Friends, we are meeting her today to give thanks for the life of Mavis de Mierre. We are also sharing our memories of her and celebrating her life, which touched so many of us in so many different ways. Roz has given us some practical points, and so it’s now my turn to build on those.
First the music that was playing as we came in was from Mavis’s collection of CDs. It was from JS Bach’s Goldberg Variations, which some of you may recognise, and it was chosen for us by David Seddon with whom Mavis shared much music-making. Afterwards there is going to be a collection for Quaker Homeless Action, and that was work which was very close to Mavis’ heart, and following which we hope you will stay for refreshments and take time to talk to others and share your experiences of Mavis. And during that time, Sarah, Pravin, and Joe’s family will meet, when they are ready, in part of the garden where Mavis’s ashes are to be scattered. Her name will also be recorded on a memorial board which is just downstairs opposite the entrance, and that records the names of Friends whose ashes have been scattered at the Ring O’Bells.
Today we meet here in the form of a Meeting for Worship, held in the manner of Friends or Quakers. We meet in silence, in the spirit in which grows a sense of communion with each other and beyond - whether you wish to describe this in religious terms or as a reflection of our deeper feelings. Sarah will now speak about Mavis, and then Annique will take us into our Meeting for Worship.
I suppose Mavis was the glue that has bound us all together today. I knew Mavis during her latter years – the last ten years or so of her life. And we are all sum of many parts and it has been interesting for me finding out about Mavis, the woman she was.. Mavis was born in the Wirral in 1929. Her childhood attendance at Chapel gave her her rich knowledge of Bible and tradition. She studied music at Manchester University and taught in various establishments for some 33 years. I think she enjoyed her work. I know that with one group of 16 and 17 year old mentally handicapped students at Tameside College, she embarked on an ambitious mixed media project, involving music, drama, poetry and dance. She liked doing imaginative, different things. She was good at seeing an opportunity and seizing it. I think a turning point in her life was the six months she spent at Dartington College, where she had never worked as hard or been as happy.
Early retirement gave her the chance to branch out. She became an official practitioner of Bach Flower homoeopathic remedies. She set up small groups to offer music experience to young children and their parents, and some people here today I know have come because they were involved in that – and it’s a delight to have met you. She trained adults to work with early-years children. A very successful enterprise was the collection “Start with a Song”. Creative writing and poetry became a focus of her talents and energy, and she enjoyed working in groups, sharing her interests. In 1989 Mavis met Anne Davis, and they worked together on a unique art-music project, and exhibited their work in various places in Britain. She produced a suite of music for Lyme Park, followed by another suite in 1990 about Bramall Hall, which was performed there by Chethams musicians. She wrote a song cycle with David Seddon and a set of piano pieces with poems by Roger Iredale, which reflected her love of the Peak District.
Mavis once said to me “You find what you need and need what you find”. I think that described her long-term relationship with her partner, Joe. They complemented each other and were a great source of mutual support. They shared an eclectic taste in music and literature. They enjoyed holidays: a trip to the Venice carnival, dressed up for a masked ball – anything that was a bit wacky or different! Mavis enjoyed beauty and took pleasure in art in the broadest sense. The views from the bungalow never failed to console and inspire her.
Mavis found in Quakerism an expression of her concern for social justice, and an opportunity for spiritual growth and independence. She was a much-loved member of our Quaker community. The Christmas Celebration was a joy not to be missed. She organised it all, and she quite frightened us actually. And woe betide anyone who fell short of her high expectations! We loved her and we’ll always have fond memories of her. Thank you.
In a moment we’re going to move into the meeting for worship and in a Quaker meeting for worship everybody is equal in their involvement so we hope to hear from some of you. At the end of the meeting, or towards the end, I’m going to ask Mary Holt, who is a very long-time friend of Mavis, involved in music, a very fine musician herself, but also involved in Mavis’ music for a long time. So she’s going to play at the end, two pieces, two epilogues that Mavis wrote for her song cycles. The words of these two pieces were inspired by two of Mavis’s favourite pieces of literature: one by Robert Louis Stevenson and the other from Shakespeare, and David is going to read them for us at the end, before Mary plays them.
So, still yourself, with the support of those around you. Reach down in the quiet into your memories of Mavis, into your love of her and the joy, the laughter and the creativity. You may wish to share a memory with us or you may have an insight to offer us which has come to you from Mavis’s life and your memories of her. We do ask you to be brief-ish, with some silence for reflection in between each contribution. If you can, it will help if you stand. Any one of us may speak – vocal ministry, as Quakers call it, to express our feelings of love and insight. Do not be concerned about delivering a well-formulated speech – simply speak from the heart. At the end of the meeting the Elders here at the front will shake hands to signal the close of the meeting and that will be after Mary has played. And to take us into meeting I’m going to read a poem written for Mavis by Roger Iredale who Sarah mentioned, and he wrote it in the final weeks of her life and it meant a great deal to her. I think it is a good way to journey into our inmost thoughts and feelings, and it’s called The Music of Life: for Mavis de Mierre.
THE MUSIC OF LIFE
for Mavis de Mierre
Without the silences between the notes,
there is no music.
Without the valleys, hollows, deeps between the hills
there are only plateaux.
Without the nights there are no days on this,
the swerving planet,
where joys exist only by the virtue of our sorrows,
where God is powerful only by the mystery
of Its absence
and life’s magic is captured in randomness.
At centre is the primal force
that reaches out to all of us.
It holds us with its timelessness
its myriad sensors join us all
it links our common colours
in one unending huge humanity,
it joins our past and future to the Now
It radiates us with the light
of unseen ancestors.
These are the valleys through which we voyage,
these the notes that serenade us on the journey,
these the sorrows that our joys make bleaker,
these the sadnesses that lighten days less sad.
The planet swerves,
glinting at the edge of darkness,
filling us with gifts of light and thankfulness
for all that it has taken from us,
and all that it can give.
Roger Iredale 2008
That splendid and thoughtful poem by Roger Iredale, who used to be a member of this meeting, contained two words side by side which just struck a chord with me, and those two words were “common colours”. An abiding memory of Mavis, on a Sunday morning, was to see what uncommon colours she was wearing. She had wonderful long, flowing dresses and shawls and scarves, and all manner of things, and it was something bright and vibrant – or it might be subdued but it was always different and totally individual, whether it was kingfisher blue or some subtle orange or something. And she didn’t seem to mind that she was coming into a Quaker meeting which has got historical connections with greyness and drabness. She was like a light, and it wasn’t just the light of the colours, it was the light of her own individuality, and then of course there’s many more things about her, but that’s one thing I shall remember - the blues, kingfisher.
My name is Ian Price. I did make some notes but I’ve left them in the car, which is now half a mile away, which is perhaps just as well. I’ve known Mavis since I was fifteen years old and I’m fifty three now so that’s quite a long time. I arrived in her ‘O’ level class and then she took me through ‘A’ level and what I’d like to say is that she was the most superb teacher I’ve ever come across in my life, even going on to college and university after that - I’ve never met such another teacher who was so superb as she was. If I’d not met Mavis then my career would not have been a musical one, I can honestly say that.
She taught in a very special way and she made four-part harmony for instance very very easy for us to understand, because we were all a bit thick. And when she looked at your work, one of the things you weren’t allowed to do in those days was write consecutive fifths or octaves and if you did she could just smell them like that, and she’d mark them with a big red felt tip pen. And we’ve actually been friends ever since.
In her later years she would actually ask my advice on her music. One of the things I remember was the song cycle, one of the last things she wrote. She’d actually come round to my house because she was preparing the CD for the Christmas celebration here and we had a better computer than hers. She didn’t understand computers anyway – she hated them, so she used to come out to our house to do that. And she brought along the manuscript of this Childhood song cycle and she said to me would I have a look at the piano accompaniment, she was very happy with the tunes but would I just check over the piano accompaniment. So I had a look and I could see right away – consecutive fifths, consecutive fifths. So I said to her, do you want me to tell you whether you’ll like it or not, or do you want me to put a red ring round them? And she gave me a little slap on the wrist and said “I know they’re there. Those are there for effect!” At the same time I showed her a little bit of my work, I had just done an arrangement of Silent Night for my choir’s carol service, and I showed her that. When she had marked my work at college, the best I ever got from her was “satisfactory”. Never got better than that. Sometimes it was as bad as “rubbish”. She looked at this particular thing and she said “That’s satisfactory. That’s better than satisfactory – it’s really quite good.” So I thought I’d bring some copies of that and leave them on the piano afterwards so if anyone here is musical and wants to have a look at that then please do so. I’ve also had a very long letter from Liz Robinson, which is too long to read out to you now but I’ll also leave that out at the end.
Just one last thing. When Sarah phoned me about Mavis’s death I felt very very sad indeed. One thing came to mind as soon as I put the phone down. I used to have very long discussions with Mavis on a sort of spiritual level and one of the main things we would argue about was that she thought we couldn’t know absolute truth in this life, and I would argue that you could, because faith in itself is a way of knowing. We never really came to any conclusion about it but when I put that phone down just one verse of the Bible sprung to mind and it’s a verse from Paul (I don’t know where because I can’t find my concordant anywhere – if somebody can enlighten me afterwards that would be great). It’s when Paul says “Now we see dimly but then we will see Him face to face.” And I feel absolutely sure now that Mavis knows that absolute truth she was always searching for. Thank you.
I just want to say a few words about Mavis. I can’t possibly sum up everything that I know of that she did, particularly when she was with my Dad, and all the places they went, but I’ve just got a little something here and it ends with a poem which my Dad wrote which you might like to hear.
Mavis and dad were always leading busy lives. They enjoyed many wonderful times together: all their holidays, both in Britain and abroad, the concerts they attended, local events, scarecrow spotting being one, and trips out and about locally, particularly up in the hills and villages. One of the trips they enjoyed was a helicopter flight over Kinder a few years ago. A previous attempt at the flight had been cancelled due to bad weather. When the day of the next flight came round and there was thick snow everywhere, they again expected the ride to be cancelled, but no it was finally going to take place. They had a wonderful view of Kinder and the surrounding area, all covered in snow, Dad managing to get the co-pilot’s seat so he could do some filming. Mavis was very apprehensive at first, but thoroughly enjoyed the experience. She seemed to be more worried about my driving on the snowy roads on the way there and back, this being silently expressed by her knuckles turning white as she gripped onto various parts of the car!
Another of their adventures was a garden party at Buckingham Palace. While they were down in London they also met up with Giles and Camilla. I came across this little poem about the trip, which I thought you might like to hear. I think my Dad wrote it. It’s actually entitled “Not Christopher Robin”.
We’re going down to Buckingham Palace
Just Mavis and me, never mind Alice
We’re seeing the Queen on Wednesday at the Garden Party – hip hooray!
I’m a big boy now, I don’t want Alice
Just Mavis and me at Buckingham Palace.
We’re seeing Tom Levitt, our MP
And watching the Members having their tea.
It’s a good job we’re not taking Alice
Heights, or ice cream – they don’t suit Alice.
We’ve booked our seats on the London Eye
With Camilla and Giles up into the sky.
She’d have been sick, would Alice
We've Saturday free, so where shall we go
We’ve booked to see a West End show.
She can watch them changing the guard can Alice
We’ve had enough of Buckingham Palace – and Alice
And of course there were lots of other happy times too, but obviously I’m sure other people have their own memories as well. I’ve also brought with me today, from Mavis’s friend Betty on the Wirral, a little history about some of their early life together which I can put up on the board if anyone would like to read it afterwards.
My name is Mike Abrams. My wife and I, Joan, taught with Mavis at Tameside College. Joan can’t be here today, she’s on a walking holiday in Scotland, but she’s written out a few words about Mavis and Joe that I’d like to read to you. I’ll add a little bit after I’ve read this. These are Joan’s words.
“My memories of Mavis and Joe are about how they would support their friends. In the early ‘80s in Glossop I stopped teaching and decided to work in the wholefood coop. One of the ideas we had was to start a restaurant in the shop itself, cleaning the shop floor on Friday nights and putting tables out cooking meals in the kitchen. This was not exactly your health and safety era! Mavis and Joe were the first to arrive on the very first evening. I can picture them now, at the two-seater small table in the corner underneath a food shelf, with Mavis bending forward and enjoying the meal.
So, whenever I could, I went along to the many new events that Mavis had over the years. You don’t easily forget when people support you. Then in later years whenever Mike and I had a Christmas event, usually 27th December, from mid-afternoon to mid-evening, Mavis and Joe would invariably arrive first and probably go first as well, but you could set your clock by them! Very fond memories, Joan Abrams”
I’d like to add just a little bit. Whenever I used to see Mavis and Joe I always used to ask Joe what the stars held for us and recently I found a tape, thirty years old, that they did a few weeks after our daughter was born. I had sort of dismissed this tape, because the one thing I could remember from it was that they said our daughter would be good with a knife. She’s very good at cooking, so maybe that is some sort of prescience, I don’t know, but I was just listening to this tape yesterday, and it’s so spot-on I couldn’t believe it. And whenever I used to ask Joe what the stars held for us I can see now, listening to that tape, exactly what he meant.
I’m a former colleague of Mavis’s from Tameside College and this may kind of link in with what Ian was saying because in a strange kind of way we pick up some of the friendships - in my own case in words more than music although we cross over a bit.
I first met Mavis one day in June 1973 in Tameside College when she managed to persuade a very conventional, cautious Principal to appoint me. Since that fateful occasion she took a special personal interest in my progress and defended me in several potentially difficult situations with senior colleagues. We also worked closely together in various team teaching activities with students from many departments. Though Mavis rarely fronted operations, she was always open to creative possibilities, exploring new ideas, engaging students with fresh experiences, getting them to take on things they’d never dreamed of maybe. We were very different people and yet there was an empathy in our aims and methods, cross-referencing between art forms, searching for chinks of light in the creative process. I think our students really enjoyed themselves.
After her retirement we continued our friendship. Although Mavis was busy with her own creative projects which flowed and flowered in many directions, she spent a lot of time supporting other people. In my own case she edited several drafts of novels, short stories and poems. Whilst always encouraging and positive, she didn’t shirk from honest and hard appraisal. Joe recognised that she really enjoyed this process and would comment – “Why haven’t you sent her anything?” if there’d been a gap of two or three weeks in the flow of work.
What had already proved to be a glorious Indian Summer for her in retirement, culminated in some very fine literary work. Mavis was creatively engaged in her writing right up to the end of her life. I can imagine that she must have felt fired up in those last few days, as her work got darker, full of pulsating rhythm and sharp humour. In the hospice she asked me to read pieces she’d just been writing. “I value your opinion” she said. “After all, you are are my teacher.” “No, No, you’re wrong, Mavis”, I said. “You are my teacher.”
To the end she was always so modest about her own efforts, which I’m sure many of us feel deserve a wider audience. During the last few weeks I’d explained to Mavis that I was singing in Orlando Gibbons’ “The Silver Swan”. With that winsome, knowing smile of hers she said how much she adored this piece, not least because of the words. There may be a chance to listen to the piece afterwards, but the lyrics I believe express how Mavis often thought about herself, as the swan who had “no note” or, at least, not having sufficient “note” – not as most of us no doubt saw her, as someone so full of words and music.
The Silver Swan who, living, had no note
When death approached unlocked her silent throat.
Leaning her breast against the reedy shore
Thus sung her first, and last, no more.
Farewell all joys! O death, come close mine eyes
More geese than swans now live,
More fools than wise.
We really enjoyed lessons with Mavis, me and my sister Alice, and Mavis helped me make lots of new friends like Emma and Paula and we also sing the songs she taught me in school.
I’ve known Mavis for about 26 years. I’m not quite her daughter-in-law, but I was Joe’s daughter-in-law, and these are my two children. I got to know Mavis more when Camilla was born to be honest, and they really enjoyed going to the house, and we’ve got lots of wonderful photographs which unfortunately we couldn’t share with you today because they’re all back in our house in Switzerland. But there are pictures of Camilla sat in a fabulous patch of daffodils outside the house at about 5 or six months old, and four years later the same patch of daffodils was housing Giles, who was a little bit wobbly because he was about 4 weeks younger than Camilla, age for age.
They’re wonderful memories, and I think the thing that sticks in my memory was the music room. It was a real treat. We would get there and the children would be polite and have tea and they would be itching – when is she going to invite us into the music room? And then she would invite them in and it would be wonderful, but it was very controlled – they weren’t allowed to just bang everything. It was very much an introduction, but they really enjoyed going on their visits to Joe and Mavis’s house, it was always a huge pleasure to them. I can’t say that my kids are musical actually, but I’m sure that had they had that gene in them to be musical, then Mavis would have definitely brought it out in them, but then I’m not musical either, sadly. I think I’m almost tone deaf, but we did certainly very much enjoy those days and then as the children grew up, she and Joe were very imaginative.
It’s a characteristic of the pair of them actually, they were eccentric and imaginative, and although they were eccentric, they were actually disciplined eccentrics, which is a funny thing to say, but something like the patch of daffodils was very carefully thought out, so that it could be seen from the windows in the springtime when they probably didn’t want to go out. And the cherry tree was placed in a certain place, and all this sort of thing, so it looked random but actually there was tremendous order there. I think that’s the sort of thing with Mavis, she was seemingly sort of eccentric and exuberant – the colours as you’ve mentioned before were fabulous and I will always remember the sort of turquoise blues and things like that of Mavis’s, in fact I even thought about wearing it today in her honour, but you never know with these things. She was a fabulous lady – I haven’t written any notes, I’m going to sit down now!
I think most of us, being British, tend to hide our light under a bushel, to use a biblical term, and to keep our inner life very much inside and then present another sort of outer life to the people around us. But with Mavis I get the impression that her inner life was also her outer life and there was no difference between them. She let her soul shine out to people in all that she did and in all the areas of life that she was involved in. I had a great admiration for her.
To me, Mavis was an inspiration. I first heard of her in 1993 when I started taking my eldest daughter Emma to a lovely music group led by a lady called Ruby Fitton. Ruby had taken her own children to Mavis and used many of her songs and actions in her sessions.
And other mothers told me about Mavis - a fantastic retired lady who had a wonderful way with young children, wrote her own songs and held music sessions in people’s homes. And I later contacted Mavis, went on one of her fantastic training courses, and this inspired me to go on and lead my own group. And I was then privileged to host Mavis’s Buxton group when it stopped travelling round various homes for quite a few years in my home after my youngest daughter had left the group and started school. And it was just a joy and a privilege to watch Mavis at work and I never stopped learning from her.
She was not just a talented musician and composer, she had a magic touch in bringing music to very young children and she was one of those rare beings who could genuinely teach people how to teach. Not only did she inspire and lead by example, but she was able to articulate in meticulous detail and clear step-by-step instructions how she did it. Mavis was passionate about bringing music to everyone. Through her courses and her writing she made delivering good quality musical experiences accessible to all teachers of young children, especially to non-music specialists like me, who lacked confidence in their musical ability. She had gift for simplifying, explaining and demystifying music teaching. She gave people the confidence to have a go and enjoy sharing music with their children.
It was not just with music and words that she had a special way, but also with movement and actions. Children adored going up to sit on Mavis’s knee to do the actions to a song and with great glee would hop like a frog or be blown like a leaf back to their places.
With the children Mavis made singing trains and bridges, built snowmen and bonfires, made autumn leaves drift and fall, and conkers drop. She dripped water drops on their heads, swam like fishes with them in a sea of blue chiffon scarves, splashed in the bath and in puddles and quacked with little duck Jack. They bounced up and down, popped up and down, and leapt up with a swanee whistle. Shakers shaked and jingles jangled. Frogs sat in bogs, woodpeckers pecked, elephants thumped and hippos said how do you do. At Christmas snowflakes fluttered down and the room was illuminated by tiny finger candles. Mavis had a song for every passing moment and if she hadn’t got one, she would arrive at the next session with a new one that she had written specially.
It was her ability to simplify and add humour that was so special. She simplified music, words and actions to the natural pace of the pre-school child, and then she laughed with them. When Mavis perched on a small stool in front of a group of children she twinkled. You could see it in her eyes. She delighted in the children and was tactile, sensitive, musical and fun. Her gift of listening to the children and adapting the sessions to their responses was wonderful to witness and her skill was in giving each child the opportunity to contribute in whatever way they felt comfortable. Like most gifted teachers she knew her children individually and gently and joyfully coaxed the best out of them. She was supportive and encouraging to all, particularly the parents of a new child who was timid or over-enthusiastic. Mavis knew that in time the music would bring them into the group.
Above all else Mavis was generous: generous with her knowledge, praise and encouragement and passionate about transferring all she’d created to others. She was generous in the way she encouraged people to start their own groups and she was passionate about recording and publishing her original songs, music and methods. She took well-deserved pride in the success of her book and CD, secure in the knowledge that her songs and style would live on, not just in the work of the many teachers she had personally trained but in a new and ever growing wider audience of people who bought her book. Mavis was loved and respected by so many parents and children in Buxton and beyond. She had wisdom and warmth, she was thoughtful and sensitive, musical from her head to her toes. There was no-one like her and for so happy memories and for all the music you have given, Mavis we thank you.
Mavis loved words, we know that. She loved music, and these two loves sparked off her creativity. She loved the sound of words and that influenced her choice of words in her children’s songs. She used the right words, they sparked off the right tunes, she had the right personality and she could bring it out of people. And these two pieces by Mavis were sparked by poetry, but the pieces are Mavis. You can hear her speaking. It’s a very, very improvisatory style.
The first piece is the Shakespeare: it comes from Hamlet.
Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long;
And then, they say, no spirit can walk abroad.
The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike;
No fairy takes, nor witch has power to charm,
So hallowed and so gracious is the time.
(A piano piece was played at this point.)
Bright is the ring of words
When the right man rings them;
Fair the fall of songs
When the singer sings them.
Still they are carolled and said
On wings they are carried
After the singer is dead
And the maker buried.
(A piece was played on the piano at this point.)