On Thursday 23rd May, 2024 at 11:30am a service of thanksgiving for the life of Dame Ann Leslie was held at St Bride’s Church, Fleet Street. Download Order of Service (pdf)
The Revd Canon Dr Alison Joyce delivered the opening:
As the Journalists’ Church, we often hold memorial services for well-known and highly respected figures within the industry. But Ann Leslie was one of those rare journalists and broadcasters to whom all the superlatives really do apply: because her contribution truly was outstanding – and her achievements were all the more remarkable given the massive obstacles she faced when starting out, as a woman in an overwhelmingly male working environment.
Indeed, I suspect that Ann may never fully have appreciated quite how significant she was, not least for women of my own generation. When I was at university, hers was virtually the only female voice regularly heard on the airwaves as a commentator on events: and her intelligence, her insightfulness, her courage, and her independence of thought shone out: she was always worth listening to, even when you didn’t happen to agree with her.
I know that I am far from alone in the immense debt of personal gratitude that I feel I owe her.
And very importantly, Ann was also a person whose family was always at the very centre of her life – giving her the love and stability that made all else possible.
In celebrating Ann’s life here today we have so much for which we can be thankful.
Ann was born in India, and she retained a deep love of the music of that culture – so it is a great delight to be able to incorporate some music on sitar and tabla later in the service.
We begin now with an opening prayer by the priest and poet John Donne.
Let us pray:
Bring us, O Lord, at our last awakening Into the house and gate of heaven, To enter into that gate and dwell in that house Where shall be no darkness nor dazzling, but one equal light; No noise nor silence, but one equal music; No fears nor hopes, but one equal possession: No ends nor beginnings, but one equal eternity In the habitations of your glory and dominion, World without end. Amen.
Addresses
Paul Dacre
Laurie Taylor
Readings
Michael Leslie read 1 Corinthians 13
13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful;
5 it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
6 it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.
7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
9 For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect;
10 but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away.
11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.
13 So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Michael Fletcher read Adlestrop by Edward Thomas
Yes. I remember Adlestrop—
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.
The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop—only the name
And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.
And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.
A tribute by Katharine Fletcher, from the British Journalism Review
Janet Suzman read Killing My Own Snakes from Ann’s memooir
Tom Conti read Memorial by James Fenton
We spoke, we chose to speak of war and strife –
a task a fine ambition sought –
and some might say, who shared our work, our life:
that praise was dearly bought.
Drivers, interpreters, these were our friends.
These we loved. These we were trusted by.
The shocked hand wipes the blood across the lens.
The lens looks to the sky.
Most died by mischance. Some seemed honour-bound
to take the lonely, peerless track
conceiving danger as a testing ground
to which they must go back
till the tongue fell silent and they crossed
beyond the realm of time and fear.
Death waved them through the checkpoint.
They were lost.
All have their story here.
Music
The choir & organist of St Bride’s performed the following anthems and songs:
Venus from The Planets – Gustav Holst arr. Arthur Wills Ave verum corpus – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Miserere – Gregorio Allegri Gloria in excelsis Deo – Antonio Vivaldi Main theme from Pather Panchali – Ravi Shankar (performed by James Pusey – sitar & Denis Kucherov – tabla) Graceland – Paul Simon arr. Robert Rice Toccata & Fugue in D minor BWV 565 – Johann Sebastian Bach
Hymns
He who would valiant be
Lord of all hopefulness
Jerusalem
