John Currie's fine tribute (17 November) to Tryph Nixon naturally centres on her musical activities, but this great lady was also immensely practical.

During the Second World War she was a nurse in Killearn Hospital, but also acted as an ambulance driver during the Clydebank Blitz.

Tryph was also a supreme organiser and at the same time zealous for dedicated music in public worship. In the last decade of the twentieth-century it fell to me to conduct morning service in New Kilpatrick on a Sunday which happened to be New Year's Day. The choir had been given a rest after all the Christmas services, but Tryph sent out a three-line whip to the NK Singers, and many of them turned up on the day. As we began the service with informal seasonal greetings, it was no hardship to this susceptible clergyman to have such a bevy of pulchritude, including the great lady herself, trapped in the chancel with no escape from his eager osculations.