Tilshead organist gets royal recognition for 50 years of service
90-year-old Jean George is receiving Maundy Money from the Queen!
Last updated 1st Apr 2021
A local organist is being recognised by the Queen for her services to both the church and local community.
Jean George is one of two people in Wiltshire to be nominated to receive Maundy Money after serving the parish of Tilshead for 50 years.
In that time, she's played organ in Shrewton, Tilshead and Chitterne, and taught music at a number of the local schools including St Thomas a Beckett and Appleford School.
Jean is well known for playing 'Carols by Candlelight' in St George's Church in Orcheston. The redundant church has no electricity, so every year, Jean borrows a cable and brings an electric keyboard.
She says it's a great honour to be nominated as she never expected it.
"I feel like a fraud because I just love doing music. I used to love to hear the organ play at Great Cheverell, and I joined the choir. The organist left and I started to play at the age of 17.
"One of the men of the choir used to do the 'pointing' to help me out. I went to Bournemouth and had lessons at St Peter's Parkstone, then I met my husband and married and had children, then we went to Orcheston and again the organist was ill, and I was asked if I could do it.
"I'm now the organist at 3 churches because there's no-one else!"
There are many generations of pupils who remember Jean with great fondness too.
She was paid by the education authority for 20 minutes' music tuition for Tilshead, but she gave a full, half day, and played for the school's concerts and nativity plays in St Thomas à Becket church, Tilshead.
"I taught music in Wiltshire and Somerset in schools, piano, singing guitar and drums, and I retired at 83."
"I still play when I can - it's been 50 years at Tilshead. (That's a strange little organ, you know, when I started to play, and the pedals began on F and not the normal C. It took a few Sundays to get my head round it, but it's been quite fun - and now I must get my head around the normal ones!) "
WHAT IS MAUNDY THURSDAY AND WHAT DO NOMINEES GET?
Traditionally the same number of men and women as the Monarch's age are invited to attend a ceremony on Maundy Thursday, which falls on 1st April this year.
This year there are 190 recipients, who have received their traditional purses in the post.
Before 2020, this mostly took place at St George's Chapel in Windsor.
This year's Maundy Money is 95p's worth of silver pennies and £5.50, which in the past was an allowance for clothing and provisions.
The service dates back to 600 AD and these special coins have kept much the same form since 1670. This year's coins still bear the portrait of The Queen that was designed for her coronation in 1953.
WITSHIRE'S SECOND NOMINEE
Jeremy York from St George's Preshute in Malborough is Wiltshire's second nominee.
He's been recognised by his Diocese as a 'good and honourable' man offering services to a wide range of people and a good neighbour and friend to all.
Jeremy has been a churchwarden of the Preshute ward, a school governor at Preshute Primary School and, until recently, Chair of the Marlborough Jubilee Centre, a registered charity run by volunteers, many of whom have learning disabilities.
Jeremy says:
"I was very puzzled as to who nominated me. I'm very touched- I see myself as a very run-of-the-mill person, just getting on with it, so it's very kind of them, it's a great honour."