Mae Walker

Mae Walker was born into a very musical family in Crosshouse, near Kilmanock in Ayrshire in November 1924 and showed promise as a singer from a very young age. In 1941, at the tender age of 17, may was called to audition for the Royal Opera, Covent Garden and subsequently offered a place there. Wartime, alas, made it impossible for Mae to accept this post, and she went instead to the Royal Scottish Academy of Music, or the Athenaeum as it was then known, where she studied for many years with the late, great Lillian Liddle. In 1960, at the age of 36, Mae met and married the headmaster of St Bede's Academy in Mansefield, Notts, Bobby Gray and from then until his retirement in 1980 they made Mansefield their home. Although Gray preferred that his wife did not continue her singing career, the years in Mansefield were not without event, as she continued to make infrequent appearances in London, Sheffield, Birmingham and Leeds. May's career lasted through eight different decades, and it was when in her late seventies that the decline of her health rather than the decline of her vocal ability that she was forced to bow out of public performance. Her last public performance was at the funeral of a dear friend in 2003 when, frail and unsteady, she was helped to her feet and assisted to the front of the church where she stood and sang "Amazing Grace" in the same clear, bell-like lyric soprano voice that had endeared her to so many during her 70-year career.