Farewell to an Angel

 

I Know I'll Never Find Another You

Sung by The Seekers in 2013

(L to R: Keith Potger, Bruce Woodley, Judith Durham, Athol Guy) 

Song written for them in 1964 by Tom Springfield in who also produced their original recording of the song that year.

I was very saddened by the news of the death of Judith Durham (3 July 1943 - 5 August 2022). She was less than three months younger than me - 1943 was a vintage year! - and the youngest of The Seekers, all of them from Melbourne, Australia. Judith was from Essendon, the Melbourne suburb where the Columbans have been for 100 years.

This song became the anthem of Worldwide Marriage Encounter (Philippines, Ireland).

Morningtown Ride

Written by Malvina Reynolds

This is one of my favourite songs by The Seekers. According to a comment below the video from a man who was a child in it, the boys were from St Vincent de Paul Boys' Home, South Melbourne, and the two girls with Judith from St Vincent's Children's Home, Black Rock. Though I have watched this video many time, it is only now that I noticed the dog, probably from the Boys' Home, who seems to have enjoyed being on the train!

So many comments under videos of The Seekers and of Judith singing solo describe her voice as that of an angel. I would go along with that. Anything beautiful is a gift from God to all of us. I was going to write Farewell to the voice of an angel as the subject but we have so many recordings and videos of The Seekers and of Judith that her voice is still with us.

The video below from a TV show in 1970 brings out the beauty of Judith's voice as she sings When You Come to the End of a Perfect Day, written in 1901 by Carrie Jacobs Bond. It also brings out her modesty, inner and outer, that for me has always been the embodiment of the wholesomeness to which God calls each of us. 

For mem’ry has painted this perfect day
With colours that never fade
And we find at the end of a perfect day
The soul of a friend we’ve made.

 To slightly adapt the words of Horatio to the dying Hamlet, Good night sweet princess / And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

And may God, the source of all beauty, invite Judith to be part of those flights of singing angels.