Lt Colonel Mary Harwood is the voluntary administrator for the Diocesan COnvention at High Wycombe. She trained as a teacher of Physical Education and Music. After teaching for four years in Bracknell she joined the Army and served as an officer for 21 years. She is now a self employed organist and director of music at St Michael's Church, Tilehurst. Mary has also worked for Girlguiding UK and for the Society for General Microbiology. She is Chairman of the Governors of New Christ Church Church of England Voluntary aided Primary School in Reading and runs their school choir. She is also Reading Deanery lay chairman.
'Everything in my family was done by Christian principles. That was the basis of my upbringing. So the Christian faith has always been part of my life. Like most people I have moved away but never very far and I have come back.
My parents were Sunday school teachers and my father ran the youth fellowship. This was in Tilehurst where I was baptised, as were my two brothers and my sister. My father and my brother sang in the choir and were servers. One of the biggest treats, if you behaved yourself, was being allowed to go to Evensong with my mother.
I was confirmed through the Abbey School at St Giles? in Reading. The then Bishop of Reading, Eric Knell, was Chairman of the Governors and was involved in the 20th Century Music Group. Our school choir and Reading school choir used to be taken off to sing Patrick Appleford Rock Masses. So at quite an early age I was involved in what seemed to many to be a revolution in church music.
For me music has always been an important part of how I worship. My parents said that if you had gifts they are God given and you had an obligation to use them. So I played the violin and piano at school and sang and once I joined the Army I started playing the organ seriously. You might have a Anglican or Methodist or Baptist padre but they were always looking for someone to play the hymns.
Peacemaking in the Army
I've never had any reservations about the Army. It was something I had thought about at school though I hadn't been actively encouraged. My father, had he not been invalided out in the War, would have stayed in the Army and one of my brothers is in the Navy. I always felt that we were working for peace not war.
I served in many different places and went to church in all of them. In Berlin I worshipped in the Anglican Church and conducted the Allied Carol Service which included British, French, Americans and Germans. Wherever I went there were very strong officer Christian Unions though they were were probably a little more evangelical than I am Girls often came to me with religious questions. I think they saw I tried to live my life by Christian principles. Even though I didn't always succeed. They knew that whatever their problem, they could talk to me about it.
My time in Northern Ireland affected me in ways I hadn't anticipated. I was looking after all the women, many of them part-time, who were recruited into the Ulster Defence Regiment. They felt so strongly about what was going on, that they felt they had to do something about it, and became part of the peace keeping force, at quite a great cost to themselves. They couldn?t let on to people that that was where they were going at 7.30 pm at night to go on duty for 8.30pm and get home at 2.30am. To this day I still wonder whether I would have had the courage to do that.
Developing young gifts
I rarely went to church in Northern Ireland because I often had to work on Sundays but I know that my faith and spirituality was strengthen by being out there and being with those people. One Christmas I remember writing for my parish magazine at home and saying that suddenly singing 'peace on earth good will to all men' had taken on a totally different meaning because I had seen Protestants and Catholics alike who felt so strongly about what was happening in their country.
I left the army in 1993 as a Lieutenant Colonel in the first wave of redundancies. At the time we only had four women Colonels. I had reached the point where I no longer wanted to live 18 months here, two years there, never putting down roots.
As I was actively encouraged when I was younger to use my own gifts I now encourage young people in their talents. When I came out of the army I worked for Girlguiding UK for two years looking after their programme for young people and I am still involved locally too. As Director of Music at St Michael's, Tilehurst I run a music group and a youth choir, and I get so much pleasure out of seeing them develop.
I am a great believer in offering as many different types of worship as we can, but doing it properly otherwise it loses all its point and becomes an embarrassment. I do enjoy the occasional quiet said service where I can go and just worship, and not worry about the next song or if the choir are behaving themselves. Above all I love being able to go up to the church when it?s empty and playing the organ. That's a moment when I can communicate with God far better than when I am on my knees.
Before I became a freelance church organist, I spent three years running conferences for the Society for General Microbiology. When I knew the Diocesan Convention was happening I said I would like to help with the its administration. I enjoy doing it and again it is an opportunity to use what I have in the way of skills and gifts for the Church and for God. Not in any pious way, but it's what I can do even though it gets a bit hairy on occasions.
My hope is that the at the end of the Convention, which is based on the strands of Sharing Life, we will as a Diocese come away with a clearer understanding of what it is we are trying to achieve and of how we can achieve it. I am quite convinced that those coming to the Convention will take back to their parishes something that is going to grow and develop. One of the most exciting things for me is that large Eucharist at the end of the event. We will all be able to worship together in quite a spectacular way.
My only regret is that I won?t be able to get to all the seminars and workshops as I will be busy with admin. But I have enjoyed being on the Convention planning committee and I am getting excited as we get closer to it and things gradually fall into place. Of course it doesn't happen without me writing letters to people. But I believe that God's hand is in it in all ways; it?s as simply as that.
I haven't had a Damascus Road experience but there have been times where I have been given the strength to deal with things, and where things worked out because God wanted it to work out that way. For instance when I had a neck operation, they told me the day before, and at 10pm the vicar and his wife came to the hospital to see me. He gave me Communion and anointed me and there is no doubt that that had a tremendous effect on the way I felt. Instead of panicking I had a good night's sleep, and complete confidence that all was going to be alright. I am lucky in the way that I was brought up. It is quite natural to expect God to be looking after me.'
 |
Leave your comments on this item
More website comments