Eye - 01 March 2013
From Bogeys to hearsay
Friendly Bogeys
As you flick through the pages of Fungus the Bogeyman, you will be in for a surprise.
Raymond Briggs’ book features Bogeys, subterranean dwellers who enjoy things humans don’t: over-ripe food, damp, cold and the dark. The defences built along the borders of their land are topped off with ‘Quaker Guns’.
Owen Everett, of Watford Meeting, got in touch to share the Bogeys’ philosophy: ‘The Quaker Guns are to “inspire fear”; in reality they are “made of wood. They make no noise, have no ammunition, and do not fire”. After all, bogeys had realised “long ago” that “metal guns did far more harm than good”.’
Ripples
Many authors send their work out into the world with the hope that it will create ripples amongst their readers.
Ernest Hall, of Clacton-on-Sea Meeting, has discovered that his book, Zittau… and I, has been doing just that. The book is an account of his association with the small east German town where he was a prisoner of war from 1943 to 1945.
He has learned it is being used by the local Anglo-German Friendship Society to help their spoken and written English. He reports, in the South East Anglia Area Meeting newsletter, that: ‘This has aroused their interest and curiosity about Quakers and Quakerism. A member of Clacton-on-Sea Meeting has kindly given me half a dozen copies of Advices and queries to send to them, both to help their English and to tell them something about Quaker principles and practice.’ It has also been translated into German and is being sold ‘in aid of the preservation and display of the Zittau Great Lenten Veil, an enormous textile artefact, in the 550 year history of which, it is believed, I inadvertently played a very minor role in 1945’ (‘The return’, 13 August 2010).
Spirit, snoozing and the rain
A selection from Limericks to Raise the Roof, published for Come-to-Good Meeting, Cornwall.
There once was a very wise Quaker
whose Spirit would never forsake her
– even challenged to fight
she knew she was right
and was happy to meet with her Maker.
Margreet Douglas
There once was an attender called Jane,
who naked went out in the rain.
When they said, ‘You’ll get wet!’
she replied, ‘Do not fret;
I’m going to Woodbrooke by train.’
Polly Tatum
There once was a very old Quaker
who sometimes found sleep overtake’er.
Her very loud snore
was hard to ignore
So Friends had to shak’er to wake’er.
Pat Dennis
Hearsay
Gossip is a fairly unreliable way of informing your world view, as George Borrow – the eighteenth century novelist and travelogue writer – discovered.
Christine Trevett, of Bridgend Meeting, wrote to Eye to relate an interesting encounter described in Wild Wales, first published in 1862.
‘[Upon] asking a man for directions. He was told that he was near the village of Quakers’ Yard, so named because there “the people called Quakers bury their dead”. There were no longer Quakers in the region, the man told him. In fact his informant had never met a Friend but “everybody” had told him that “they are a bad set of people”. George Borrow said that he’d always found them the salt of the earth, and so Borrow was assumed to be a Quaker too. He was in fact a Church of England man… The man had been hoping to hear some Quaker ministry from him, “profitable and conducive to salvation”. Borrow reckoned that the answer he gave was indeed “conducive to salvation”, namely: “Never speak ill of people of whom you know nothing”!
‘The account goes on to a romanticised description of the village… and the observation that “The Quakers have for some time past been a decaying sect, but they have done good work in their day.”’
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