Remembering Maura Chadwin by her daughter Mary Huckfield

Maura Chadwin

1935-2019

Maura and Steve celebrate their 60th Wedding Anniversary

Mum died on the 18th of July 2019, exactly one month after her 84th birthday and less than two months after she and Dad had celebrated their 60th Wedding Anniversary.

My sister tells me that she had been talking about CPW the evening before she died and, although she had been suffering with dementia, Catherine reported that that night she had been very lucid; recalling names and places from CPWs past and delighting in the fact that I would soon be Co-Chairing at Malvern 2019.

Mum began her CPW journey in the early 70s (1973 by my reckoning, because I know that Stephen was a baby in a carrycot; which would have made me 4) taking all 7 Chadwin children, plus husband Steve, to Coodham House in Ayrshire. Make no mistake; Mum was the one to discover CPW (picking up a leaflet at the back of church, apparently) and to persuade Dad to give it a go. Those of you who knew Mum will be able to verify that she was a woman with a mission and that her mission was to enrich her own faith and that of her family.

Little did she know that this first holiday would mark the beginning of many, many CPWs and lead to the establishment of more than a few lifelong friendships. Her final week was Abbot Hall in 2014, so that makes a good 40 years worth, which I know isn’t the record, but it’s still pretty impressive.

In those early days we CPWed for several years at Coodham House followed by a year at Carberry Towers, near Edinburgh (Mum and Dad, coincidently, Chairing a week about family not altogether dissimilar to the one I Chaired at Malvern 2019).

Our first journey across the border didn’t take place until 1979 when we travelled to Wigton in Cumbria and from there we ventured further and further south until we finally ended up at those centres of legend: Croft House and Shaftesbury in Dorset.  During those years the Chadwins were spread across several CPWs each summer as Catherine and I had begun to follow our friends to weeks that Mum and Dad weren’t attending; demonstrating just how much Mum saw CPW as family. The Harwoods and the O’Donohues became our surrogate parents and Mum continued her CPWing with Dad and younger siblings at different weeks, often at opposite ends of the country. It was during this time that my Dad began his reign as CPW Caterer Extraordinaire…but that’s a whole other story. Mum, on the other hand was often involved in the organising teams and she never gave up her dream to bring CPW back to Scotland. It was she who was responsible for sourcing both Dalmally and Kilgraston.

Most of my family had stopped attending CPWs by the 90s and even Stephen and I took a break for several years. Mum and Dad, however, kept right on going; travelling all over the UK from our family home near Glasgow. She always took great delight in showing us photos, telling us about the highlights of the weeks and updating us about the lives of the various CPW members (mostly they were people we knew, but sometimes not. That’s how I came to know of the O’Briens even before I met them…little did I know then that their youngest and my eldest would become such firm friends; Co-Chiefs at Malvern a full 17 years after their first meeting at Kilgraston in 2002). 

And so Mum’s CPW legacy continues today, through her children and grandchildren, as both Stephen and I returned to CPW (Mum was key in persuading us to give it another go) and began attending weeks regularly with our growing families; their experiences mirroring our own childhood and adolescence in a way that is rarely achievable these days.

Mum’s death coincided with the weekend at Hyning, and so we were able to share the news quickly with some of her oldest CPW friends. Indeed, it felt important that the community of CPW be amongst the first to hear. I was particularly moved by the description of a Mass said for Mum. To those of you involved, you cannot underestimate how very touched the whole family was to hear of the tributes and prayers said for her.

I would have loved to have been able to report back to Mum about Malvern last summer, but everyone who was there will attest to the fact that I quoted her many times, from:

“It always amazed me how much my children grew up in one week of CPW”

To:

“We didn’t get to choose the CPWs we booked, our children did”,

But my guess is that she would have had much and more to say about all that happened there.

Thank you CPW for all that you have given my family and for always being such an integral part of Mum’s life and of her faith.