A peaceful garden with a white sculpture releasing a dove beside a still pool Photo: Photo: Colin McKenzie.
Q-CAT garden wins gold
Dori Miller's garden for the RHS Tatton Show wins gold
A gold medal has been awarded to Dori Miller’s garden at the RHS Tatton Show. The garden was inspired by the Quaker Concern for the Abolition of Torture’s (Q-CAT) aim to end torture and complicity in torture.
Dori, from Wirral and Chester Area Meeting, designed the garden with her son Howard (see ‘Adventurous gardening’, 6 April). She said: ‘I am exhausted but deeply satisfied with the gold. It felt like self-inflicted torture building the garden, not only because of the weather, but because of the harsh, brutal concrete and wire we used for construction, as well as demolition rubble and weeds.
‘The positive response it has had from hundreds of visitors makes it all worthwhile. People were willing to queue for ages to walk through the garden, treated it with great respect and many came out visibly moved by the experience. I am grateful for all the support from so many Quakers, without which the garden would not have been possible.’
Chas Raws, convenor of Q-CAT, described it as ‘an amazing achievement’ and said ‘their gold last year for a garden for Oxfam had all the resources of Oxfam behind it whereas this year’s has been supported and funded by a few Meetings and individuals’.
Chas added: ‘Visitors were invited to walk through the garden, first outside the high-security fence passing the rubble of a bombed site with an ecological succession of plants representing the healing process for devastated land and damaged minds and bodies. They could pause to hear the subdued voices of torture survivors and pass through an enclosed “cell” before emerging into a peaceful garden with a white sculpture releasing a dove beside a still pool. The flight of doves continues in wire embroidery across the chain-link. The flowers in the garden are predominantly white varieties of plants introduced by Quaker botanists.
‘Arrangements are being made for the core of the garden to be sited in the grounds of Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre.’
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