Here are my Notes accompanying the various displays at the Mary Celebration Event on 18 September 2021, updated and with some illustrative photos (sadly we couldn't embed these so they are all together at the bottom of the page). Unless otherwise credited, all photos © Auriel Glanville, to whom much thanks.

One of Mary’s longest running successes was in the home baking etc. part of the Merton Horticultural show. She entered for the first time in 2004, tied for first that year with a lady who had won many times previously, was then outright winner for the next 8 years and was undefeated when the show was cancelled by LB Merton, hence still holding the winner’s cup

Her mother and father were both helpers at the parish church of All saints Putney, with father as crucifer, and her mother responsible for much of the flower arranging. Mary learned from this and decided to enter this category at the Merton Horticultural show, winning the first prize at the second attempt.

On the video running at the Event was a clip showing her receiving the two cups, and which can be seen elsewhere on the mary-hart-2021.muchloved.com website as well as below.

The World’s Original Marmalade festival had only been going a couple of year when Mary entered for the first time in 2008, and was best in show in 2009, and continued to enter until she physically couldn’t any more, but by then had trained Michael and I to continue the tradition. The jars of marmalade, jam and pickle on show at the Event were from that era, of course. It was a great pleasure for us to ask those attending to take one as a consumable memento of the day.

Mary had been encouraged to enter the marmalade competition by good friend Keith Cooke, then running a fresh food stall at Merton Abbey Mills, and who was a fan of all her preserves. Through him she was introduced to Philip Watts who, with Jeremy Hobson was writing a comprehensive guide to chutneys, etc. The book seen at the Event [photo needed] was the outcome, with many of Mary’s recipes, interesting comments from top chefs and a warm acknowledgement and with it the work book where she detailed the relevant recipes. On the video being shown then were some clips of Mary being filmed demonstrating techniques to support the book.

When Mary took to her bed, she was unable to handle the frames needed for the cross stitch but had been told she needed to keep arthritis in her fingers at bay by other means. She took to knitting, and the jumpers she produced and gave away as gifts are renowned locally as 'Marys'. 

She also had great pleasure in knitting baby blankets, and baby toys as her contemporaries started having grandchildren.
There are, also, the jumpers for another neighbour loaned for this occasion, and to show the range of her knitting, the heavy Aran sweater she made for me with its intricate cable stitching.

Mary’s great knowledge of the works of Arthur Liberty and William Morris were of much help to the Wandle Industrial Museum and when the Priory Trust decided that the Chapter House should acknowledge those traditions as being based on the same site, Mary created the displays here in the Chapter House, and loaned some of her collection to display, and dress the ‘ladies’. The photo here shows me speaking with Sarah Gould, L. B. Merton’s Heritage Officer with some of the blocks in the foreground 
Finally, there was the knitting she was working on at the end. I am told an expert knitter can ‘read’ this work and say when her final decline started. She was knitting to the end, even when falling in and out of consciousness.

Her significant printing block and scarf collections, and her library is destined for the Wandle Industrial Museum, but on the strict basis that these were loaned out whenever needed.

With her background in fashion and in textile chemistry, Mary was the obvious choice to take charge of the Wandle Industrial Museum’s block printing works shops, and continuously refined the process. Since she had to give this up on becoming bedbound, the team at Wandle Industrial Museum have continued to build these procedures, Mary having passed on all her knowledge made it clear that nothing was cast in stone, and continual progress should be made. Although her travelling set up was on display, the photo below is from a successful printing day at a Chapter House opening event.

Mary typically regarded any one she knew as part of an extended family, and her extensive Birthday Card calendar was merely one example of this.

For example, one family’s grandchildren grew up with a tradition of Mary Christmas cakes – each receiving a box of mini fruit Christmas cakes individually decorated.
This other display illustrated involvement with a neighbour’s family - Here were 4 photos of the special cakes she decorated for that family – a Christmas cake, wedding cakes for the two daughters and one for a silver wedding anniversary - together with cross stitch framed pictures she made for them.

The cat shown in the bottom corner of the choir photo below was one she made on the spur of the moment when my mother had to move into sheltered accommodation where pets were not allowed, having had cats all her life. Receiving this unexpected gift made the wrench a little easier.

The marquetry tray is not one of Mary’s but her father’s. he took up this craft in his long final illness, and the quality is clear to see. For balance, a sampler stitched by Mary’s mother when she was barely 13, together showing the influences on Mary’s childhood which allowed her to develop the skills she had. For completeness, her award as a Queens Guide, which showed how she had already started to use those skills is shown here. [new photo needed]

A separate display in its own right showed the costume worn by Auriel at many demonstrations over the last 15 years or so – the Statue of Taking Liberties.
Auriel rang Mary in c 2004 to ask if she would help make a headdress for this costume.
Within days the two had got together and during one long and creative afternoon the complete outfit emerged. It has featured many times over the years, often captured in newsprint, and is destined in due course for permanent display in a museum.

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, her parents put in the hands of the wonderful John Bate, the choirmaster at their local church, All Saints, Putney. 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 Choir, and it was a great pleasure to us (and them) that they were able to come and sing for us at the Event, with pieces from Mary’s favourite composer, Faure – excerpts from the Requiem, and the complete Cantique of Jean Racine.  It was very moving. For a short extract - see videos below

 
The event was built round the choir’s performance and, most importantly, our recreation of a Mary tradition – a soup-based lunch in the Chapter House. Mary had insisted I write down the recipe for the two staples – a vegetarian and a chicken soup – and I we did them justice.
Alison and Claire had provided more and more valuable support on these occasions, and it was a great comfort that they were both able to do so for her again on this occasion