Post # 101
June 3, 2026
Claire Bodanis
In memoriam Maxine Tresham Windsor, née Apergis (16 November 1940 - 28 April 2026)
Dear Dad,
In the email I sent out on behalf of Richard, Guy and me to tell everyone about Mum’s funeral, I wrote ‘We’re very grateful she had such a blessed death, and we can imagine just how happy Dad will be now with Mum to share his cloud’. And we can certainly imagine the party you must have held in heaven on 28 April!
But, knowing Mum and her total reticence about anything to do with herself and how loved and valued she was, I also know she’ll have told you next to nothing about her last few months. And she certainly won’t have told you anything about her funeral. As I said to Jamie (music director at St John’s, if you remember): ‘Mum would hate all this fuss; isn’t it a good thing she’s not alive to see it?!’
When you died in 2022, you told me that the one thing you were worried about was Mum being on her own – but she honestly wasn’t. Until she retired on 27 March, she had 14 pupils coming for their weekly piano lessons, including two who’d just started in the last year. She only stopped teaching on hearing from the wonderful Dr Nirsimloo that no more treatment was possible – and because by then she really wasn’t feeling all that great. In typical Mum fashion, her final decision was made by teaching a lesson and deciding it wasn’t up to scratch – ‘I couldn’t possibly charge for that standard of work!’ Although she was rather disappointed at not being able to take up the offer to play a Shostakovich symphony with the Solway Sinfonia, which arrived the following week. But as I said to her – ‘It’s pretty cool to be asked, don’t you think?’ And she replied, ‘I suppose it is; after all, I am 85!’ Which cheered her up a bit.
As did all the friends – many of them musicians – who started coming over when they heard the news. And, you’ll be pleased to know, we made a rota so that at least one of the three of us would be with Mum the whole time until she died. You’ll also be pleased to know that on Friday 24 April, she was still playing the piano (accompanying Guy on the trumpet!) and the lovely Thurlows came for dinner. She went from the basic painkillers she’d been on for months to the hard stuff in just a couple of hours on Saturday night, and her last few days were pain-free and very peaceful. At home, in her own bed, the cat on the counterpane, Guy and I with her, and the amazing nurses coming and going to make sure she was comfortable.
On the last day, we could tell she was uplifted – just as you were – by the grandchildren ringing to tell her their latest news, and we finished with an evening of hymns. Julius phoned to sing her favourite hymn, Dear Lord and Father of mankind, and she died shortly afterwards while I was holding her hand and singing The day thou gavest Lord has ended, with Guy on her other side. So you can see why we believe she had a blessed death.
And I know you’ll be thrilled to hear about all the tributes that came pouring in when the news got round. We’ve had over a hundred emails (all replied to!) and around 70 letters and cards, which I’m gradually getting through, aided by a box of Smythson’s writing paper Julius thoughtfully picked up for me last week! I remember Mum saying she wrote back to everyone who’d written when you died, so I’m doing the same for her. I can’t possibly relay all the messages, but they’re pretty much encapsulated in what Nicky Spence, the Scottish tenor whom Mum accompanied when he was a student, wrote. He said he remembers having ‘a blast’ with Mum, who was ‘a great spirit and a superlative musician’.
All these aspects of Mum, as well as her role in the family, were there in spades at her funeral, not only in the congregation but in the service itself. I’m not sure it’s quite correct to use the word ‘amazing’ about a funeral, but as funerals go, it really was. Like you, she chose the hymns (including All things bright and beautiful, in tribute to you!), although unlike you, she left the rest to us. But you’d done such a good job with your own that we took your outline and ‘Mummed’ it.
Richard did the first eulogy brilliantly; Julius followed with his own moving and funny memories of Granny; and Rebecca, as the oldest grandchild, represented the others, through a wonderful ‘tour of Granny’s kitchen’. I did my bit on the musical front, although I must admit Mozart’s Laudate Dominum was rather more of a challenge than the Fauré Pie Jesu I sang for you. But I channelled Mum – ‘just get on with it’ – and the choir and all the musicians in the pews were a great inspiration. On that front, I think it’s a toss-up who had the fullest church – perhaps one for you to decide between you, as you continue your near-lifelong marriage of cheerful negotiation!
Talking of Mumm… the champagne tea party in the church hall (cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off, again channelling Mum) was also ‘a blast’. Although not one I can remember all that well, because, having chased bottles of Mumm around south west Scotland and north west England the week before – on special offer at Tesco, with an extra 25% off in England for purchases of more than six bottles, Mum would have approved! – I then proceeded to enjoy far too much of it. And only realised the next day that the one thing I’d forgotten to organise was the time the tea party was supposed to end. Which meant that lovely David, the church administrator, was kindly lurking somewhere until late in the evening rather than kicking us out. His comment? ‘It was no problem – and seemed a pretty successful gig, as Maxine would no doubt have said!’
The one thing everyone kept saying, rather like at your funeral, was ‘What a shame Maxine – and Roger – aren’t here to enjoy it!’ And we all felt that. But you’ll both be here forever in our memories, and throughout the house and garden in Dumfries, which I’ll be keeping going on behalf of the family. I can definitely hear you cheering at that one – although also asking ‘How are you going to do that with all your responsibilities in London and to Falcon Windsor?’
To tell you the truth, I haven’t quite worked out the details yet – it all happened a bit suddenly. And because what you don’t know – unless Mum’s told you by now – is that for the last year I’ve been recuperating from what seemed an insignificant bash on the head, but turned into very tedious, ongoing post-concussion symptoms. I was enormously helped by a work-free, screen-free month in Scotland with Mum in October, and the bash also bounced me into thinking far more seriously about how Falcon Windsor could be sustainable with ‘less Claire’. Why? To give me more time to work on things like reporting reform (which we hope is still coming!); our campaign for the responsible use of generative AI in reporting (ask Mum to explain); and my commission to write a new version of Trust Me, I'm Listed for the age of AI, due to be published in June next year.
But don’t worry, now that I’m back in London, a plan for the plan has begun! I had the first session with my new ‘executive coach’ just yesterday (too grandiose without the inverted commas), who’s helping me define what my role should be – including what could be done from Scotland. And later in June, I’ll be bringing that together with the work Justine and Neil have been doing with the team in my absence about the future of FW. Watch out for a new website…
It’s horribly sad doing all this knowing that neither you nor Mum will be here to see the outcome, when you were both such fabulous supporters of all things FW. But the amazing thing that’s happened – and which you’ll be more pleased about than anything I’ve told you so far in this letter – is that Mum’s death has brought the rest of us much closer than we’ve perhaps ever been. That’s because we all know it’s up to us now, and I think we were all moved by what Mum said to us again and again over the last few years, despite all the horrible cancer treatment: ‘I wake up every morning thinking how lucky I am, and go to sleep every night thinking how lucky I am with my lovely family.’
So while I’ll miss you and Mum terribly, not least in your role as chief FW cheerleaders, I know I have the whole Windsor/Falcon/Bodanis clan down here behind me in your stead.
Love,
Claire
Maxine Tresham Windsor (née Apergis) – Mum – died after a four-year battle with cancer at the age of 85, peacefully in her sleep at home, on 28 April 2026. If any of you who knew Mum would like to pay tribute to her, please make a donation to Macmillan Nurses, who were so kind to Mum during her illness. As I wrote in my December 2022 blog, Roger Stanley Windsor – Dad – died, also peacefully in his sleep at home, on 22 November 2022.
God bless Mum and Dad. May they rest in peace, and rise in glory.