A funeral service for Maddalena Rayner, a peace campaigner who devoted much of her life to promoting peace and reconciliation, will take place in Glossop on Friday (3 February). 

The 89-year-old, who died just before Christmas, had for the last 12 years taken part in every action of Glossop Peace Group, and in 2013 was delighted to meet the former CND leader Bruce Kent when he spoke in Glossop. 

Born in Italy just before the Second World War, Maddalena witnessed the rise of fascism under the dictatorship of Mussolini.  

The experience of war at first hand sowed the seeds of the deeply-held pacifist beliefs she was to come to later in life. 

Maddalena’s mother died when she was five years old, and during her childhood her father was frequently away serving in the war. 

He instructed her grandparents to take her out of school so that she would not be indoctrinated in fascist ideology at such an impressionable age.  

He believed that she could always catch up with reading and writing, but the most important thing was to be able to “think with her own head”.  

He was taken prisoner of war and never returned, but Maddalena remembered this important message all her life. 

Orphaned at 11, Maddalena was brought up by her grandparents, eventually going to study classics at Rome University.  

As a student she met Lawrence, her future husband, a young Englishman of Polish/Jewish decent, who was studying at the university in her hometown of Perugia.  

Maddalena (centre) met the former CND leader Bruce Kent when he spoke in Glossop in 2013 

They moved to England in 1956 and developed their convictions that society’s transformation could only be brought about through peaceful means. 

The couple spent time in Sicily joining Danilo Dolci in his work to improve the lives of desperately poor people in a society oppressed by the Mafia.  

After the birth of their first child, they moved from London to a small community in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales.  

The community was based on the principles of Mahatma Ghandi, sharing resources, dedicated to nonviolence and with an open-door to support people who were struggling. 

In the 1980s, Maddalena took part in actions for peace in Northern Ireland and in Moss Side, in Manchester, during the riots, often standing in silence with closed eyes between two opposing factions wearing a tabard which said 'In stillness and in silence we can hear the word of God teaching us the way of unarmed love' - she was never harmed! 

The Palestinian cause was very close to Maddalena's heart. From the mid-1980s to early 1990s she helped Lawrence, who had taken early retirement to work for peace as a volunteer in Palestine, working with disabled children and young adults at the Four Homes of Mercy at al-Azariya (Bethany) on the West Bank.  

Maddalena used her experience as a trained teacher of severely disabled children, visiting several times each year. 

Maddalena (far left) during a Glossop Peace Group vigil on Norfolk Square

After Lawrence died in 2009, Maddalena became an active supporter of the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), raising funds for them whenever she could. 

A day never went by without Maddalena thinking about what more she could do to promote a more peaceful future for us all. She will be greatly missed by all who knew her. 

She leaves four children, eleven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. 

The funeral will be at Glossop Parish Church of All Saints on Friday 3 February at 12.30pm, followed by committal at Glossop cemetery and a gathering at the Central Methodist Church. 

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