Winifred's spoons.

I made a cup of tea and got a spoon out of the drawer to stir. It's one of Winifred's spoons.

Winifred was a parishioner of mine back in the 70s. She was a lovely old lady, well over 80, with a mind like a razor and the confidence to speak it. She liked to see new things being done, new ideas tried out. She was mentally much younger and more flexible than people 30 or 40 years her junior. We got on very well. Every week on Friday I took Holy Communion to her at home because she was too frail to get to church. I took the Book of Common Prayer (1662) along first time, as I would for all the older parishioners. Winifred insisted on the New Service (what soon became the 1980 Alternative Service Book). None of that old-fashioned claptrap for her! Enough. I loved Winifred dearly.

Early one Saturday morning Winifred's landlady phoned. Winifred was not responding and she was afraid she had died in the night. Would I please go round at once. I did, and indeed Winifred was dead in her bed. I gave her the last rites and the necessary formalities began.

The Vicar took her funeral in the parish church, with me assisting. I thought he got that wrong. Winifred and I were close, and she would have wanted me to do it. But maybe I could not have held back the tears.

In his address the vicar said that I had taken Winifred the sacrament the day before she died, so she had died in a state of grace. I thought "What? Is the God we believe in such a being as would penalise a fabulous (and deeply Christian in the best sense) old lady if I had not celebrated Holy Communion with her in her final hours? Is he the kind of being who would punish her if between receiving the bread and wine from me and her death she had entertained some wicked thought? If so, I'm out of here."

Within two years I had left the employ of the Church of England, although it took the death of another close friend before I finally walked away mentally, emotionally and publicly, from Christian belief.

Winifred's landlady gave me her cutlery. I still have her spoons and use them almost daily in the hope that some of Winifred's valiant freshness of mind might yet rub off on me.