Mary Waley
Profile
As a child, Mary was free to make up her own mind on spiritual matters: while both parents were conventional Christians, they were of the lukewarm variety. She was baptised but resisted confirmation, despite pressure from an aunt. She attended six schools in all, due to her father’s peripatetic work; one them was a convent school, where, although she enjoyed the religious trappings, she was not swayed in that direction. In those pre-war times there was much religious education in schools, all Christian, as well as a large output of Christian religious programmes on the radio – which, Mary says, "put her off religion".
She came to Oxford on a county scholarship to read history at St Hilda’s College. As a self-styled lapsed Christian, she married Stephen Waley, a lapsed Jew, in 1946. Their children, Jonathan and Helena, were born in 1947 and 1948. After a period away, they returned to Oxford in 1953 (Dr Waley being a biochemistry don) and felt they had a responsibility to expose their children to religion. Stephen went to the synagogue to see what it was like, and Mary learned about Unitarianism from a psychiatrist. So the children were brought to Manchester College chapel in 1956, and for a year or two Mary led a service for a group of children who came regularly. Dr Waley was the first secretary of the Chapel Society. When the Revd. Harry Short became the minister, he expressed a wish for more music, and Helena, now aged nine and a gifted musician like her maternal grandfather, obliged with piano pieces; she learned to play the organ by sitting with the renowned organist, Harold Spicer, on Sunday mornings. (They used to slip out via the organ lift for juice and biscuits during the sermon.)
Mary and her husband were avid readers of religious books, notably by Victor Murray and J. B. Phillips. In her forties, Mary had a religious experience which gave a feeling of joy and lightness; she describes it by saying that she ‘felt more real and her surroundings more trivial’; she was disappointed that this elevated feeling only lasted a fortnight. It was around this time that Helena, aged 18, was seriously ill, and the two facts may have been connected. It was some time later that Mary read Lord Clark’s own description of such an experience in The Common Experience by J. M. Cohen and J-F. Phipps. Mary’s faith now tends towards agnosticism. She feels loyal towards Manchester College chapel and particularly appreciates the addresses.
Mary’s husband died in 1993. Her son Jonathan has followed in the footsteps of Arthur Waley, his distinguished great-uncle, to become a scholar in the field of Chinese poetry. Helena is a professional musician whose main instrument is the harpsichord.
Despite spending a sizeable fraction of her life looking after ill or frail members of her family, Mary taught history and drama at Oxford High School for 20 years. Since then she has worked at the Ashmolean Museum and Bodleian Library as a guide. She belongs to the League of Friends of the Warneford, Littlemore, and Park Hospitals and is involved in fundraising. As a member of the Oxford Consumers’ Committee she undertakes practical research into topical issues. From 1995 to 2000 she was the Secretary of the Chapel Society and became computer literate, gaining a City and Guilds qualification in word processing. She has been a member of her local residents’ committee in south Oxford and serves on the St Hilda’s College Old Girls’ Committee. She may be the longest-established member of our Chapel Society, but it is remarkable how up-to-date her interests are. Joan Allibone November 2002