“Sometimes I think we’ve all become a bit insular, thinking about what we need rather than what might be needed by others.”

 

These are particularly poignant words from Anne who has every reason to close some doors and concentrate on herself for a while after experiencing great pain in her marriage recently. But that’s not what Anne does.

Anne has a huge heart for people. She has lived a life that hasn’t always been easy, although she considers herself very blessed with her children and grandchildren. Women in crisis have a particular pull for Anne, and she has become a coordinator for ‘Away From It All’ (AFIA) a charity that makes it possible for families in difficulty to have a holiday in Cornwall.

Anne has a great many roles within St Mellanus at Mullion including organising the reader/intercessor rota and being on the pastoral visiting team. She also assists, as verger, with weddings, baptisms and funerals, as well as helping with the flowers and rolling up her sleeves at ad hoc events. Anne can usually found shifting furniture for the current builders, washing up or generally making sure everything is as it should be. The work she does is rarely noticed, unless it isn’t done as well as Anne does it!

But there’s one role she particularly relishes, and that is of sacristan, especially when it involves taking communion to people at home, or in hospital. “Some people can’t get to church, and might not have seen anyone for a couple of days, so it is very special to be able to take church, as it were, to them,” says Anne. As she says, God is where we meet him, it doesn’t have to be at a holy altar. That said, Anne takes a lot of care in making sure the communion service at home, while intimate and personal, honours the reverence of a church service. One lady, she says, always brings out a beautiful, eighty-year-old white cloth for Anne to carefully set out the communion table.

Anne puts her hand up to a secret pleasure. After she has performed her duties and set out the church for a service, she locks the gate and retreats to have a few quiet moments with her Father. “When the sun is shining, it streams in through the tower window and lights up the statue of Jesus on the cross – breath-taking. I just know that He is with me.” Spend some time with Anne, and that’s irrefutable.