Honours for Church Elders

PARISH NEWS

Margaret Moodie MBE

SOME people like to take things a bit easier when they hit 90 – but for one Edinburgh pensioner, rest is not in her vocabulary.

“I don’t have time to rest,” says Margaret Moodie, elder at Palmerston Place Church and as of the New Year, MBE.

“I was awarded it for my work for and with deaf people in Scotland and people with terminal illnesses; it was a lovely surprise!”

Margaret’s charitable work really started with the birth of her third child, Rosemary, who was tiny and needed special care. Her deafness was diagnosed at a year old and she attended the Primary Nursery Department of Donaldson’s School for the Deaf.

“The staf were wonderful and I learned how and what to teach a deaf child.

“I realised then that she was going to need a lot of extra attention and work, because so much of life depends on communication and she would need language.

“My husband and I decided we did not want her to be a sign language user – we wanted her to be able to communicate with everyone. At the time, Donaldson’s College and School for the Deaf in Edinburgh was principally teaching sign language but I decided to look beyond that.

“I was referred to a Miss Rider, a retired teacher of the deaf, who taught a small class of children lip reading and spoken English. “It was a very labour-intensive and time consuming process. To teach a child to lip read you have to get them to associate an individual object with the shape the word makes with the mouth.

You hold each object to the lips and speak the words so that the child is not just seeing the object, but also seeing the lips making the shape of the word at the same time.

“It can’t be done for too long at a time, because it requires a lot of concentration on the part of the child, but with the ef ort came the rewards.”

Her daughter’s disability brought Margaret fully into the world of the deaf, and like everything, she dived in and became completely immersed.

She was involved with the National Deaf Children’s Society and represented the charity on the Board of Governors and the Board of Management of Donaldson’s College. In 1973 she contacted David Kossof, the actor and storyteller.

He was of ering to perform free for charities who were trying to raise money, and Margaret thought he’d be an ideal attraction to raise money for the Deaf Children’s Society.

“I contacted him and he agreed to come to Edinburgh, but he wanted to combine charities to give more people a chance.

“I agreed to that and in the end I think there were four charities in our group. One really good thing that came out of it was that I met the people who were trying to raise money to set up a hospice in Edinburgh, and that became St Columba’s Hospice.

“I thought it was a super idea and I did some volunteering with them as well. I used to drive day patients there to attend their clinics, worked as a tea lady taking cups of tea round to the patients and I work in the shop from time to time.”

After a lifetime of working with charities, Margaret sees no need to settle down and take it easy.

“I have so much energy,” she says. “Why would I want to?”

Thank you to the readers who got in touch to tell us of two more Church of Scotland stalwarts who were named in the New Year Honours List.

Sine MacVicar, an elder in Kilmore and Oban Church, was named MBE for services to education and the community. Ms MacVicar is the former head teacher of Dunbeg Primary School.

John Matheson, an elder in Nairn Old Parish Church, receives a British Empire Medal for services to music, culture and charity. John, a former ambulance man, is a leading member of Nairn Pipe Band, a broadcaster with Moray Firth Radio since 1982, and is a volunteer driver for local community transport.

This article appears in the April 2018 Issue of Life and Work

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