so it was safe and ready for us all to join her (having camped out with her mother and sister in Putney until then).

The children were a handful, and it was obvious that it would be difficult for Mary to return to work, so she became, in her words, a ‘household engineer’ full time. She was early into her ‘good neighbour’ role, acting as emergency carer for an elderly neighbour when the neighbour’s adult son couldn’t cope.

It was in 1985 that an act of extreme generosity on her part drove home to me the person I had married. By then, Mary’s sister Jean and her brother-in-law Tony had been married for some 6 years, and were childless despite desperately wanting children. Jean was a Guider and would clearly have made a wonderful Mum. During a period when both boys and I fell seriously ill during a camping holiday Louisa went to stay with Jean and Tony. When eventually we came to collect her to come home it was clear a family tragedy was unfolding. Jean and Louisa had bonded in an extraordinary way, and it was obvious to us that it would break their hearts if we forced Louisa to come home.

In the end there was only one decision we could make, the balance being tipped by an additional factor. Louisa had been struggling at her primary school (which was going through a very bad period) and in her two months in Putney going to the local All Saints C. of E.  school had blossomed academically. Mary’s tearful decision to let Louisa stay and be adopted by Jean and Tony enhanced all their lives so hugely that our loss became irrelevant, and Louisa's carreer path to successful academic proved at least in that we made the right decision.

Mary now devoted her energies to BLISS, and then, from the late 1980’s the John Bate Choir, of which she rapidly became a Patron. Susan has given their account of he contribution.

By the late 90’s she had acquired additional activities – as secretary of the Friends of Cherrywood and the Merton Library Campaign, and then as membership secretary of the Wandle Industrial Museum. This followed in the 0’s by her increasing involvement with Merton Abbey Mills, Wandle Heritage and The Merton Priory Trust. You will already have heard from Alison and John of her contributions to those bodies. Her marmalades raised money for various projects, and visitors to the Wheelhouse at Merton Abbet Mills can see the wheel turning from inside thanks to the Marmalade Window substantially funded by sales of them.

And now we must turn to her skills. She hated idleness, so by the mid 80’s was working full time on her cross-stitch work, of which there are many examples in people’s homes around the country. Increasingly she became aware of the need to keep her fingers active if the incipient arthritis caused by her hockey injuries was not to stop her, but this didn’t stop her growing extraordinarily long and beautifully maintained nails so she could look as if she lived a life of idleness. Few could believe that someone with those nails could still have such dexterity. In the 90’s she started entering the horticultural shows of the Paddocks Allotment Society, and was a frequent winner of the Ellis trophy, presented to the best all round cook/baker. She gave that up in disgust when one of her marmalades was marked down because the judges thought she had bought commercially prepared peel – not believing anyone could have cut it so perfectly and regularly by hand. She then turned her attention to the Merton Horticultural show, becoming a serial winner for 8 straight years of the Councillor Skeet trophy. We still hold the trophy, as she was the final winner before the show was abandoned in 2011.

One of the markers she has left behind resulted from an intensive afternoon some 20 years ago. Auriel [Glanville] came to Mary, wanting a headdress to allow her to dress up as the ‘Statue of Taking Liberties’ to wear at a climate change demonstration. By the end of that afternoon, it was there, together with the torch. Since then Auriel in that costume has featured in photo reportage from many demonstrations and she intends for it to end up in the Museum of London’s ‘Protest Gallery’ along with  suitable credit for Mary.

During this time, also, as a result of her growing friendship with Keith Cook at the Merton Abbey Mills market, who was an admirer of all her preserves and wanted to ensure she had some proper recognition, she not only entered the World’s Marmalade competition in Dalemain (winning best in show in 2009), but was credited with contributing almost half the recipes used in the “Preserves and Pickles” book by Hobson and Watts,  to whom she was introduced by him, and  published in 2010. One of the photos on the Tribute site is taken from that book.

When Mary could no longer be upright, even sitting, she became bed bound. Cross stitch became impossible to manage from that position, so she turned her energies to knitting. Many of you here are either wearing a ‘Mary’ or have one (or several) at home. I see three fine examples here today.
She was a fighter to the last and could be seen still apparently knitting even when drifting in and out of what we thought at the time was sleep.

She was still thinking of others to the end – in the weekend before she died, learning of how depressed a young neighbour was feeling, she arranged for me to get and deliver a flower for her to show we were always there if she needed us.

Looking at you all here, I must add that by allowing her to be your friend you were doing Mary a great favour. She liked nothing better than talking to you, enjoying your company, sending you cards and random gifts, let alone knitting for you. Thank you for being there for her.

For almost 50 years Mary was the centre of my existence and made me so much a better person than I was. I hope I can continue to make her proud, looking down, but without her it will be difficult. …..

Forgive me if this has been such a long piece, but there was so much to say, and more than I can express now. Thank you for coming, and being here with us, and sharing these memories.

Nicholas
28 May 2021.