From The Times

October 25, 2006

The Very Rev Michael Mayne

Hardworking Dean of Westminster who was an inspirational writer and conducted Laurence Olivier’s memorial service

September I0, 1929 – October 22, 2006

MICHAEL MAYNE was one of the most able, influential and hardworking priests of his generation. Before he became Dean of Westminster he held some of the Church of England’s key posts: vicar of Great St Mary’s, the University Church at Cambridge, head of religious programmes on BBC Radio and chaplain to Bishop Mervyn Stockwood.

He had a wide knowledge of the arts and of modern drama and his numerous publications, one of which was a bestseller, were attractive weaves of poetry, science and spirituality, with uninhibited analyses of suffering, others’ and his own.

His concern for Aids victims and for Aids carers was intense. For four years he was chairman of the London Ecumenical Aids Forum. Diana, Princess of Wales was among those carers who gathered in the Jerusalem Chamber for mutual support and were afterwards conducted round the darkened abbey in the dean’s tours which learnedly and imaginatively illuminated the medieval monuments and Poets’ Corner. For some these tours were the experience of a lifetime, and he deeply encouraged those grappling with the most intractable of the capital’s tragedies.

He was especially close to the stage and a happy moment came for him when Peter Hall invited him to be a “fill-in” one Saturday at Stratford. His memorial service for Laurence Olivier was both an act of worship and intensely theatrical. Nine actors carried items symbolic of Olivier’s life and work which were placed on the high altar, ending with the sword presented to Olivier by Gielgud and once owned by Edmund Kean.

Michael Clement Otway Mayne was born in 1929 in his father’s country vicarage in Northamptonshire. When he was 3 his father threw himself from his own church tower leaving a brief note and £40 in the bank. His mother, having no house, moved to her mother’s room in a hotel beside St Marylebone Station and afterwards set up a small boarding house. Mayne hankered to become an actor and gave a memorable performance of Hamlet. But he was befriended by the headmaster of The Kings School, Canterbury, who guided him to ordination. He read English at Corpus Christi Cambridge and trained for the ministry at Cuddesdon.

After ordination at St Albans in 1957 and serving as a curate at St John’s, Harpenden, he was for six years chaplain to Mervyn Stockwood, the enigmatic and demanding Bishop of Southwark, who said that Mayne was the best chaplain he ever had. In 1965 he married Alison McKie, whose exceptional qualities as a practical carer were to make their home a staunch source of friendship for many.

Moving to the BBC was a surprise, as Mayne had no broadcasting experience. He was lucky in his colleagues who included Monica Furlong and Gerald Priestland. Mayne disliked confrontation and some felt he ought to have fought harder for cash and time. Memorable among the productions of his day was The City of Dreadful Night, a programme on Calcutta including an assessment of Mother Teresa’s work.

From 1979 to 1986 Mayne was vicar of the University Church at Cambridge, inheriting the leadership of an extremely active community which since the days of Mervyn Stockwood, Hugh Montefiore, Stanley Booth-Clibborn and others had tried to meet the needs of town and gown, sustained by the postwar churchgoing revival in Cambridge.

After five years of pressurised work, this perfectionist priest broke down and was invalided out for a year with ME. Mayne later described the experience in a revealing autobiography, a religious bestseller, A Year Lost and a Year Found. Gerald Priestland saw this small masterpiece as taking us “through a kind of crucifixion, descent into Hell, up towards resurrection.” Mayne slowly moved towards recovery and was appointed to the deanery of Westminster.

For ten years Mayne lived the abbey; his house had a window into the church and was also attached to the cloisters and the school. His predecessor, Edward Carpenter, was a hard act to follow. Mayne rose early and worked late, wandering round a darkened abbey lit only by the car and street lights outside. He read widely, liked silence, and his diary and his commonplace books and particularly the psalms all mattered to him. His and Alison’s discretion and shrewd kindness kept the deanery a haven. He was a meticulously prepared chairman of many bodies — Westminster School governors, the Abbey Liturgical Committee, Cumberland Lodge, the Grey Coats Hospital and St Christopher’s Hospice. He also frequently visited the US where he gave lectures.

Priorities for Mayne were eucharistic supremacy among services on Sunday morning and to devote time, imagination and thought to special services, 325 in the Abbey and 195 in St Margaret’s during his ten years.

Though he welcomed royal and government co-operation he took great care to avoid jingoism and promoted reconciliation.At the 50th anniversary of El Alamein, children from Britain, the Commonwealth, Germany, Italy and Egypt placed bouquets on the altar and the sons of Rommel and Montgomery read the lessons. The Queen came to the 1992 unveiling of the round stone (Mayne had wanted a statue but this was overruled) to Innocent Victims. The event was attended by people representing intense human suffering from around the world, including the directors of the Medical Foundation for Victims of Torture and of Amnesty International. Mayne chose the inscription: “Is it nothing to all you who pass by?” Mayne was also at work on his book The Sunrise of Wonder, described by Ronald Blythe as an “inventory of his joy . . . confronting today’s fashionable cynicism and despair.”

In his final years the abbey was beset by financial problems and overcrowding. A policy of “calming” was evolved which was carried out by his successor. Sympathisers were saddened by the fact that just when galleries and museums were freed from fees, the cost of taking a family to the abbey or to other cathedrals rose to £20 and the number of visitors to Church of England cathedrals was halved.

In 1996 he was appointed KCVO, moved to Salisbury and published two more books, Learning to Dance and Pray, Love, Remember, the latter being described by Alan Bennett as a sort of love letter to the abbey. Mayne’s poor health inhibited stressful decisions. His heart remained with the abbey and he grieved greatly after his retirement, though privately, when the rather public dispute between the chapter and the organist was widely reported.

His books continued to be read and to inspire those who, working from history-soaked traditional buildings, were responsible for integrity and worship in a questioning age. Mayne continued to try to envision the future, in particular for his grandchildren on their journey, and urged the truth and wonder of Blake’s words that we should realise that “we hold infinity in the palm of our hand”.

Though seriously ill he gallantly attended the launch of his last book, The Enduring Melody, an attempt at the end of life to define what stands the test of time.

He is survived by his wife, one son and a daughter.

The Very Rev Michael Mayne, KCVO, Dean of Westminster, 1986-96, was born on September I0, 1929. He died on October 22, 2006, aged 77.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article611860.ece