One of Mahala’s many attributes was thinking ahead. She put more thought into today’s events than anyone, I think. I just hope we can do justice to the many written pages of notes that she left us.
She was born in 1928 in Bristol at the home of her mother’s family, the Griffins. Her parents, Ivan and Elsie were each stars in their own right in D'Oyly Carte Opera, the British light opera company that staged Gilbert and Sullivan's musicals. But money was tight and they were away a lot, separated in more ways than one, which meant that Mahala spent much of her early life with her grandparents. Mahala remembers tension during her father’s short visits, and felt afraid of him.
Her memories change tone considerably when Mahala was about six. Ivan met people in Moral Re-Armament (now Initiatives of Change) who had a vision for the world, starting with personal change, then on to your family. Ivan and Elsie began to mend their marriage, and in subsequent tours theatre managers who remembered the old Ivan were amazed at the new one. What is more, he took Mahala up to see his family, who she hardly knew, in the Lake District, and began teaching her the basics on which his new life was built. This included early morning times of quiet in which father and daughter together sought ideas and guidance from God. Anyone who knew Mahala in later years will recognise this firm discipline.
Life was still turbulent at times. Ivan left in 1938 for another Gilbert and Sullivan tour in Australia, where he eventually spent the whole of the war. Elsie was going to join him, but was prevented, and the ship she would have sailed in was sunk. Mahala remembers the air raid sirens going every day in Bristol.
By the end of the war, she had decided, without telling her Mum, that she wanted to be an actress. And to learn an additional skill which could keep up her income when she wasn’t on stage, she trained as a hairdresser in London. There she began to get to know some others of her own age who were engaged with Moral Re-Armament. They had plans to use stage plays as a way to foster better industrial relations in Britain, and eventually reconciliation across Europe. So - should she stick to her own ideas for her life, or join them, unpaid?
She clearly found this a difficult choice. She remembers what she calls “a ghastly gathering at the back of the theatre” facing up to the choices involved. For her, it felt in retrospect like a moral choice to be made before the God she listened to each morning – ‘will I sacrifice my nation for my selfishness or vice versa’. Her notes say little of the vision and excitement that must also have drawn her towards it.
She chose to stick with her new friends, and found herself touring British coalfields, then Germany, and finally India and Pakistan.
Typically, she says little about the roles she herself played. Did she feature on stage? Did she do the hair of those who did? We know she helped with costumes. Probably all of these and other things too. Her notes about that period are a series of highlights and quotes about the positive effect they were having. She threw herself into it, working long hours.
She was invited to America to do similar work, not only the USA but many parts of Latin America too. Never starring, always in supportive roles and always in demand. I once asked her what had been her best years, and she referred right away to those times in America, and her written notes suggest the same. By the time she came home she had acquired another skill – catering for large numbers of people.
She lived many years in a community in a Moral-Re Armament house in London that opened its doors every day of the week to welcome people from Africa, the Middle East, Scotland, Ireland, service personnel, shipbuilders, miners, and others, offen in conjunction with plays at the Westminster Theatre. Hospitality and good food were part of the warm welcome people received. Mahala produced delicious meals with recipes from all parts of the world, and also passed on her skills to younger people.
The number of pots and pans she brought to her flat at Morden College years later attest that she intended to go on with this.
In 1962 Mahala’s mother developed throat cancer, which meant she could no longer sing. And her father had a heart attack. Mahala devoted an increasing part of her time to looking after them in their flat in Barnes. She was no shrinking violet, and living alongside her two loveable but volatile parents was quite a challenge. Perhaps it is in these years more than any others when she learned to take herself out of the picture by concentrating on others. This certainly is a quality many of us who knew her in later life remember. Her parents moved to Morden College in 1980.
Mahala loved to go to concerts and to visit art galleries – she greatly enjoyed both art and music, and wrote to her friends about exhibitions she had seen.
Australian pianist Penelope Thwaites writes: “She became a life-long friend, always interested in artistic life. She was very much her own person, with a sense of humour and a certain perspective, born of a colourful theatrical background. She was courageous, outgoing, generous with her friendship.”
Veronica Craig, who knew her well, remembers:
“She was very imaginative, creative, and had extremely high standards. I remember one afternoon when she arrived in the kitchen where we had been cooking lunch and saw a real mess! She immediately announced, ‘I can't live with this’ and got out a bucket and brush!
"She also had a great sense of humour that lightened things when they were difficult!
"Mahala was extremely loyal and she did care. There were always cards at Christmas and birthdays wherever I was in the world.
"I think she was very wise in her decision to go to wonderful Morden College and felt so grateful for the way they looked after her there for a long time.”
"She moved here to Morden College in 1998, living here just over 25 years. And it’s true that in many ways the residents and stall here became like her family. On her 90th birthday she told a friend, “I used to rush through life always busy. Now I've come to know God in a much closer way - my heavenly father, taking my hand, like a little child who trusts her father as I cross each road and go through each day."
Now she has crossed her last road, and gone home to join both her earthly parents and her heavenly father.
And Dr Marshall Craig, Veronica’s nephew, writes:
“While very sad in one way, her passing also feels like a final release. I imagine her finally reunited with her beloved parents...
"Auntie Mahala treated me and my sisters as an extended family, and sent us presents consistently when we were younger. Only when I had grown up did I discover that she had collected every thank-you letter I had sent her over the years. I learned this because she waited until I visited with my wife, Sun-Young and handed over her entire collection. Sun-Young was delighted, and I was deeply touched. What care, what thoughtfulness, what generosity.
"When I visited her in her latter years before dementia took hold, Mahala remained highly active, with all her activity seemingly dedicated to helping others: visiting other elderly people who lived alone, attending the IofC weekly meeting. She confessed to me that she was determined to improve her French and had books and audio tapes ready to that end, but was simply too busy - meeting, writing to, and otherwise caring for, people - to ever get round to it. Mahala's was a life of service: humbly, persistently, trying her best to do her best, to do the right thing, and to be of service to those who had need.
"Where she is now, may she rejoice in the company of those who love her."
English
