[transcribed from the recording of the funeral service eulogy]

I'm just going to start by reading a little bit of Christine Tait's obituary: "Helen's singing ability was recognised at the age of 8, when her mother declared "She's going to be a singer!" A few years later a teacher at Morrison's Academy in Crieff said "Helen has the making of a great contralto - and the physique to carry it off!" [which I always thought was a bit rude!]

Once at Aberdeen University to do an Arts degree she became immersed in music department activities, and was in a university quartet, put together by Iain Pitt-Watson, which was invited to participate in Haddow House events. Soon after her teacher training in Aberdeen she moved to Edinburgh, and Herrick Bunney became very important in her life, not only asking her to join the University Singers in Edinburgh, but also the Eglinton Singers she went on to become part of...and it was Herrick Bunney who conducted the Edinburgh Choral Union and Helen, at the last minute, was called in to replace a contralto in their new year Messiah at the Usher Hall, which opened up a whole career for her, because, basically, after that, it just tumbled into place. 

I have two words, which, for me, describe Helen...not just her voice, but her voice and her personality - because, really, listening to Helen, its her whole personality you're listening to - you can't dissociate the two things. And the two words are Discipline and Delight. And I am one of those students of singing that she smacked in the belly, and I remember it well! I came down here [to Edinburgh] and my father - Hugh, her older brother - insisted that I go and have singing lessons with Auntie Helen...which I feared terribly and and had great trepidation about doing it! I'm looking back on it and now - I'm an actor myself - it was fantastic training...and the Discipline is really her ability, and her diaphragmatic support and her breathing...and the Delight was that she taught me to (when you let the sound go) bring your cheekbones up, and smile, and send it out...and the Delight of that sound that came out of her stays with me, and every time I hear her voice I feel that delight and that personality - which you don't often get with great singers...and not only was her voice crystalline in quality but that personality was way out front. It was beautiful!

Obviously all the tributes being paid by all these ex-students and ex-colleagues are extraordinary, and lead me to believe that myself, anyway, and my family, had no idea how important she was at the time to the classical music fraternity in Scotland. She really was - as quoted by my ex-singing teacher, Eric von Ibler - the Kathleen Ferrier of Scotland! People absolutely adored her, and not only for her singing, but for her support of other artists that worked with her, and her support constantly for her pupils through the years - extraordinary!

I've just got two other things to say: one is that I last saw Helen 4 years ago and we were in Thurso. We sat down and we discussed - because I had become a teacher of Shakespeare after 40 years of working with classical texts - and she and I just discussed teaching methods, and she finished off the conversation by saying "I think the two of us are in the same boat, as far as teaching is concerned!" And just to be considered to be 'in the same boat' as Helen, and not in her shadow: I was hugely humbled by it.

One other thing: my father Hugh, her older brother, who was a very good singer in his own right, and was well-respected in the north of Scotland, singing solos and with the choir - he used to sing in the house all the time...but when Helen came up for a holiday - nothing! He would never sing! He gave total preference to her, and respected her professional voice, and would never sing in her presence. However, every now and again they would be in the living room - and I can picture them now, Helen on the settee, my dad sitting in his chair - and they would be listening to something that they knew (it could be the Messiah, the Passion, or Wagner it could have been) and Helen would just start to sing, very lightly, and dad would come in a bit, and it was like a ping-pong match of voices, and eventually they would be singing together with this music. And it was just delightful, because they were barely noticing each other, but it was just a lovely feeling! 

And I'm just going to leave you with a quote from a play called The Entertainer by John Osborne - it's about an ageing vaudevillian comic in the 1960's, who - drunkenly - describes to his daughter that way back in time he had seen this singer in a bar, and 'her voice! Every single note opened her soul to the heavens!'... and the quote from it is: "If I'd done one thing as good as that in my whole life, I'd have been all right!" And I feel that way about every time I hear Helen - and we have recordings of her that are terrible quality! - but even when her voice kicks in it is the most beautiful sound, and I feel, you know, if I've done one thing in my life as good as that, it will be all right.

I have one other thing to do, and I hope that I can do it: Ann Braddish was not able to come today, because tragically she got COVID yesterday; she asked me to say "Sleep tight my beautiful angel, love you long time".