Eye - 10 January 2014

From statues nestled in nature to Quaker spotting on the BBC

Nestled in nature

In 1959 sculptor Josefina de Vasconcellos was commissioned by the vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields church in London to create a Nativity scene featuring life-sized figures. These became a regular sighting in Trafalgar Square Christmas displays.

Christine Hayes, of Wokingham Meeting, got in touch to share some memories and a precious snapshot. It began in 1965, with her honeymoon… ‘John had booked a cottage called “High Bield” in Little Langdale, which he had seen advertised in the Guardian. We arrived to be greeted by Josefina de Vasconcellos and her husband, Delmar Banner, who lived in the stone house below us, “The Bield”. We became good friends and kept in touch for many years.’

‘Josefina was born to an English Quaker mother and an atheist Brazilian diplomat father’ and ‘was a figurative sculptor with a strong religious faith, to whom other people mattered deeply.’

‘On our wonderful honeymoon, sitting outside the cottage for our meals in heatwave weather, we looked at Josefina’s stone sculptures of Joseph, Mary and the baby, randomly placed among the grass and the flowers in their garden, against the backdrop of the Langdale Peaks and Catbells.’

Cracker packers

From chocolate to Tottenham cake traybakes, Quakers have had quite an impact on the nation’s sweet tooth.

Biscuit fans who tuned in to Nigel Slater’s Great British Biscuit on BBC4 will have spied Friends popping up in this culinary sphere, too – though in a less sugary capacity. After all, ‘no discussion of biscuits could be complete without discussion of the savoury biscuit, the cracker’.

The programme goes on to explain: ‘Most of the leading biscuit firms in Britain were run by Quakers. It therefore seems right that the most ardent Quaker firms were making the more abstemious biscuits. One such company was Carr’s of Carlisle.’

Hunter Davies, who is writing a book about the company, added: ‘Jonathan Dodgson Carr was a Quaker. He was tough but he was very benevolent – he tried to look after the workers.’

Hunter flagged up one group of workers in particular, the cracker packers. This group of women, who packed crackers into the wrapping machines, had their own magazine – The Topper Off – which featured one of the earliest first-hand accounts of The Beatles on tour.

As well as probing the historical roots of well-known ‘biccie’ brands, the programme features biscuit anoraks, as avid as any trainspotter; scientists measuring dunkability; and Nigel Slater resorting to breaking the original nautical biscuit with a cannon ball in order to have a nibble.

Quaker spotting

Friends appeared on two other BBC programmes during the festive season.

On Sunday 29 December Jumoke Fashola’s programme, Inspirit, on BBC Radio London, picked up Christmas messages from the pope and the archbishop of Canterbury and asked ‘Can there ever be peace on earth?’ She interviewed Quaker Martin Wilkinson. He suggested conflict is inevitable while there is unjustified inequality: ‘We need nonviolent responses and to face unfairness in our homes, schools and workplaces.’

Then on Sunday 5 January BBC1’s Songs of Praise focused on Epiphany, as moments of revelation. Two Friends were interviewed: Stuart Masters, at Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre, who spoke about the experience of George Fox on Pendle Hill; and Ray Lovegrove, who writes a blog called Hay Quaker, about being a Quaker.

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