There are things more important than politics. Tomorrow, at 11am at Kilmadock Parish Church in Doune, mourners will gather to say farewell to Alice Scrimgeour. Who she? Simply a delightful, compassionate, warm and funny human being, the kind who give Christianity a good name.
In church life in Scotland, the public spotlight tends to fall upon Archbishops and Moderators. Yet Alice Scrimgeour, in her 93 years, has probably influenced as many people in her quiet and inspiring way. Her name will appear in no histories of the Church in Scotland, but her work in the east end of Glasgow was greatly admired by Protestants and Catholics alike.
Brought up in Doune, Alice was commissioned as a "church sister" in the Church of Scotland 69 years ago. A practical, down-to-earth woman, she was also a visionary. After the Second World War, she took over Stroove, a house in Skelmorlie, and brought youngsters from Germany and Scotland together to talk about, and live, reconciliation.
Stroove also became a haven for youngsters and families from poor areas of Glasgow who couldn't afford a holiday. The heart of the house was the kitchen. In that kitchen, people who were often emotionally damaged found themselves affirmed as Alice listened patiently to their tear-stained stories, through endless cups of healing coffee. Her pancakes were famous. One day, a group of boys from Calton and Drumchapel asked her to make a pancake in the shape of the Scottish Cup. Alice hadn't a clue what it looked like - after all, she was a St Johnstone supporter - but she made what she thought it might look like. Result? Young men very impressed that this old woman knew so much about football.
Erik Cramb, for several years minister of St Thomas's, Gallowgate, told me: "Alice clearly understood that everyone has a tale to tell, but not everyone has someone to listen. In Stroove's basement kitchen, there was a kind of alchemy as youngsters, becoming transfixed by the cooking process, would tell their stories." Ministers, too. Several vocations were shaped by Alice's generous kitchen theology.
In the 1970s, at the beginning of the Irish troubles, Alice brought youngsters from both communities for holidays to Stroove. One such group included Roman Catholic twins and a Protestant boy. Alice recalled how, on the last day, as they skipped along the road arm in arm, they said: "When we get back to Belfast, we'll get together." "No," said one of the twins, "when we get back to Belfast, we'll get shot if we speak to you."
Typically, Alice never sought any honours. In 1976, however, The Evening Times annual readers' poll for Scotswoman of the Year elected her by a landslide. She was taken to the dinner in the City Chambers in a clapped-out mini. The owner and driver? Geoff Shaw, convener of Strathclyde Regional Council. Alice was diffident about receiving the honour, but, when she heard that she was to receive the rosebowl from singer Frankie Vaughan, she went as weak at the knees as any love-struck teenage devotee. "He kissed me," was all people could out get of her after the ceremony.
Alice delighted in telling how, in the year that followed, as she did her usual round of speaking to youth fellowships and woman's guilds, she was often mis-introduced as "Miss Scotland" or "Sportswoman of the Year". When she was invited back to The Evening Times dinner as a past winner, the Gallowgate congregation that she served determined she should go in style this time, in a chauffeur-driven limousine, so they hired the local undertaker to do the honours. How Alice laughed when she told that story.
Alice Scrimgeour was one of those women who, by their warmth, commitment and humanity, transcended the indubitably sexist, often patronising assumptions that still haunt church structures. I think of the likes of Lilias Graham, a Scottish Episcopal Church worker, living in the Gorbals area of Glasgow many years ago. She became involved with the Gorbals Group and out of her knowledge of the deadly effects of poverty, she established a place of retreat and hope for struggling families at Braendam, near Stirling. It was an unassuming, untrumpeted, but very effective project, and out of it grew the Glasgow-Braendam link, which has a tremendous track record on Scottish poverty issues.
People like Alice and Lilias are Christian hope bringers. They certainly have been for me. They represent the kind of quiet, unheralded, compassionate work that goes on every day in parishes throughout the land. This is the true heart of the church, the beating heart of the ecumenical movement. It survives defeatist rhetoric, erring priests and judgmental church statements. With Scotland itself at the crossroads, Alice Scrimgeour is now embarked on a different journey. God go with her.
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