ODETTE

I met her some years ago when she was in the city for a Conference at the University of British Columbia. She had attended the 11am service at Christ Church Cathedral, Vancouver. She told me that wherever she was in the world she tried to find what she called “my dear old C of E.”

However, before I tell you more about her, I want to talk about a type. There is a certain kind of person I think of as peculiarly English, though for all I know she has her equivalent in other lands and societies, and I think - but I could be wrong - that she was created by a certain period and society. For some reason I imagine her as rather small but tough as nails. Not tough in language - quite gentle and charming. But the impression you get is that she could be extremely tough and didn’t know fear.

Wherever in the world and in whatever climate you meet people like these, they always wear a tweed suit and good strong shoes. There was an actress named Margaret Rutherford who was very funny, and who looked very much like her.  Dame Margaret Rutherford appeared in many films including the four Miss Marple movies.

Now that I've given you a quick portrait, lo and behold if she didn’t emerge from the congregation during the Cathedral coffee hour! She had travelled over much of the world, especially in the northern hemisphere - not travelling on gleaming liners to sunny ports with westernized hotels, rather to places where tourists are unknown.  Because of those travels she is a world authority on the strange elusive creature that appears to frequent the high mountainous regions of the northern hemisphere and that we in the northwest of north America refer to as the Sasquatch.

By this time as I listened, I was silently having thoughts of having encountered a particularly imaginative Anglican and signaling across that I needed to be rescued, when she quietly informed me, she had four books to her credit by reputable publishers, and that she had shared a platform with Lord Hunt, the conqueror of Everest. It would appear that she corresponds with serious scientists around the world and was in the city to attend a conference in UBC. I found her a fascinating person to meet, yet to meet her in the church coffee hour that long ago morning you would have thought she would have been nervous crossing Denman Street. Yet she spoke with affection of such places as the Hindu Kush, and her sparkling eyes twinkled as she remembered places I shall never be. Meeting her was a most special experience.

Somebody once said that being the Dean of a downtown Anglican Cathedral was one of the most fascinating jobs in the world. If she was for real, her presence bears this out. If she was not for real, then I am the most gullible of Anglican Deans...

Come to think of it, maybe it was really Margaret Rutherford after all…!     

IMAGE
Dame Margaret Rutherford, OBE as Miss Marple.