Scotsman Obituaries: Hannah Leckie, talented organist and one of the first teachers in Scotland to specialise in dyslexia

Hannah Leckie was a person of great faith with a huge appetite for life

Hannah Leckie was born in Falkirk, the only child of Robert and Elizabeth Matthews. Hannah’s father died suddenly when she was nine, leaving her mother with very little income. Elizabeth took a secretarial job in Broxburn, and so mother and daughter moved there.

During those years Hannah became a very talented pianist who spent many hours playing duets with her life-long best friend and later SNO violinist, the late Mabel Glover.

At 16 Hannah left school to find work and funded herself through Basil Paterson’s College in Edinburgh, where she completed her secondary education. She was one of the first alumnae of Broxburn High School to gain a place at university, matriculating at Edinburgh to study Music, Anthropology & French.

By then she was already a committed Christian and an accomplished organist, supplementing her student grant by playing at St George’s West Church in Edinburgh. She was very active in the university’s music societies; and it was after giving a concert that she met, and later fell in love with, an unusually tall Divinity student called Joe Leckie. The pair married in Edinburgh in 1955.

Their first parish was in Irvine New Town, where the couple’s two older children were born. In 1958 the family moved to Georgetown in British Guiana (now Guyana), where Joe and Hannah ministered to the parish of St Andrew’s Kirk, the first church in Guyana that allowed and encouraged slaves to worship.

But with increasing political instability in the move towards Guyana’s independence, and Hannah having suffered life-threatening complications in her third pregnancy, the couple decided to return home.

Joe and Hannah then served Carriden Parish Church in Bo’ness for three years, where their fourth son was born. In 1964, with a promising opportunity for service in the First Presbyterian Church of Titusville, Pennsylvania, USA, the family moved again. Hannah thrived there, playing an integral role in the community and the church, teaching and playing the organ, making lifelong friends and welcoming twin girls to their family.

Joe gradually began to feel uncomfortable with Titusville’s relative affluence, whereas Hannah loved their life in America. It was typical of her selflessness that, however reluctantly, she agreed to leave. In 1970 the family set sail from New York to Southampton and then travelled north to St Luke’s Church in Lochee, Dundee.

There Hannah led the choir, played the organ and managed her large family and finished her training as a primary school teacher. She taught full time at Ancrum Road Primary School, where she was a very respected and much-loved teacher.

Hannah was passionate about high quality education for all children – and always had a soft spot for those who struggled most. As ever keen to widen her horizons, she later went on to become one of the first teachers in Scotland to complete training to teach pupils with dyslexia. Over the years and even after her retirement, she frequently bumped into ex-pupils who stopped to tell her how much she had changed their lives for the better.

Joe’s love of country life led him to move in 1984 to his final charge, the combined parish of Fowlis Wester, Madderty & Monzie in his native Perthshire.

Hannah continued to teach and immersed herself in the cultural and musical life of Strathearn, accompanying and singing in the Crieff Choral, and playing an active role in the Strathearn Music Society and the Friends of Innerpeffray Library.

Months before Joe’s death in 2002, Hannah was diagnosed with macular degeneration. Relentlessly and cruelly it steadily stole her vision, making her beloved hobbies first difficult and then impossible. Her resilience and acceptance, particularly during the last few years when she had very little sight left, were testament to her invincible spirit.

Hannah’s sense of adventure never left her, however, and she continued to travel to see her children in various parts of the world and to accompany them on holidays, well into her 90th year. When asked how she coped with travelling when she could barely see, she would say simply: “I have a tongue. I can ask!”

Hers was a life of selfless service: to her husband and his churches and parishioners; and to her six children, striving to instil in them a sense of diligence and justice, while introducing them to as many educational, musical and sporting opportunities as she could.

Hannah was also a much-loved, matriarchal grandmother to her 27 grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren, and greatly cherished by her many friends at home and abroad. She was warm, wise and intelligent, if occasionally intimidating, and always keenly interested in the wider world. A phrase of advice she repeated often was: “Just be grateful – and make the most of each day.”

Almost right to her end, Hannah remained acute, attentive, sympathetic and understanding, with a mischievous sense of humour. Above all, Hannah kept faith in her saviour and redeemer. Though very ill latterly, she would say, simply: “The Lord will call me when He’s ready.”

On 16 April, He was. After a long a long and fulfilled life, Hannah was sure she was going to perfect peace.

She leaves a legacy of determination, resilience and adventure. Hers was a life lived with purpose and passion; and a life of example to all who knew her.

Obituaries

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