Eye - 31 August 2012

From Flower Patch tales to feathery accounts

Flower patch tales

Following their time at The Boy’s Own Paper and The Girl’s Own Paper respectively (24 August), Eb and Flo’s tale continued at ‘The Flower Patch’, a cottage in the Wye Valley.

Here Flora penned ‘The Flower Patch’ novels. Jill Allum says: ‘Although novels, these were very descriptive of her lovely sloping wild flower garden. I took my bike on the train from Colchester, getting off at Tintern, and cycled to Brockweir and stayed with Flora’s great niece… Flora wrote, “Be encouraged in the beauty of the world of nature about you, see something of the handiwork of God.”’

The Good Life

Talk of ‘the Good Life’ often brings to mind the 1970s sitcom of that name, which pitted suburban drop outs Tom and Barbara Good against their conventional neighbours Jerry and Margo.

‘Leading the Good Life’ has been chosen as the title for a course to be held at Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre between 25 and 27 August. Some of the attendees may well not have been born when the television comedy was aired as the event is for Quakers aged 18-40.

The weekend will provide an opportunity to explore issues such as environmental justice, conflict and living in community. No laughing matter then…

Fictional Friends

Another interesting contribution to our take on Quakers in literature: a book that one reviewer called a ‘psychologically astute tale about a troubled artistic mother.’ Friend Helen Porter describes the book, Patrick Gale’s Notes From an Exhibition, as a ‘remarkably sympathetic, but also wry, portrait of Quakers, including Meeting for Worship, from an author who is not, as far as I know, a Quaker himself.’

Spot the visitor

Sieneke Martin, of Australia Yearly Meeting, got in touch with a simple but effective idea for those Meetings struggling to identify visitors: ‘If you are a visitor in our Local Meeting, you are encouraged to pick a blue mug for your tea or coffee after Meeting. That way Friends know that you would like to talk with someone. This works well: our Friend-on-the-door welcomes visitors, but sometimes misses one. So during notices everyone is reminded about the blue mugs.’

Alternatives

Eric Cook offers: The Foxhunting Club - For Quakers, who are seeking what they stand for

Feathery accounts

‘Fierce Feathers’ has stirred up some interesting tidbits. Chris Skidmore contacted Eye with more in the saga:

‘The fictionalised account is one of the chapters (chapter 29 in fact) in Lucy Violet Hodgkin’s A Book of Quaker Saints. This was first published in 1917 with illustrations by F Cayley Robinson and I imagine that the Library’s enquiry of the Bayes family of the whereabouts of the original picture was because of copyright reasons. They may have wished to use the picture itself as an illustration but in the end Cayley Robinson produced his own version of the scene which you can find at http://bit.ly/CayleyRobinson.

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