It started with a stitch... Photo: Photo: Dmeranda via Wikimedia Commons
Eye - 06 September 2013
From crafts to caution
Crafting Quakers
Mary Bradbury, of Cockermouth Meeting, got in touch with tales of Quaker crafts appearing in surprising places. It started with a stitch…
‘Some years ago I attended an embroidery class doing “colour through gold”. I made a piece which turned out as a blue cross on a gold background. I could not think what to do with it so put it in a drawer.
‘Sometime later I was at another embroidery group and mentioned this piece.
‘The tutor was a member of the York Minster Broderers, who have re-covered all the Minster embroderies. She expressed an interest in my piece and, when she saw it, said it was just what was needed for a bourse (mat) for the Challis in the Lady Chapel.
‘Would I give it to her? I was only too glad to do so. Later the tutor asked for a smaller piece for the veil to go on top of the cup, which I supplied.
‘So, a Quaker’s embroidery is used in York Minster each Lady Day (25 March).’
But Quakerly fingers have been busy in other mediums too, including pipe cleaners!
Mary explains: ‘Another elderly Quaker used to make pipe cleaner gnomes and witches.
‘One day she made a small figure which resembled the vicar of Bray! The Roman Catholic priest was a friend and called in with another priest who was visiting him.
‘This priest was employed in the Vatican and, when he saw the “vicar”, he immediately said the then pope would love to have him.
‘As far as I know, it is still in the Vatican!’
Friends are good for you
An Eye reader appears to have come across a prescription for the company of Quakers.
Jan Lethbridge, of Dumfries Meeting, explains: ‘At the end of a Radio 4 programme recently, an eminent psychiatrist was asked for a couple of pieces of advice for the general public to preserve/enhance/protect their mental health.
‘Unfortunately, I can’t actually remember the first – something to do with exercise – but the second was to… “spend a lot of time with friends!”’
A cautious wing?
An astonished G Gordon Steel got in touch with Eye this week.
He discovered a snippet on page seven of The Times (31 August) that he thought would be of interest to Friends.
He writes that it was in ‘an article about divisions within the Liberal Democrats on the parliamentary vote for/against a Syrian offensive’ that he found the following paragraph:
‘The division over military action plays into a deep divide inside the Lib Dems between the “Quaker” wing, which is highly cautious of military action, and the “Ashdown” wing of internationalist liberal intervention championed by the former leader.’
Gordon ponders: ‘Who would have thought that the Lib Dems have a Quaker wing?’
