On Ascension Day, Thursday May 1st 2008, Dr Mary Berry died. She had been a good friend to St Birinus Catholic Church and fought the disease that had dogged her right to the end. The June 2008 edition (published May 1 2008) of The Gramophone carried a CD review penned by her.

Since the 1950's Dr Berry's erudite writings in Gramophone and her words on BBC Radio 3 have been an inspiration to your webmaster.

 St Birinus Church was truly blessed to have her and her singing associates to accompany us in our celebration of The Easter Triduum over the last 12 years. Although Mary was too frail to attend at Easter 2008

On Maundy Thursday and Holy Saturday Mary would produce a host of bells to accompany the recitation of The Gloria during the Holy Mass.Small jingling bells, middle and large sized bells AND who can forget the Cowbell that "clonked" its accomapniment to the joyful sound. Like a bullfrog in a field of cowslips.

CB 5-5-2008

Farewell Mary - Rest In Peace.

On May 5th 2008 Latin Mass was celebrated at St Birinus Catholic Church for the repose of the soul of Dr Mary Berry.

In his homily Fr John Osman reminded the congregation of her many merits. Mary Berry was a nun and in her earlier years taught in Belgium. Later she went to Paris where she was influenced by the famous French teacher of Music and Composer, Nadia Boulanger. Mary wrote her doctoral thesis on the subject of "Chant" ( sometimes known as Gregorian Chant, or Plainsong). From this time on she became an authority on "Chant" and like the monks at Solesmes was instrumental in the continuation and reformation of this musical form.

For the first millenium the music used  to accompany Roman Catholic Liturgy was known as Chant. It was possibly derived from the Hebrew, Greek and Roman musical forms extant at the time of the developing Christian church. Pope Gregory in the 6th Century formalised the music used in the liturgy and this continued for several hundred years until the Renaissance established Polyphony as a musical form within the liturgy. By the 19th and 20th centuries the use of Chant was waning and reforms within the church had much reduced its stature and usage. The monks at Solesmes in Normandy (from about 1870 onwards) revived and revised much of the chant from early printed and manuscript sources. Mary Berry in the 20th century continued this reviving and revising crusade and the resource was used again and retrieved from decline.

CB recalls Mary Berry telling him (in the kitchen at St Birinus presbytery) that she and her group were going to Pontigny in Burgundy for Pentecost. A little later, and quite having forgotten her words, CB and his wife were pedalling in Pontigny when a cloudburst drove them into the abbey to avoid and dry out from the storm.. To his surprise the posters were still on the wall and the CD on sale "Pentecost at Pontigny", Mary Berry and The Schola Gregoriana of Cambridge. Mary had got there first.

The bones of three Catholic Archbishops of Canterbury, including those of St Edmund of Abingdon are enshrined there. Pontigny is not far from Auxerre and Vezeley and is a very worthwhile site for an architecturally minded English Catholic to visit.

The picture on this page shows the newly restored lettering on the Rood Screen. + Christus Factus Est Obediens Usque ad Mortem which was completed for Ascension Day 2008

As he writes this page your webmaster is listening to a CD, recommended by Mary Berry in The Gramophone in September 2006  "Lux Feminae 900-1600" A sequence of  songs from the 10th to 17th centuries. Sung by Montserrat Figueras 

CB 5-5-2008

Dr Mary Berry had a deep affection for the St Birinus Parish and requested that she should rest in the cemetery there.

On Saturday May 10th her obsequies began with a Mass at the Hills Road Catholic Church in Cambridge.

On Sunday May 11th her body was received at St Birinus Catholic Church, Dorchester, Oxford. at 5pm. Where it rested overnight before the final rites on Monday May 12th..

At 6pm on Sunday May 12th, Associates of the Shcola Grgoriana chanted solemn Vespers for the dead as the second part of ths Dorchester liturgies.

Requiem Mass at the funeral of Dr Mary Berry in Dorchester Abbey was presided over by Fr Guy Nicholls an Oratorian priest, formerly parish priest at St Birinus Catholic Church. The solemn liturgy was chanted by The Schola Gregoriana.

After the Absolution and censing a procession formed to accompany Mary on her last earthly journey, from Dorchester Abbey to St Birinus Church.

CB sped ahead to act as a front man in the street to deflect the inevitable impatient driver from the cortege and also for enhance photo opportunities. He recalls two incidents which would have amused Mary, were she to have been there in human form.

Firstly as CB left the Abbey there was a small boy(dressed in red) riding his bicycle in circles outside the door. CB decided NOT to ask him to get out of the way, remembering how terrifying one can appear to a child when one is some 60 yrs older than he. In the event the child stood agape at the church door and the cortege passed around him until he emerged from it like Jonah from the whale.

In Bridge End, the approach to St Birinus Church, a parked and unoccupied lorry boomed and jingled music of a populist style. Somehow grating with The Litany of The Saints which was being chanted by the accompanying Clergy, friends and The Schola Gregoriana.

The village streets had that hot day "hum".The Tenor bell of the Abbey tolled its sombre notes.

CB has returned from a short holiday pedalling his cycle in Provence and been able to add further pages to this site.Awaiting his return was The Gramophone magazine for July 2008. It contains an illustrated obituary for Dr Berry and her last review of a CD.

CB - 2/6/2008

The cortege bears left off Bridge End through the gateway into the Cemetery at St Birinus Catholic Church.

Celebrant priests, acolytes, clergy, the Schola singing The Litany of the Saints, friends and the deceased enter the graveyard where Mary Berry is laid to rest.

Dr Berry is interred only a few yards from CB's Father in Law. Recently CB's wife suggested that the shrub (Potentilla) on her father's grave needed pruning and so to start the process during the funeral CB plucked a flowering branch for Mary. A woman who dedicated her life to others, was dedicated to the music of The Catholic Church. A woman who revered the saints not in a pious way but more as exemplars of human virtue.

CB - 2/6/2008