OTHER Queens Birthday honours recipients included St Joseph’s Newtown parish secretary and organist, Helen Cahill from Stanmore who received an OAM for service to the community of Inner West Sydney.
Mrs Cahill, who worked at The Conservatorium High School as an administration manager from 1983 to 2007, said she started playing the organ at St Michael’s Catholic Church in Stanmore in 1971.
“The previous organist was retiring and my big-mouthed, five-year-old daughter told the parish priest that ‘her mummy could play piano’ and that was that,” she said.
Attempting to retire more than once since then, she said with a laugh that somehow she always ended up helping out for “just a little longer”, with a six-week stint at St Brigid’s in Marrickville turning into a six-year run.
“I am doing things that I like and giving to people and that’s what it’s all about really,” she said.
Author Dr Charlotte Wood from Marrickville, also received an Member (AM) In The General Division Of The Order Of Australia for her “significant service to literature”.