Photo courtesy of Laura Conyngham.
Eye - 12 February 2021
From Bernie and the banner to Uplifting horizons
Bernie and the banner
A Friend in Exeter was inspired by recent news stories to display a banner outside their home starting on 22 January.
The ratification of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and the continuing child food poverty campaign by footballer Marcus Rashford motivated Laura Conyngham to display the message: ‘Trident costs the earth: Food for children doesn’t.’
She told Eye: ‘People [walked] past for exercise and to visit the cemetery. A label on a fishing stool invited anyone, who might like to sit to take their own photograph, and a few did stop.’
Some technological tinkering resulted in an unwitting participant: ‘I didn’t expect “Bernie Sanders”, photoshopped by Ian Martin.’
The banner is now being moved to another Friend’s house, where it is hoped even more people will see it and take a snap.
Health and comfort
Friends put in an unexpected appearance in The Unbelievable Truth on BBC Radio 4.
Hosted by David Mitchell, The Unbelievable Truth sees comedians compete to sneak outlandish facts past each other – hidden in lie-packed lectures.
Episode four, available on BBC Sounds, featured Frankie Boyle, Sara Pascoe, Miles Jupp and Holly Walsh talking about puppets, spying, Glasgow, and religion.
Sara Pascoe tackles religion, covering Catholicism, the church of Maradona, Scientology, alien volcanoes, and Quakers!
One of the facts she successfully smuggles in is that Quakers invented the sanitary towel.
In the 1880s brothers Thomas and William Southall produced and sold what is thought to be the first commercially available sanitary towel. David Mitchell quotes one of their early adverts: ‘Special to ladies: A desideratum of the highest importance for health and comfort – increased cleanliness, less liability to chill.’
The Southall family had deep roots within Quakerism, with connections to Roger Pritchard, who established Almeley Meeting House in 1672, and Edward Pritchard, one of the signatories of William Penn’s 1682 Charter of the Liberties and Frame of Government of Pennsylvania.
Uplifting horizons
Eye wonders if Friends who have visited the Quaker Tapestry may be missing Kendal’s surrounding countryside. If so, the BBC’s Winter Walks may be a tonic, with a visual ode to nearby Dent.
Each half-hour episode follows a different walker as they explore beautiful British landscapes and offer reflections.
Eye suspects others who have been feeling confined will enjoy these quiet, immersive adventures in nature.
For those hankering for Dent in particular, they can join poet Lemn Sissay in the first episode, where he starts ‘high on the moorlands above Dent village… [he] walks along ancient drovers’ roads and the old postman’s path, with breathtaking winter views in every direction’.
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