Waldo Williams memorial Photo: shirokazan/flickr CC:BY
Q-eye – 24 September 2010
Waldo Williams, legend
Waldo Williams
The words of ‘Mewn Dau Gae’ have a special place in Eye’s heart. The poem, by Waldo Williams, features in Quaker faith & practice 21.33 in Welsh and there is a translation at the back of the book.
The poem features in Gwlad Beirdd – Waldo Williams, a programme broadcast on television channel S4C on 12 September.
Reader David B Lawrence used the channel’s website to watch the programme. David tells Eye that at times it is quite moving and he encourages you to view it. The programme includes readings in Welsh from Waldo’s poems and they visit the fields where the young Waldo had the vision that became the poem, ‘Mewn Dau Gae’. Among the symbols on the bottom of the small viewing screen is an owl, which will switch on the English subtitles for you. You can use the link http://tinyurl.com/waldow to access the programme, but it is only available for a month after first broadcast.
Good Quaker?
‘I went to a business school and did my MBA in the United States, and there I started going to Quaker Meeting. Gradually, that philosophy began to take over. Most of my mother’s family were Quakers (she isn’t), and I suppose it stayed in the genes. I’m not a good Quaker, but the fundamental Quaker philosophy is how I would like to run my life… Quaker faith & practice isn’t a sermon, but it’s an absolutely wonderful commentary proving a wonderful guide to life…’
Chris Goodall, economist and author of How to Live a Low-carbon Life, interviewed in the Church Times, 3 September. A correspondent asks: ‘Who is a good Quaker?’
Can we talk about breakfast?
Alnwick Quakers are on a myth-busting mission during Quaker week Eye learns from a familiar source. They’ve decided to tackle that little misunderstanding that irritates Friends everywhere – the general perception that Quakers make porridge oats.
Our Friends in the north are taking a stall in the town’s Saturday market on 2 October and giving away 100 servings of oats. Not to miss an opportunity of course, there will be one or two succinct messages on the bags about Quaker ways. And Friends will put shoppers straight about the Quaker Oats company, their famous logo of the wide-brimmed hatted gentleman and how an association with the Quaker reputation for integrity gave added value to their product.
‘Everyone loves a freebie,’ a former editor told Eye, ‘so we’ll have a captive audience, until the porridge runs out.’
Wandering watercolours
Do you have a painting by Isabel Leach Swarbrick? Isabel (1900 to 1982, neé Remington) painted or drew almost daily in watercolours and oils from a young age for the rest of her life. The earliest one that her son Olaf and his siblings know of is dated 1915. Olaf tells Eye that, aged about seventy-five, he once put her onto the train in Sussex to return to Fife with a wet watercolour in one hand and brushes in a water pot in the other!
Olaf and his family wish to catalogue and make a database of Isabel’s paintings, some of which are scattered across the UK and possibly overseas. They may be signed ILS, IL Swarbrick, IRS, Isabell Leach Remington or some combination thereof. In particular they have lost sight of a painting of Come-to-Good and Old Jordans Meeting Houses. Other Meetings or individuals may have paintings on their walls or in drawers. If you know of the location of any of these pictures please let Olaf know any information and whether he can obtain a photograph via The Friend.
