Harrogate Quakers' postbox topper. Photo: Reproduced with permission of Craig Barnett.
Eye - 10 January 2025
Eye dives into the archive, with a Friend-themed game from 1936, and discovers winter woollies crafted by Friends atop a postbox in Harrogate
Winter woollies
A postbox got a toasty topper from some talented Quakers last autumn.
Craig Barnett, the local development worker for Yorkshire, shared: ‘This amazing postbox topper was knitted by Friends in Harrogate for Quaker Week. The QR codes are linked to the websites of Quakers in Britain, George Fox 400 and Harrogate Quaker Meeting. The figures are George Fox and Margaret Fell, the buildings are Swarthmore Hall and Derby Gaol and you can see Firbank Fell at the back.’
Has your Meeting been involved in any creative activities to let folks know about Friends?
On this day
Eye was delighted to find an Eye-like section in the archive!
In the edition dated 10 January 1936, ‘QQ’ wrote: ‘At the annual social gathering of one London meeting last Saturday, I hear that The Friend was made the basis of a game.
‘Six copies of the issue for December 27 having been obtained, the pages of each number were distributed among the members of six groups that were formed.
‘Each participant was asked to scan the pages which fell to his or her lot, to see if on them were the answers to the questions which were then read out.
‘And here were some of the questions – I give the page on which the reply was found, in brackets: “What is the largest wooden building in the world?” (p. 1210). “What is all-embracing, generous and cheap?” (back cover). “What is the English idea of a gentleman?” (p. 1216). “Who was seen where polishing what?” (p. 1212)...
‘It is regrettable to learn that the highest score was ten right answers to fifteen questions. Few of the participants realised there was so much miscellaneous information in these pages!’ Of course, Eye couldn’t resist hunting for the answers…
A Friend in New Zealand, Edward C Simpson, had delivered an art lecture referring to ‘the tendency to disguise the true nature of building materials in order to make them appear more expensive’. His example was: ‘The government buildings [in] Wellington are frequently pointed out as the largest wooden building in the world, but the wood of the structure is laboriously disguised as stone.’
The answer to the second question was a full page advert for The Friends’ Provident & Century Insurance Offices.
The third question’s answer could be found in a paragraph about Leighton Park School: ‘In his address of welcome the headmaster, Edgar B Castle, spoke of the link at the school between leisure time activities and the formal curriculum, and of the general aim of training up flexible, courageous minds, willing to accept change but possessing judgment and stability. The latest narrow English idea of a gentleman was “a man who can play a saxophone but doesn’t”; but the Greek view of human perfection was a man to whom “happiness means activity of the soul.”’
Finally, although the answer to the fourth question is less than a sentence long, Eye thought a fuller extract from the ‘Things seen’ section might give some context!
‘Curious little sights greet one in passing to and fro in London streets and trains. Recently I have noted:
‘A paper girl outside a busy “Tube” station winding a ball of wool from a skein of wool stretched on the extended hands of a friend.
‘The careful placing of a small paper “cocked hat” on the top of the black opera hat of a tube traveller, by some mischievous youths, who apparently thought he looked too smart for such democratic travel…
‘A man in the train unconcernedly holding up a spring balance and meticulously weighing some unknown substance in a small crumpled paper bag. The contents might have been a ha-porth of sweets or a number of precious stones.
‘And, lastly, the sight of a man standing under the shadow of Cleopatra’s Needle on the Thames Embankment, and vigorously polishing the nose of the stuffed head of a fair-sized deer which he rested on the pavement for the purpose!’
