My friend Maureen Edwards, who has died aged 77, was a popular member of the congregation of Saint Anne’s church, Wandsworth, in south-west London. Her association with St Anne’s went back 53 years, and in January this year she was awarded the Lancelot Andrewes medal by the bishop of Southwark for “godly service and zeal for the gospel”.
Maureen was born in Sunderland. Her father, Anthony Bell, worked as a shipyard blacksmith and her mother, Jane (nee Bacon), did kitchen work in care homes. Maureen had an older sister and brother; they all lived in a tiny cottage where Maureen joked that she “slept in a drawer”.
