And this is what I saved my voice for...

Pauline, a friend a church who is the person I've been working with on marketing/PR for the restoration, had asked me a fe years ago if I'd sing at a service in aid of a charity called the Donor Family Network. It was on Sunday, 2pm, at St Margaret's church in Great Barr. I'd been practising Bridge over Troubled Water (Simon & Garfunkle) for weeks and finally it was my big chance.
The Donor Family Network is a strange charity. It tries to support all those who have lost someone and been faced with the choice of donating their organs.
It was rather funny when, after the service, an ample-sized lady stood behind Alex and gripped him by the shoulders - I think he was afraid she might be eyeing him up for an involuntary donation! She didn't seem to want to let him go, and talked (worryingly) of "harvesting".
It was a strange but interesting service, and it's plain that they do wonderful work in some very harsh circumstances. People feeling the pain of loss and then being asked to give up what's left; I imagine the charity has to deal with them very sensitively. All around us was living proof that people had been dealt with with kindness, gentleness and sensitivity. Donor families and recipients whose lives had been saved sat and cried alongside each other.
An anglican friar led the service, and a surgeon whose surname was Mascaro (!) got up to speak. He made the valid point that ask most people on the street if they agreed with donation and they'd probably say yes. But ask they same people if they would donate their father, mother, brother sister or husband's organs and they would probably not know. He concluded 'talk this through with your nearest and dearest, make your feelings known'.

Mr Mascaro read this poem, which I have since found on the internet:

Give my sight to the man who has never seen a sunrise, a baby's face or love in the eyes of a woman.
Give my heart to a person whose own heart has caused nothing but endless days of pain.
Give my blood to the teenager who was pulled from the wreckage of his car, so that he might live to see his grandchildren play.
Give my kidneys to the one who depends on a machine to exist from week to week.
Take my bones, every muscle, every fiber and nerve in my body and find a way to make a crippled child walk.
Explore every corner of my brain.
Take my cells, if necessary, and let them grow so that, someday a speechless boy will shout at the crack of a bat and a deaf girl will hear the sound of rain agianst her window.
Burn what is left of me and scatter the ashes to the winds to help the flowers grow.
If you must bury something, let it be my faults, my weakness and all prejudice against my fellow man.
Give my sins to the devil.
Give my soul to God.
If, by chance, you wish to remember me, do it with a kind deed or word to someone who needs you. If you do all I have asked, I will live forever.
Robert N. Test
Absolutely.
Then it was soon my turn...

Bridge Over Trouble Water
When you’re weary, feeling small,
When tears are in your eyes, I will dry them all;
I’m on your side.
When times get rough...And friends just can’t be found,
Like a bridge over troubled waterI will lay me down.
Like a bridge over troubled waterI will lay me down.

When you’re down and out, When you’re on the street,
When evening falls so hard, I will comfort you.
I’ll take your part.
When darkness comes... And pain is all around,
Like a bridge over troubled water I will lay me down.
Like a bridge over troubled waterI will lay me down.

Sail on silvergirl, Sail on by.
Your time has come to shine. All your dreams are on their way.
See how they shine... If you need a friend
I’m sailing right behind.
Like a bridge over troubled waterI will ease your mind.
Like a bridge over troubled waterI will ease your mind.

I sang quite well by the way!