All about Joan

83 pages 38,350 words
Prologue
All that follows is Joan’s own text, but she wrote in scraps, sometimes direct to the word processor (which she hated, she would have much preferred her electric “golf-ball” typewriter) and sometimes on scraps of note books which I have tried to transcribe.
So, any editing I have done is to fill in gaps or prevent major duplication.
John
July 2013
 
Musician    Pianist    Actress    Singer
The road not travelled!
My two younger sisters and I were privileged to be the children of parents who were determined the help us to have a better education and future than they had. When I was five years old I told the Headmistress of the local Infants School that I knew I would like school and that I was going to be a teacher, adding that when I was “an old lady like her” I would be a Headmistress and have a room of my own.
The latter wasn’t pursued, but I loved teaching. Beginning with infant school, a headmistress discovered that I “had a special gift with difficult children” – as she put it. That led to a special post in a school for children with special needs. I don’t think I ever craved for a high salary job, I just loved teaching.
Music was my great love. My piano teacher wanted me to “go into music” but even if I got a scholarship to one of the London colleges, back in 1947 there would have been no financial support for the local Council.
I see myself as an odd jobber when I look back; there have been so many wonderful gifts. I was a Labour Councillor in Splott for 4 years – followed by Riverside for another 4 years on boundary changes.
One of the greatest gifts I received was attending one “Play group committee” chaired by the head of the Council Leisure and Amenities. A girl, who had been in my form in the fourth form, was asked how she was always so calm with her kids. She said “When I feel mad, I just think of Mrs S and I take a deep breath: It always works!”
*   *   *   *
What do I need from my Muse?  Concentration? Determination? Time? Ability to take time for myself? Ideas?
What blocks me? Laziness. Needing to cook meals. Shopping. Thinking of menus. Inability to ignore these things.
Mostly I need to be able to take time. Peace. I often put off writing because of other jobs needing to be done. But I love cooking, and making words. Culinaré pacem. With a long wooden spoon.
I wonder if, as I grow older, I am becoming ‘waspish’: when hearing of research into new discoveries of ancient ancestors. Undoubtedly many of the discoveries are fascinating and provide an interesting and lucrative living for a number of people. How helpful is this in helping the present generation to live peaceably?
I would be less cynical if I could see that some of these this newly found knowledge had a positive effect on developing and sharing of resources, and real effects in living peaceably among nations. A laying down of arms in order to make starvation a distant memory for future generations seems so simple and necessary.
I don’t think my muse Culinaré pacem  is negative. She is telling me that food for the soul and mind is as important as food for the body. Sometimes a need for bodily sustenance can form the basis of a magnificent piece of work. An awareness of the soul/source of creation which some of us call God. We need to nourish our body in ways which are in tune with Nature itself.
To fill our minds with positive, open and active, decisions making a positive difference.
 
Chapter One
In writing my autobiography, who are the five main characters likely to be?
 
Obviously my parents figure since they actually launched me into the world!
They are Stanley and Ellen Forse (nee Saddler) and my momentous journey was begun on July 23rd, 1929.  I remember nothing of it but I was evidently very small, though later than I was due. 
At a time when I was tremendously overweight following the births of Michael and Timothy - our two eldest sons - my mother seemed to take a slightly malicious delight in relating the doctors’ reaction when he finally delivered me after a not-so-easy birth (I was told).  He is reputed to have held me in one hand, lifted me up and said “Good Lord, mother, is this a baby or a rabbit?”     Well, he should see me now – but ‘that’s life I guess!’
I was one year old in July 1930.  I have no recollection of life in the first home my parents made in two rooms and a shared kitchen.  Mr and Mrs Staples were a lovely couple with one son, Johnny who was a little older than me and the friendship remained for many years.
Bristol City Council was very keen to have some good, reliable tenants in some of the estates of Council owned properties for rent which they were currently building.  Stability of employment, honesty in paying bills and rent were taken into account, and references from employers, and churches were also asked for if appropriate.
Mum and Dad evidently ‘ticked all the boxes’ and moved into the house during the autumn of 1930.
No memory remains to me of that early adventure, but I am told that I was an outgoing and friendly child  and loved ‘helping’.  I became very ‘busy’ in the garden ‘helping the men’ who were still doing some ‘finishing off’ outside.  They must have been very patient. The garden was full of stone and builders materials and I evidently loved putting into the big wheelbarrow pieces of stone and rubble which was being cleared.
One evening Mum was undressing me for my bath.  As she peeled my socks off she discovered blood on them both.  Obviously this shocked her and she tried to discover what had happened.  All I could say was that I had ‘dwopt big stone’!  She wrapped me in a towel, carried me into the back garden and asked me to show her.  What I had dropped was a 14lb. stone mallet.  No wonder I bled. (My big toes have been slightly misshapen and awkward ever since!
1930 was an eventful Year altogether.  On December 19th my sister Ruth was born.  That same morning I produced a rash, and other signs of measles – a deadly infection in those days.
The Doctor said I couldn’t stay in the house and was all set to ‘make arrangements’.  My Gran stepped in and said “NO!”
The pram was a large, old-fashioned one with three removable padded boards in the bottom, they were supported by ledges along the side of the pram.  The pads were removed and a comfortable bed made in the bottom.  I was put in it, well wrapped up, and a little procession went off to Grans’ little house.
This record is built from odd flashes of memory and the recounting of stories of the occasion at various family gatherings over the years. 
“I love you not because of who you are, but who I am when I am with you”
So many people have influenced my life and development.  I think to begin I must just make a list and then select the main ones to ‘flesh out’ a bit!
Undoubtedly, my parents Stan and Nell.  They first met when Nell was sent by her older sister, Vi , to give notes cancelling a date. (I think Vi was a ‘bit flighty’ – as my Gran described it.)  Dad was eighteen and Mum fourteen at the time,  but both went to the Quaker ‘mission Meeting’ on Sunday evenings and began walking home together afterwards.  They became engaged when Mum was eighteen and got married five years later on June 9th 1928.
I was welcomed into the family in July 1929 in the middle of a heat wave.  Poor Mum, she didn’t have a very good time.  She really didn’t like very hot weather.  It was however strawberry season and her craving for strawberries seemed to be passed on.  I was frequently told that when I finally emerged – three weeks late, only 5lbs in weight – I was licking my lips.  The “resident midwife” I am told, wrapped a juicy strawberry in a small piece of butter muslin and gave it to me to suck.  I was rapturous – and have been ever since about strawberries.  Leave out the muslin!
At the time they were living in a shared house with an older couple.  Mr and Mrs Staples and their only son, Johnny – 2 years older than me – remained friends during my infant days but I don’t remember when they ‘dropped from the scene.’
A lot of building of Council Houses for rent was going on in Bristol at that time and because Dad was in a permanent job which he had held since he left school at 14 he and Mum were offered the chance to move into a newly built Council House.  Of course they jumped at it!
I believe they moved into the house during early September.  Mum was pregnant again and my sister Ruth was born a week before Christmas in 1930.  My youngest sister, Joyce, arrived on January 7th 1935 and we all cherished her. All three were home deliveries with Nurse Smith attending.
I was taken off to stay with my Godmother – Mum’s sister Grace.  I loved staying with her and Uncle Clarence, her new husband. They had been married only a few months and I had been a ‘flower girl’ at their ceremony. Fate always takes a hand though.  The baby had not yet arrived, I had tried to cut my own hair and been taken to a ‘proper hairdresser’ to correct the damage.  And my Grandfather, Mum’s Dad, had a massive stroke.  So I was bundled off to stay with Grace’s Mother-in-law, Mrs White.  I had met her at my Aunt’s wedding, but had never visited her house.  It was about three times as large as our Council house, old, with a huge garden containing many old, dark trees.  I remember lying in the bed, with thick feather eiderdown, in a much bigger room than even the biggest in our house, wondering what was going to happen and how long I was going to have to stay.  Where were Mummy and Daddy and were they a bit tired of me.  (I do remember thinking that but it wasn’t an on-going worry.  I did sort out the answer for myself)
Looking at it now I feel the anguish it must have been for Mum, and wish I could have had some talk with her about it.  (P’r’aps I will sometime in the next 100 years!)
Granfer (as we called him) survived the stroke and was paralysed on his right side.  He was able to get around a little using a stick in his left hand.  He liked to look at the newspaper, but couldn’t really read much.  He could ‘do the pools’ because the teams were printed in columns with little ‘boxes’ to tick.  He thought I was wonderful because I could read out the teams for him and he sometimes ‘let’ me put in the ticks. (I quickly realised that this meant he was feeling particularly low and seemed to take it on myself to make him laugh!)
I am allowing my mind and fingers to jump a little and think or discover events that have not surfaced in many years – if ever.
I remember being taken to visit Granfers’ place of work.  I must have been 3 or 4 years old.  He worked for a removal firm called ‘Sutton’s’.  At that time all the removal carts were drawn by horses and Granfer had the job of grooming and feeding the horses he used.  They seemed huge beasts, especially to a small child who was not very familiar with animals other than city cats and dogs.  Trying to ‘feel’ that occasion the names ‘Meg’ and ‘Jenny’ come to mind but there is no way that I can confirm it – or not!
They were so gentle and nuzzled my neck and tickled so that I laughed.  I remember putting my arms round their necks.   What a lovely experience to recall.
The trouble is that some of these lovely recalls make me weepy!  I’m not usually particularly weepy but growing older seems to bring it to the surface more easily.
My mind has just made another jump of realisation.  I have always loved working in economically deprived areas. When I was teaching and also in representing an area as a City councillor.  Perhaps it’s because I ‘feel in my bones’ the same, and recognise the kind of people who nurtured me. And made it possible for me to learn and be able to give out to people who need support.
So who were these people?
My parents, Stanley and Ellen Forse.  My Godmother, aunty Grace,  all my mothers’ sisters, especially Vene (short for Lavinia) who was only 5+ years older than me.  In my teens we scrapped the title altogether.  My sister Ruth and I had joined a folk-dancing group at Quakers Friars in Bristol, and so had Mum’s younger sisters Grace (my godmother) and Emmie (Ruth’s godmother). The first night we all went.  Ruth and I had no idea that a bevy of Aunts were joining, and greeted them as Aunty in the way we usually did!
By the end of the evening everyone in the group, even the much older members, were calling them ‘Aunty’.   They couldn’t bear it and begged us to use their first names only!  We were only too pleased of course!
I’m just grabbing memories as they occur now (in no particular order).
The Infant school I attended was at the far end of the road we lived in.  From the age of about six I was quite competent enough to walk to and from school by myself.  Mum was glad of my independence, with two younger sisters to care for it would be quite a kerfuffle getting them dressed to go out four times a day!’
I do remember the delight when they were there to meet me at the end of the afternoon and we went to the nearby park before going home to tea.
I have a vivid memory of one dinner time.  It was summer and we were in the middle of a heat wave.  Perfect weather for me – after all I was born in the middle of a heat wave!
I set off from school and had walked a short distance when suddenly there was a tremendously loud explosion.  The sky was almost black. Then a terrific flash and another roar of explosion.
I screamed “MUMMY! MUUUUUUUUUUUUMMY! And tried to run, almost beaten down by the heavy rain.
There was no shelter at all in this street of council houses.  Trees had not yet arrived on the estate!
Suddenly a familiar figure appeared, my beloved mother.  Gosh, still in her apron!  But looking like an angel.
When we got home I learned that my screams had been heard! Mum had picked my younger sisters up, dumped them next door with Mrs Mockridge and ran.
Thanks Mum.
* * * *
My moral beliefs: Hmm! Pretty well the Ten Commandments I guess. Some of them aren’t relevant – I never been even close to killing someone and the thought of stealing someone else’s property is abhorrent. (Hmm – do pencils count?). I think honesty and openness has been one of the mainsprings of my growing up.
The danger of this is that on some occasions complete honesty can overshadow awareness of the feelings of other people.
Dad’s brother Ern and his wife Beattie and daughter Eileen lived in a similar council house to ours on the opposite side of the road. We saw Uncle Ern often as he delivered our bread. Eileen was a lot older than me and I hardly saw her. Auntie Beat was prone to hallucinations. (At the time I hadn’t a clue what that meant).  I don’t remember her clearly at all. She often stayed in bed for days, and rarely went out.
From time to time she “went mental, poor soul”, as the neighbours always described it. She would then have a spell of some weeks in Fishponds mental hospital undergoing shock treatments. This treatment was in its infancy and discarded later because of the horrific damage to patients, I was told.
Following a long spell of this treatment Aunty Beat was sent home and told to stay in bed until the doctor gave her permission to get up. One of the things Aunty Beat really enjoyed was hearing me recite poems. I was always happy to be able to do this for her. I loved poetry and was a six-year-old extrovert. Uncle Ern came across and asked if I’d go and say some poems for her. I willingly went with him and standing at the end of her bed went through my repertoire.
I really enjoyed doing it and it was lovely to see her smile – didn’t happen very often poor soul. With open arms she hugged me and then asked me to ‘give her a kiss’ – Why do grown-ups think they have the right to demand this of six-year-olds? - I looked at her face and saw the slight beard and a sort of hairy moustache and pulled away crying “don’t like hairy lips!” and ran from the room.
Later that day, or early the next she died. I can’t believe it was because I wouldn’t kiss her.
Was it?
As for so many children of my age the 1939/45 war took our childhood.  Of course we played, but for a year or so many games were interrupted and we rushed into the air-raid shelter. Many of us were desperately tired during the day, having spent wakeful nights in a different shelter.  It was difficult to study during the day because of fatigue. The added anguish of having our Dad called up and sent to Canada for three years made life very grey.  I weep inwardly when I feel the anguish my mother must have experienced.
Other people emerge in my mind reminding me of their importance in my growing up.  My Infant school Headmistress Miss Buglar remained a role model for many years.  In the Junior School Miss Axford was my class teacher for the top two years.  I adored her.  She encouraged me to write and while in her class I entered a composition competition.  The subject was something to do with one’s father being in the services.  I cannot remember anything of my writing, and the composition was much about the sense of loss at his absence and my growing conviction that war was not the way to solve problems between nations. (I think I was pushing for the idea of some sort of football championship!)  Anyway, lost to posterity though it now is, I gained much acclaim for my school,  and ‘Knowle West’ district.
My aunt Vene is 6 years older than me and was very like an elder sister.  She and her school friend Dick figured in my early life.  I’m never sure if many of my memories are actually recollections built over the years by stories at family gatherings.  “Do you remember-s?” we called them.
I don’t remember the pram journey, but do remember the weirdness of opening my eyes and seeing nothing.
I don’t recall any fear.  From more than 80 years ago the feeling washing over me is perplexity – “Where’s the sun?”   “Why isn’t the light on?”
But I found a great game.
Dick was a loving slave and would do anything for me.  I was always very thirsty so when I finished my drink it was a great game to throw the beaker under Gran’s bed and call out “Mo’ J’ink Dick”   Poor Dick had to scrabble around the floor until he found the beaker, go downstairs and bring more water.
Aunty Vene and her friend Marj figured more when I was about six years old, Ruth five and our baby sister Joyce six months old.  They were just in the Senior School and considered to be ‘fairly responsible’!  Humph!
They were commissioned to take us to Victoria Park to play.  So we set off:  Vene, Marj and I walking, Ruth on the pram seat and Joyce lying in it.
On arriving at the park we made for the top of a grassy slope.
Vene and Marj quickly spread the pram blanket on the grass and expeditiously ‘dumped’ baby Joyce on it.  Ruth and I were given a toy of some kind, and ordered to ‘take care of your baby and don’t make her cry!”
They themselves took turns in riding the pram from the top of the grassy slope hurtling down to crash into the hedge at the bottom.  I don’t remember minding very much, but I do remember feeling quite afraid when Joyce began to crawl and wanted to venture off the blanket.  It was a long hot summer I seem to remember.
Such vivid memories of people and events are crowding into my mind, but very few occasions when I can say ‘that was when it finished’.  How strange.
The more I write the more I remember.  There is difficulty in the fact that I am now the eldest of my generation in the family. This makes verification almost impossible unless one of my younger sisters accurately remembers a particular incident more accurately than I do.
Of course this means that no one can argue with my interpretation of events. 
I think I am thinking of this as a story, based on facts, of a working class family living in a newly built Council house on a new estate.  A family with low income, much love, and making the most they can of the opportunities offered them in the earlier part of the twentieth century.
My family!
As a child I had a fiery temper and once or twice really hurt my younger sister Ruth – her own fault really, she would keep dancing round me chanting “Joanie’s in a tem—per” (bull-baiting I call it).
I think the last time was when I became so incensed I knocked her from a chair and she bit through her lower hip which bled very badly.  I was six years old and she was five – even Seventy years later she still has a slight scar – and I still feel a guilt!
At school my first teacher Miss Russell had great influence.  I fell in love with her the first day.  She was wearing a primrose coloured dress in some kind of silky material (probably ‘Shantung silk’). She encouraged me to experiment in drawing, reading and counting and measuring.  In fact considering her methods now I think she was a forerunner of ‘Activity Methods’ teaching.  These methods were all the rage when I was at Training College some 15+ years later.
I have been grateful to so many lovely people it is difficult to pick out the five main characters.
I was ten years old and just another Child in Wartime.
My father took the Daily Mirror and for weeks I had been seeing bits of news in it, and the news was listened to.  The whole atmosphere was that ‘there is going to be a war’.
At school there was a lively boy in our class called ‘Georgie Gallop’. 
We suddenly had a brilliant idea!
If we called him St. George and dressed him in armour with a big Union Jack on it we would frighten the man called Hitler and we’d be safe.  For a very short time we were comforted.
I remember sitting with my parents and my two younger sisters listening to the radio.
Of course television had not been heard of at that time, or certainly not on our Council Estate.
The voice of Neville Chamberlain was deep and solemn as he gave the news that there had been no response from Adolf Hitler to the latest attempt at a solution and therefore we were now in a state of war with Germany.
My two sisters and I could hardly visualise what ‘being at war’ really meant.
Within a few months we began to understand.
Rationing of food was pretty fair.  The only things I really missed were bananas!
There had been a few practises of response to the air raid sirens.  On one occasion they were sounded so that children could be timed walking (not running) from their school to home.  If they were able to do it in a specific time they could go home when the siren went during lesson time; otherwise they went into the school shelter.  Thankfully I was able to get home in the allocated time.
Bristol City Council was quite helpful in preparing people for a possible air-raid.  They had not yet been able to provide everyone with a Shelter but had various ‘tips’.  Mum and Dad had cleared out the cupboard under the stairs and put in an old mattress, a couple of stools, and some blankets.  It felt quite exciting!
From the back door of our Council House we could see the whole of Bristol City.  The Clifton Suspension Bridge (no longer lit up), Houses. St. Marys’ Church, Parks.
This was always a favourite ‘think point’ for Mum.
Although we were at war the only things which felt wrong were the absence of certain foods (I really missed bananas) and a feeling of tension around the adults.
Of course there was no television. So at least we were not bombarded each day by the atrocities already perpetrated.
One Sunday in September just after tea (mmm! homemade cake – a Sunday treat) Mum did her usual ‘thing’ and stood at the back door looking over the town.  The sirens went off.  Just another practice!  They would keep on doing it!
She came back in soon after and said something quietly to Dad and they both went to the back door.
A bit strange but we didn’t think a great deal about it – they often had little cuddles and we loved it – sometimes we all joined in!
Dad came back in and we all helped clear the table.  We were quite excited when Dad said that we could start the night in ‘the cupboard under the stairs’.  So we all got a cushion each to be more comfortable.  We’d always wanted to go camping – this was the next best thing.
It felt like an adventure we thought as we ate a biscuit and supped our drink.
But this was turning out to be a longer practice than usual.
What on earth was that?
A loud crash made us jump, then loud guns.  Heavy aeroplanes whining overhead, noises as exploding bombs dropped with a horrible rending shriek.
A strong smell of urine became apparent as the night boomed on.  No-one minded! Too much else to worry about.
At last the noise stopped. 
Was it over?
Had the bombing stopped?
Cautiously Daddy started to open the door.  It wouldn’t move.
He tried again, more firmly, with no effect.
That was very frightening.
We were trapped, our house must have been destroyed by that last bomb! 
We banged and shouted.
I felt sick – I think we all did and if pants weren’t wet previously they were now!
Suddenly we heard voices, and some loud bumps and the door finally opened.
We were not buried under the house.
Bomb blast had torn the window out and jammed it between the sink and cupboard door.
There was a lot of damage to the house and an unexploded incendiary in the roof so we had to leave our house for a day or two until the problems were dealt with.
We went to Granny and Granfer’s house for a few days.
They were my Mum’s parents and that wasn’t the only time we needed to shelter in their tiny terraced house with no facilities – but creating and giving so much love.
Within a few weeks an Anderson Shelter was built in our next door neighbours’ garden to be shared by our two families. We children quite enjoyed it – at least for the first few weeks. The shelters were partially buried so we needed to go down a few steps.  Our fathers had built bunks along one side and benches to sit on facing.  It was a bit of a squash but somehow we made our own fun with games of ludo, tiddley-winks, snap, if we got bored with all of those we fell back on ‘I-Spy’ – and that’s a very challenging game to play in an underground shelter with dim Hurricane lamps or candles in jars, especially when one is desperately tired and it’s school tomorrow!
An autobiography obviously has a beginning.  My mother described life as a circle or clock.  She suggested that we begin at nought, and build up memories as we advance to number six.  As we begin to ascend the other semicircle of life our early memories again become closer and eventually become more vivid than the daily happenings of old age!
I begin to understand what she meant!
In 1939 I had my tenth birthday.
 Double figures already!
The following year I won a full scholarship to the "poshest" girls' school in the city.  Against a background of nightly bombing I was learning to mix in a very different school group!
I think I may have become a bit of an "inverted snob", determined not to deny where I came from. ["Council House kids" was a derogatory term here].  Bombed out of our  house twice in the first term I missed quite a lot of school.  It is due to an exceptional Form/English teacher that I not only survived but moved into a world of reading, acting, poetry ... as well as music.
I felt a special relationship with Daddy as his eldest daughter.  I was quite musical and had been learning to play the piano since I was eight years old. It wasn't until after his death in 1963 that I discovered this opportunity was made possible because Dad gave up his hobby of making slides for a Magic Lantern on which he gave shows at evening meetings at our Quaker Meeting House to groups of people nearby.  He   was a simple and deeply spiritual man.  Not very educated, he had left school at fourteen and gone to work in Wills the large cigarette factory where he was by now a machine operator.  Self-taught, he played the hymns at the Meeting Sunday School as well as teaching in the Quaker Sunday School. He owned a large family bible and read from it every morning before he went to work at Will’s Cigarette Factory where he had been employed since he left school at 14 years of age. He died from Cancer at the age of 62 shortly after he retired, leaving an un-fillable gap in our lives.
In 1941 the family feels devastated.  Daddy is called up, sent into the air force and within six months is shipped off to Canada and remains there for three years. 
[He was forty-one when he registered, and, with wife and three children it seemed unlikely that he would be called.  Because of his family commitments and responsibilities he felt unable to stand as a conscientious objector.  When the war was over, without understanding the whole situation I castigated him for not being true to his conscience.]
Suddenly I was asked by the Elders of the Meeting to take over the playing of the harmonium for Sunday-School and meeting for Worship - just until our father comes home again.  I felt very grown up!  Hearing the story of how children of my age  (twelve)  kept the meeting going during the persecutions, I identified with them.  I wondered how they lived, and wondered whether it would be worse to have a parent in prison, or if it was worse to have a father in the air force, in Canada, in wartime.
 
Piano Forte
Just now the piano tuner came,
Twice yearly – always the same –
Tuner seated – notes repeated –
Me - Overheated in the kitchen!
Don’t play much now – feel shamed at that somehow.
 
Dad loved music, self-taught pianist
Hymns on Sundays –
But a realist -
His drunkard dad would never pay the fee to have him taught.
Loving wife and daughters three – the eldest – me!
 
Talent at an early age won prizes,
Played upon a stage
Passed   exams:  with good  report –
always with  my Dad’s support.
Gifts were shared with both my siblings – one with voice the other strings.
 
Dad was proud, felt showered with treasure.
NOW to  renew  my  gift  with  pleasure.
 
There are times when cultural deprivation is sharp.  Thirst for discussion and conversation is almost insatiable. I  wanted to extend my knowledge of Quakers, God and politics - and discovered that whereas books can help with the first there was no way in which I could discuss at home the existence of God.  "How do we know?" questions were definitely out.  And political discussions were most definitely taboo.  This I could never understand, even the reasons for not discussing couldn’t be talked about.
Looking from this distance I realise that Mum took very seriously her task of keeping the family together while Dad was away.  These questions must have posed a threat to her. She had no experience or skill in abstract discussion.  Existence of God had never been a problem for her and she wasn't interested in politics.  She and Dad had been girl and boy friends since they met at the Mission meeting when Mum was fourteen and Dad eighteen.  They married ten years later.
 Only now do I really understand how difficult it was for her to take over the full responsibility of looking after a family of three lively girls, alone and in wartime. 
                       ------------------------------------------------------------
Clifton High School
I don’t remember ever going to the house where Dad grew up.  His parents died before I was born and we were never as close to his family as we were to Mums’.
My mother remembered all too clearly growing up in a tiny terrace house with small lean to kitchen in a back yard looking up a steep bank to railway lines.  Cold water and a stone sink in the yard was the morning routine for her and her siblings.
I was only fifteen months old when we moved from the ‘two rooms and shared kitchen’ in which my parents began their married life. No memory remains of my earliest home.
Bristol had a very active City Council Housing department and they were looking for reliable young tenants for houses on estates of newly built dwellings. My parents were housed fairly quickly.
Mummy delighted in her new facilities. She was a good cook and revelled in her well-organised kitchen.  Cupboards! And a gas cooker!  Running water and a window overlooking a good sized garden in which she and my father grew vegetables as well as flowers. Complete satisfaction!
  I remember loving to visit Gran in her quaint little house until in 1940 her street was so badly bombed the house was uninhabitable and she and Granfer were moved into a Council house, just around the corner from the one in which we now lived.
My sister Ruth was born just before Christmas when I was 18 months old, and six years later, in January, my sister Joyce arrived.
With such caring parents we thrived. Mum was a good manager and a wonderful cook. There were never family feuds or long lasting disputes to poison the relationships between us.  We were all pretty strong minded and seemed to develop a sense of self-worth and also respect of the needs and views of other people.
Neither of our parents had attended schools of higher education.  They both grew up with younger siblings and it was necessary to leave school and get a job as soon as possible. However they both respected good education and were determined to do the best possible for their daughters.  They were enormously pleased when subsequently we all gained scholarship places in grammar schools.
Scholarship examinations preceded the 11+ tests of a later generation!
I was, of course, the first in the family to sit this examination. What tremendous excitement when the news came that I had passed.  Moreover, because my name was among the top group I could choose to go to the ‘poshest’ High school in the town.  What a boost to the school on a slum clearance area estate!
My parents weren’t at all sure about me going to the ‘posh’ school!  They felt that the local Grammar school would be very good and that the distance across town, cost of uniform and general tone might be costly in feelings as well as difficult to afford.
It caused a minor sensation on the council estate where we lived when one afternoon Miss Dixon, the Headmistress of our Junior School, knocked at the front door. We children were sent outside, but I sat in the stairs and listened in!
“You must be very proud of Joan, Mrs. Forse.  What a magnificent achievement!”
“Yes Miss Dixon, we are.  We think it would be good for her to go to Merrywood School, it’s nearer, and she could walk to school with some friends.”
“But this is the first time anyone from Connaught Road has passed the scholarship exam high enough to go to one of the quality schools!  It would be so good for the reputation of the school!”
 “That’s all very well, but her Dad’s pay isn’t that high. We know people who can let us have secondhand uniform for Merrywood but it would all have to be bought for Clifton.  I don’t think we can afford it!”
There was silence and I wondered if they’d gone to sleep!
Then Miss Dixon said, “I can understand your worry.  I’ll try to think of ways the school might help.”
We are Quakers,(members of the Society of Friends) and some of the Elders of the local meeting arranged a grant for the purchase of books. Miss Dixon introduced us to a student at Clifton High who was in the fourth form and her parents were glad to sell outgrown uniform very reasonably. In fact, Marjorie was a bit of a “guardian angel” in my first term!
Following long discussions regarding cost of uniforms, books, travelling across Bristol to the school, status and related matters, the decision was made.  Yes, I could go to Clifton High School.
I think that ‘Steep learning curve’ would be an accurate description of the next term or more!
I always made friends, or probably more accurately, acquaintances fairly easily, but there was so much to learn!
It was quite scary travelling from the top of our road on one bus to the City centre, crossing the busy road and then another bus up Park Street to the Downs.  Mum had done a ‘practice run’ of the journey with me but the first morning felt very lonely. I fairly quickly bonded with a few girls who became friends, and felt no desire to emulate the behaviour of a few of the ‘upper class’ students!  I think I could have become a tiny bit of an ‘inverted snob’!
Lunch (at home we had called it dinner!) was served by maids in the school dining room and was quite a formal affair.
 (At the end of the first term this arrangement stopped.  Most of the young servers were called up on military service or other war-time jobs)
On my first day the doors had not yet been opened and as we waited there was a lot of jostling and pushing and noise.  A tall girl in my year (Anne Baldwin) shouted ‘for goodness sake stop that dreadful noise – you sound just like a crowd of Council House brats!)  I – the shortest in the crowd – drew myself up and said loudly – ‘excuse me – I’m a ‘Council House brat’ and I’ve never heard such a disgusting noise!’  At first there was absolute silence, then a bit of a clamour of questions – what’s it like? Have you got water inside? And so on.
Over the years many of them got to know our house from visits.  I like to think it was my first venture into politics!
My family are Quakers – members of the Society of Friends.  I became aware that there was a lot of curiosity about what it meant to be a Quaker. It had surfaced when our form teacher had introduced discussion about membership of various denominations of faiths.  Some of the girls had heard that Quakers were ‘conshies’ (a slang word for ‘conscientious objector’).  I discovered that I could not just sit and hear all the malignant words without trying to explain why.  So quite unexpectedly I found myself talking about the ‘Inner Light of God’ and how Quakers gather in silence to focus on that Light.  How they are sometimes led to speak in Meeting, but often silence is more powerful than words. I tried to show that if one truly believes in the Light of God within – the Inner Light – this is in everyone. Such belief means that we cannot take up arms against other people.  God is in them also.
This was the first time I had felt called upon to talk about the faith in which I had grown up, and to tell the truth I rather enjoyed the experience.
My father had just been called up and was away in the Air Force. This was a puzzle and worry to me (at 12 years l was rather ‘black and white’ in my opinions!)
When he was home on leave I challenged him about it.
Dad had worked in Will’s Cigarette Factory since he left school at 14.  At that time the Will’s family were very evident and ‘hands on’.  ‘Old man Wills’ knew the work force by name and mostly something about their background.  Soon after the war started he called Dad to his office and assured him that if he was called up his wife would receive full wage in addition to Dad’s service pay. He than went on to say that he understood that Dad was a Quaker and that he understood many Quakers were Conscientious Objectors – However- he continued- “Should you stand as a CO not only will your wife receive nothing from the company! When the war ends you will not be employed by us”.
Dad felt that God would not want his family to suffer in that way. 
He was very patient when I slightly exploded with the heat of a young adolescent and said that he should have followed his conscience. His care for his family was more important than standing against the state. There was pain for him in this decision but felt strongly led.
Dad’s pain was further increased when he was stationed in Canada for the greater part of the war.  In many ways it was a wonderful experience for him which would not otherwise have come his way.  He stayed with an Uncle whom he would not otherwise have met.  His posting was in an office.  Already a self-taught pianist, he quickly managed to use a typewriter which meant he could get a lot more news on a page.
During that time I was asked if I would take over Dad’s task of playing the ‘pedal organ’ for Sunday School and the evening worship.
How grown-up!
At last!  Service men began to return home.  I think I will never forget the absolute joy of fathers, brothers, sons and friends returning to their former lives. Many families knew there would be no reunion for them. The silence and darkened windows of some houses was a constant reminder of loss - (on our council estate sometimes a whole street in mourning.)  All that waste of those courageous young men and women.
In our house we all got very excited and wondered just how long we would have to wait until we saw Dad again. It had already been three years.
We prayed that the voyage would be without incident for the returning troops, that no unexploded devices would be floating around, that we would recognise Dad. ”WHEN will we hear?”
At last came the day.  We three girls went with Mum to the railway station at the appointed time.  Excitement and anxiety for the arrival. ‘would it be on time-would he be on it-would they recognise him-would HE recognise THEM?
Needless to say –we all did and no words could be adequate to describe the hugs, kisses, and tears of joy which followed.
 *   *   *   *
Happiness is a cold bath
 
[Joan wrote this a short story in response to this title. But it’s all true – John]
I was approaching the end of my school life as a pupil.  For many years I had felt called to teach.  I knew that Dad’s wage would not be great and felt that my parents would not be able to afford the expense.  My two younger sisters would both need similar support.
My parents were invited to a meeting with my Headmistress to discuss possibilities.
At the end of a long session it was decided that I would stay at school following the School Certificate examinations having a place in the Lower Sixth.  She thought it likely that new grants would become available and make it possible for me to move into higher education.
Most of my school friends came from affluent families and that had never posed a great problem.  I’d never felt the need to pretend to be other than myself.  However, onset of puberty and longing to be beautiful brought envy – not of wealth itself – but listening to descriptions of new bathrooms, wonderful showers, warm showers!  I was so envious!  I really wanted to make the best of myself.  Nice clothes, nice hair, nice skin (oh! those spots) nice smell!
 Mum had always made our clothes and was very good, she really listened to our requests – but – wouldn’t it be lovely to go into a posh shop and try on lots of things before choosing!
School uniform remained obligatory even in the Sixth form so that wasn’t too bad!
It occurred to me that even though we didn’t have the spanking new showers that so many of the girls at school were getting I could at least have a quick bath each morning.  Dad would be needed to light the temperamentally geyser over the bath so I asked him about it.
“Dad- will you light the geyser for me to have a quick bath every morning?”
“What?  So you mean before you go to school?”
“Yes, a lot of the girls in my form have got showers now.  I saw the one in Magg’s house the other day – you remember I went to tea after school?”
“Well I was still in work but Mum told me you’d gone there.”
“So can I?”
Dad sat quietly for a while.
Then he gently talked about costs.  He told me the cost (shillings in the gas meter) of running a bath and we totalled it.
“We’re really glad that our Quaker meeting helped a bit with books and uniform, but it costs a fair bit for bus fares and incidentals, and a bit of fun, too! We’re glad to do it.  You make us proud, but you’ve got two younger sisters at Grammar school too.  My wages just aren’t big enough to do everything we’d like to”
“O.K. what about if I have a cold bath?”
“Well, that would be alright, but not very enjoyable I’d say!”
“Oh Dad, let’s say it will be very refreshing!”
For the whole of that Summer I had a cold bath every morning.
On Sunday I enjoyed a deep warm bath.
What health and happiness!
“Happiness IS a cold bath!”
 
It certainly worked for me!
 
 *   *   *   *   *
A Nursery Helper
One might think that I might have felt some jealousy, given the much higher standard of living, possessions, food, of my peers.  In fact the only part of their life I ever envied were the wide-ranging discussions which were enjoyed in the homes of some of my school friends.
I had always liked and respected the Headmistress of Clifton High School.  She is someone I think of with affection now the years have given us a kind of equality! Indeed there were times in Assembly when, clad in her gown and mortar-board she appeared imposing, commanding and truth to tell, a little scary!   However if one needed advice or help she was always willing to listen to the problem and to help an individual find her own solution.  At the time when Dad  was still in Canada and Mum was struggling to keep the family happy I felt she was suffering too much and asked for a session with Miss Glenday.  This was immediately arranged and for quite a long time she listened, with no comment, as I poured out my worries and my growing feeling that perhaps I should now leave school (having reached the official ‘school-leaving age). She was a wonderful listener, and in later life as a teacher, I often called her to mind.  The first thing she asked was “Have you talked to your mother about this?”  I had not.  Then she asked if I had talked to any of the older Quakers about it,  I had not.  She decided that she would write to my mother and ask her to come to school for a meeting to which I would also be invited.
The meeting was not a bit intimidating. After a long session we decided that I would stay on in the lower sixth for another term. She had already arranged an interview with the Education Committee Officer applying for a job as a Nursery Helper in a Council Nursery. She also gave me a list of addresses for Teacher Training Colleges.
My life was back on track!
Before I actually left Clifton High my father was home from Canada, de-mobbed and back working in Wills’ Cigarette Factory. I was so glad that he was able to come to our ‘Rose Day’  the annual celebration and Open Day in my last year there.
 
Although I was officially employed as a nursery helper it was known at the school, Bedminster Down primary, and in the Education Department that my plan was to apply for a place at a Teacher Training College when I was a year older. The Headmistress and indeed all the staff were very supportive of this.  As music was my main subject and I had already won my Guildhall School of Music Diploma in teaching and my performers diploma from Trinity College London if a teacher was ill I was often brought in to cover a class.
The adjoining Junior School had a newly qualified male teacher from South Wales.  He was a main-subject Music, but could not play an instrument. An arrangement was made between the Infant School Head and the Junior School that I could play for two or three lessons each week for the music lessons.
I learnt so much that year.  From the teacher of the top class infants I learned that a straight, possibly disapproving fixed look could often have a more immediate effect than words, that shouting exhausted the teacher and often caused more chaos than silence – because children tend to suit their voices to the top notes! The dropping of my voice – already low in pitch – sometimes had a magical effect which even surprised me.
My Quaker faith
At this time I became very involved in my Quaker meeting.  We had always attended meeting as a family. Mum and Dad were members and as a family we had always been involved.  I was regularly going into the central Friars Meeting House to attend meetings of young Friends for discussions, study meetings and occasional visits to the theatre, concerts, or other groups of young people.
Friars Meeting had appointed a married couple with family as Wardens of the Meeting House. They were Frank and Winifred Uttley and at that stage of my development they couldn’t have been more valuable. They encouraged young people in Quaker Meetings to start a regular study and discussion group at Friars, the central meeting in Bristol. It was a wonderful gift.  At last I was able to ask questions and discuss them without hurting anyone’s feelings.  I began to feel that this was truly my spiritual home.  I spoke with Frank and Winifred individually and had a wonderfully open session.  My mind and spirit were cleared and I applied for membership.
 Two visitors were appointed by the Quaker Monthly Meeting to meet with me and discuss my application and prepare a report regarding my readiness for membership.
The two friends appointed were Doris Coleman and Winifred Uttley.  They came to our house and Mum suggested we went into the little sitting room so we could ‘have a bit of quiet’. It was a pleasant, challenging and enjoyable visit. A report was made by the two visitors to Bristol Quaker Monthly Meeting.  It was discussed and the decision made by the Friends present to accept me into membership.
In growing up I often had difficulty in knowing exactly where I belonged, or fitted in. 
Making contacts with strangers has never been a great problem.  My mother sometimes thought I put myself in danger by such openness. A number of people claimed me as a friend. Very often I felt as though I was an onlooker.
What do other people mean by ‘friendship’?  I felt very committed to being a Quaker and a Christian.  I wanted to discover how the light of Christ in me could make a difference to the world in which I was living. I knew I wanted to be involved in teaching. But I sometimes felt starved of deep discussions which would challenge my thinking and embryo beliefs.  Mum was rather afraid of this kind of discussion, feeling that it could lead to quarrelling and damage to relationships.
I was appointed by Bristol and Frenchay Monthly Meeting to attend a Young Friends Easter conference at Woodbrooke Quaker Centre in Birmingham.  What a wonderful experience.  I came into contact with many like-minded young people all connected to Friends (Quakers). Some were engaged in the same search for outward expression of inward faith. Some, slightly older, were examining the reality of their faith in the light of recent service in the Friends Relief Service in Germany.
Others had recently returned from wartime evacuation abroad. 
We are all struggling with living peace and transforming hatred.
I was encouraged by Frank Uttley to give a full report on the conference to our Quaker Quarterly Meeting.  Although fairly accustomed to using my voice, in the classroom, in discussions and reports to small groups, the Quarterly Meeting was a rather different and daunting prospect. He and Winifred, sadly both now dead, were very supportive in helping me grow at this stage.
As I write I am increasingly reliving events which have lain dormant for many years.
In 1940 I was eleven years old and passed the ‘scholarship exam’ (early forerunner of the ‘eleven-plus’) I was high enough on the list of passes to gain a place at Clifton High School – the top of the list of schools.  My parents were persuaded by the Junior school Headmistress to take up that scholarship rather than take the other choice of the nearer Grammar school.
My first year, particularly the first term, was especially hard. The Blitzes on Bristol were heavy and frequent. Most nights were spent in the Anderson shelter with our next door neighbours, and more than once we took refuge with Gran or an aunt because of damage or possible unexploded bombs.
My new school needed two buses and then a longish walk to finally get to school.  There were blitzes every night so one never knew whether one would have to change the route, or even whether the buses would be running: The sad faces of everyone walking along.
(My mother always said that as a toddler I had been very outgoing. When we got onto a bus, while she was dealing with the push-chair and my baby sister I would trot to the front of the bus, sit next to someone, look at them and say “Hello, I’m Joan, What’s your name?”)
I decided to try an experiment! All those sad faces. The only contribution I could make was to smile at each individual!
The sad, tired faces of everyone walking along!
First morning, I smile – slightly startled look in response.
Second morning, I smile – slight convulsive twitch of the lips!
Third morning, I smile – quick apologetic smile – was it?
Fourth morning, I smile – real smile                  YES! SUCCESS!
For the whole of one term there was a very elderly man whom I saw every day.  Following my usual practice I smiled at him the first morning we passed each other.  The second morning he raised his hat as we exchanged smiles. He walked with a stick and usually paused momentarily as we smiled at each other and continued our day. We never spoke.
Towards the end of the term he raised his hat as usual and then stopped.  He held an envelope in his hand and asked if I would give it to my parents.
In the letter he said that he wanted to thank my parents for the joy which he had received from my daily greeting.  It had brought unexpected sunshine into his life. He was going away. It was unlikely he would see me again.  Signed – something Vyvyan?
I have often wondered what happened to him.  He had a non-English look and I later realised that the hat which he raised was a black homburg, like the ones worn by the Jewish Friends I met at Quaker Meeting later in the war.  Strange things were happening to non-British people at that time so who knows.
Heigh! In a short story maybe I could find an ending.  Should it be a happy one, or a sad one?  Tragedy or Joy? 
Come to think of it, that ‘motto’ which became popular a few years ago could have been invented by me if only I’d put words to it – “If you see someone without a smile – give them one of yours”.  To be recommended – the rewards of return come back a thousand times over and the world becomes a brighter place – that is certain!
Until recently I don’t think I’ve really felt what worry I must have been to my mother.  At a time when the kidnapping of children seemed rife it must have been very worrying to have a young daughter who was warmly interested in other people.  The one thing Mum taught us (recognising that ‘scare stories’ would not help at all) was to always bring a person home.  I recommend it to all parents of young children.
 
This of course reminds me of an actual occurrence which may just have saved my life!  I went for piano lessons from the time I was about 8 years old.  Walking home one day I stopped to watch the fishes in a pool in a beautiful front garden.  The road was full of private houses but this garden was particularly lovely.  I was quite small and standing on tiptoe peered over the wall.  Suddenly I felt myself lifted by a large man.  Actually he smelt horrible and I said that I didn’t like that and please put me down.  He did so but kept a tight hold on my hand and started to walk with me.  After a while he said that he was looking for Airport Road and could I show where it was.  I said that I didn’t know but thought it was quite near.  By now we were at the end of our road, and remembering the instruction I said “My house is just down here,  I know my Mummy will be able to tell you.”  He immediately dropped my hand,  mumbled something unintelligible and shuffled off.
I told Mum about it and she gave me a big hug and said “Well done”
There was actually a report in the following days’ local paper reporting an attack, nearly fatal, on a young child near Airport Road – and we did wonder.
While writing all this I realise that the phrase recently explored is constant.
“I love you not because of who you are, but who I am when I am with you.”
A balanced relationship, it seems to me, is an equal one.  Each person listens and reacts to the other.  The listening element is as important as the saying.
To a certain extent I suppose we are different in every relationship.  In a business relationship one can be fair, interested in communication even caring about a particular difficulty, so to an extent we change.
I am aware that I am rambling and my mind is leaping around people and incidents which have not occurred to me for many years. So thank you Jane!
A few months later the ‘Scholarship Exams’ took place at school. All ten to eleven year olds sat examinations in English, Arithmetic and an Intelligence test.  Those who passed high enough could go to one of the ‘best quality’ schools or the local grammar school, those lower on the pass list went automatically to the local one.
The headmistress of the Junior School I went to persuaded my parents to allow me to take up the offer of the higher rated school, It was Clifton High School and involved  a journey involving two buses and a journey of more than half an hour across Bristol.
I became accustomed to leaving home early enough to cope with walking further distances when bombing had demolished yet another street and blocked the way to traffic.
When I see reports on television of children whose life has been turned upside down by war in their countries my heart aches for them and their parents.  Fighting is such a wasteful activity. With the amount of money allocated to building up arms and bigger bombers etc. we could wipe out starvation and give young people the opportunity to live well, and in peace.
Why don’t we?
Quaker Membership
My parents had become members of the Society of Friends (Quakers) soon after they met and I became very involved in my teens.
At Quakers Friars, the Central Meeting House in Bristol (now the City Registry Office) the Wardens at the time were Frank and Winifred Uttley.  They worked a great deal with young people.  Frank in particular was very challenging in discussions with young aspiring Quakers.  I think he reckoned that being an active, dedicated Quaker might not always be an easy option and young aspiring members should be prepared for this.  Certainly it was talking with him that finally cleared my mind and opened the path to teaching, and also my application for membership of the Society of Friends.
I was warmly accepted into membership.  This involved a visit from two Quakers appointed by the Monthly business meeting.  The visit was quite a thorough one, albeit enjoyable. In no way an ordeal , nevertheless the intention was to discover how prepared I was for membership.  What had I read about the history and beliefs of Quakers, was I clear about my own spiritual development, did I feel able to talk about my faith.  I was also asked about my awareness of the Peace Testimony and my position in relation to it.  I actually enjoyed the visit and the discussion.  It felt very much in ‘right ordering’ to be accepted into membership and this happened at the Bristol and Frenchay Monthly Meeting in 1947.
I was an active Young Quaker and was appointed to a couple of Central Committees which got me around the country. Travel expenses were sometimes pooled and sometimes covered and our accommodation was covered by the meeting.  Usually this meant staying in the homes of members of the local meeting – staying with strangers who often became friends as well as Friends!
One such was a young man I met when we were both representatives at a large ecumenical conference at Bangor University.
I didn’t get to know him very well but every morning our Quaker group held a meeting for Worship and I became accustomed to watching this tall figure, jacket flying open, striding down the slope – almost late!
A couple of years later, towards the end of his time of conscription working in a hospital as part of his alternative employment to armed forces, he turned up at one of our Young Quakers Friday evening meetings and introduced himself as John Southern.  We have now shared that name since August 1954 (57 wonderful years, as I write this)
We decided not to enrol our sons as members from birth.  I was very glad to have had the opportunity to make my own decision to apply for membership and wanted our sons to be able to do the same.  They are all close to Quaker beliefs and actions but our youngest son and his family are, until now, the only ones who have taken that path. The general beliefs and actions of our three eldest sons seem pretty similar to our own, but we feel that it is between them and God what they believe.  Their actions and general standards seem to reflect the Light quite favourably, even if the ‘jargon’ is different.
So, as with any story, one Chapter reaches an end, in order that the next one can have a beginning!
Chapter two




 


Dialogue – Him and Me
This is fiction closely related to facts about our early lives together.




 


 




meg


“Do you remember……………?”      




jack


“What?  Do you remember an inn Miranda?.




meg


“Daft – though I do remember Miranda!  I had a note from her only last week, about a play she’s involved in”




jack


“I suppose you want to go?”




meg


“No, not this time.  It’s just too far.  I certainly don’t want to go both ways on the same evening. And it always seems a bit risky booking into somewhere in rural areas unless we know people who have actually stayed there and can recommend it”




jack


       “Yeah!  The valleys places are a bit- umm- surprising – sometimes, shall we say?”




meg


“Hey!  Do you remember that place in Mid-Wales?  They’d only just opened and were a bit ------------“




jack


“Dozy is the word you’re looking for.  A really nice young couple but they didn’t have a clue about running a bed and breakfast. Not even a kettle in the room and they had let the AGA out – so no hot breakfast!




meg


“And what about that place in the Lake District?  Do you remember we specifically asked for NO FEATHERS-and gave them plenty of notice?”




jack


“Oh yes – and they charged us nothing because they gave us feather mattress, feather pillows and feather eiderdown. They apologized so sweetly, it was probably their first season. Crazy”




meg


“And the apology certainly didn’t stop the hay-fever”




jack


“Nothing but the best eh?”




meg


“Ha! How travelled we are!”




jack


“Ooh!  We’re going to split our sides or make ourselves ill Meg if we go on like this.”




meg


“Anyway do you remember that a really special occasion is pretty certainly coming up soon?”




jack


“Ugh? What is it this time another 21st – or are you 100?”




meg


“Not quite, idiot – No, but our eldest grandson is likely to be getting married next year.”




jack


“Surely not in the middle of his Masters’ – or whatever it’s called?”




meg


“Oh! Darling! That’s what he’s been working on all this last year.  It seems that it’s almost complete.  His professors seem to think it’s going to be good. Very well thought of”




jack


“That’s good.  I look forward to seeing it.”




meg


“Me too. Though Advanced Maths is a bit beyond me.




 


 I’ve been thinking more about weddings – in particular engagement rings.”




jack


“You thinking of buying one?”




meg


“Do you remember buying one for me?”




jack


Umm! No-o!  We didn’t need to.”




meg


“Oh! And why was that?”




jack


“Come on.  You know very well!  It was my Grandmother’s and my father had it cleaned.  Beautiful.




meg


“Yes, and I wore it for years.  It has been safely put away since I was unable to get it on.  I would really like to have it cleaned up and give it to Frank to use as their engagement ring.”




jack


“Well.  There’s a thought.  It was my Grandmother’s originally.  That does make a rather nice ‘line of inheritance’ doesn’t it?”




meg


“It may well be that they won’t want it of course.  Young people often prefer brand new stuff – with a guarantee.”




jack


“True.  But Francis doesn’t strike me as being someone wanting flashy “Brand New” stuff. Ring or girl!




meg


“It will be lovely meeting Carla at last.  I love Francis so much, I’m pretty sure I’ll like his beloved.”




jack


“By all accounts she copes well with him – certainly knows her own mind.”




meg


“We seem doomed to have some of the people we really care about living far away – even continents.  I wonder why?”




jack


“You’ll probably say I’m being prosaic again.  Perhaps I am – my role!”




meg


“Oh come on – just say it.  I’m all ears!”




jack


“We’ve never felt able to afford to travel much – but don’t you remember?  Our first Christmas was in our flat?  We decided to host two small boys from the local Children’s Home to stay.”




meg


“Yes! And weren’t we relieved that it stopped both our parents from demanding our company?”




jack


“Remember doing stockings and creeping into their bedroom to hang them on the bedposts”




meg


“And waking too early because of their excited voices -----“




 


“Then you took them to the park so that I could get on with our first Christmas dinner!”




jack


“Well, for your first Christmas Feast it was pretty good.  The table looked pretty, “




jack


“and the boys were so helpful fetching and carrying, and they ate well didn’t they? Cleared their plates every time!




both


----------and the light grey carpet!?




jack


“My fault!  I should never have shown them the carpet sweeper –




meg


“- and I should never have served peas to a couple of under 5’s who couldn’t manage them.”




jack


“So your fault- are you thinking?”




meg


“Not exactly.  I was trying to remember what happened to the carpet? Did we dye it?




jack


“No, never.  It was such a good high quality carpet we used it in all sorts of places over the years.  Smaller rugs dotted around covered many of the pea stains.




meg


“I know this house is our fourth since the flat – do you think we might still have a bit in the attic?”




jack


“Highly unlikely.  Oh. You’re not trying to make me go and search – just on a whim are you ?”




meg


“No!  Of course not darling----------“




jack


“Thank goodness for that -------------




meg


“BUT ----------- when you’re clearing the way for the attic insulation to be done – perhaps you’d have a sort of poke around   -------------- just in case there’s still a bit left!”




jack


“You are one devious woman……….”




meg


“And you are Fifty eight years too late realising that my darling!”                 




 
A Mystery
At the edge of town in the centre of salubrious housing estate, and next to a golf course was a Special school.
Originally built when T.B. was all too prevalent it gradually developed into a school for children with a variety of special needs.  The staff consisted of six teachers, three nurses, five ancillary workers and the Headmistress.  A caretaker, Bert, lived with his wife in a pleasant cottage in the school grounds.
There had been a lot of metaphorical finger-crossing when the Education committee had decided to place a group of severely maladjusted children on the same campus as delicate children suffering from brittle bones or heart condition or severe asthma!
In fact small miracles had occurred and the annual school sports day had become a hilarious event. Strong boys from the maladjusted unit took charge of ensuring plenty of winners from the physically challenged group.  (It was amazing how fast a go-cart can travel when propelled by a hefty but sporty thirteen year old with a brittle-boned nine-year-old steering!) Many of these maladjusted boys had never before known tenderness – to give or receive.
From time to time some of the boys from the unit made surreptitious excursions to the neighbouring golf course and ‘found’ lost balls!  What they did with them is not the subject of this story!
Soon after the autumn term began one of the girls from the Maladjusted unit began shouting at Clive, calling him a dirty thief - and worse!  Clive looked shocked and puzzled – but he was quite a good actor.
The Headmistress, a very approachable person, talked to them separately, then together.  She was convinced that Clive was telling the truth and with staff approval refunded the 5 shillings which Donna had lost.
During the next few weeks there were many angry complaints.  Coins, chocolate, model toys – the sort of cars carried in pockets, small books- all disappeared with no trace.
Children accused each other.
The school psychologist was called in.  Group meetings with pupils, and with individuals.
Following much heated discussion the Headmistress, staff and psychologist reluctantly decided to call in the local police.
Detective Whatsit and Sergeant Plod arrived with some self-importance
Driving in an impressive car! (that did cause a sensation!)
They met the whole staff and made a detailed list of thefts.  Their eyebrows were raised at the paucity of value.  They didn’t seem to understand the nature of the school and the importance of the renewal of trust needed by a solution.
However, Police have to do their job!  Based on previous records, reputation and separate interviews they insisted on the exclusion of two weeks for one boy from the maladjusted unit.
The boy they charged was Clive.
No-one but the police felt or happy about it – but the law must be obeyed.
The petty thefts continued unabated.  The two detectives almost took up residence whilst trying to find the culprits.
When Clive returned it was just at the time when the school was preparing for the Annual Garden Party and Races.
This was a grand affair open to the public.  Organised by school and parents the Caretaker was very much a part of it.  He was very good at involving pupils.
“Hi! Clive!  You’re a good strong young fella!  Can you hold this ladder and help me get some branches for the campfire?”    “O.K!”
Ladder safely against the tree with Clive’s foot on the bottom rung, the Caretaker climbed.
“What on earth?” – He lifted something and handed a bundle to Clive, and brought another one down with him.
By the time he had collected all the bundles they had an array of coins, wrappers from sweets, a necklace, some combs and a mess of collected grass and leaves.  There was even one rather battered golf ball!
Luckily the Detectives could see the funny side and stayed to enjoy the Garden Party.  They joined in the fun, judged one of the competitions and had a thoroughly good time.
The following term they became associated with the management committee, and some positive influences developed from this contact.
Chapter three
A life in thirds
 
81 / 3 nicely works out as 27ish!
Age 27 (1956)
 
John and I had been married for 2 years and were living in my native city Bristol. Michael our first son was born on the 27th December 1955.  I had enthusiastically attended relaxation classes – at that time there was a tendency to ban fathers from anything to do with birth – except for the essential original act of course!
Unfortunately Mike, always a mind of his own, decided to make his appearance slightly late – and laterally – too awkward to push out.  I was given a mild whiff of anaesthetic as instruments were used.  Having given birth in this manner the rule was ‘confined to bed for 7 days to ‘recuperate’.  Because Michael was so small (they said) he had to remain in the nursery for 7 days.  I was determined to breast feed so when my milk began to flow I was expressing milk to feed my baby, but not allowed to see him.
Even after all these years I still feel pain when I think of that experience but I cannot describe the joy of eventually holding my first baby for the first time and nursing him.
Age 54  (1983)
By this time we had been living in Cardiff for just over 23 years.
Before we left Bristol our second son Timothy (called Tim) had arrived in 1957, two years after Mike on Christmas Eve. A wonderful experience at home attended by a district midwife.  All the relaxation lessons ‘worked’, John was there, having just put Michael to bed and ‘read him to sleep’.
The midwife seemed to think I couldn’t be in Labour as I wasn’t screaming each time there was a contraction and seemed quite surprised when I wanted to push and a baby of just over 7lbs appeared, making all the right noises!
We moved to Cardiff in 1960.  John had been appointed to a post in the Maths Department at Heol Hair School in Llanishen.  Our son Chris made his appearance in a wonderful ‘text book’ delivery in June 1961. John and I are both the eldest siblings in our families of three children.  We determined not to have an odd number of children!  Dave was born in October 1963. He was a very adventurous infant.  From an early age he was very competent on a tricycle.  At the age of three he set off from our home in Rhiwbina to visit John’s parents in Roath Park.  We lived in Charlotte Square, a salubrious ‘cul-de-sac’ with no through traffic.  Very safe for the many children in the square,  tricycles could be seen parked outside whichever garden they were playing so one could easily spot them.  Until, that is, little David decided to set off to visit his grandparents!  I felt absolutely distraught. None of the children had seen him for ‘a long time’.  I rang John at school and he was able to cycle home immediately as it was just about lunchtime.  I was about to report to the police when our phone rang.
A woman’s voice asked if my name was Joan, then if I had a three year old son named David - I was almost in tears not knowing what to expect!  She went on to say that she had been working in her front garden when she heard quiet puffing, mixed up with little sobs.  When she looked over her wall she saw a little boy puffing along on a tricycle making little sobs mixed up with things like ‘Granny must be soon’  ‘Where’s Roath park?’ ‘must be ducks’ – all hiccupped out!.  She had asked him where he lived and would he like a drink while she tried to telephone us.  Normally she said she would not take children into the house but he seemed so competent yet so young and lost.  He couldn’t pronounce Charlotte Square very easily but luckily she knew someone living there so worked it out.  She rang her friend for our number and then rang us.  John went and got him.  In those days we had no car,  but I think John had arranged to have the afternoon off by then.   That was not the only escapade, but Dave’s story could fill a whole book!
I won’t dwell on my years of teaching in a unit for maladjusted adolescents. They were valuable and largely enjoyable and I am grateful for the experience and knowledge gained.
In 1972-73 I was at Swansea University as a student on a post-graduate course which gained a Diploma in Adolescent development.
Originally educated as an Infant school teacher my path had taken me into fresh experiences and I wished to gain more knowledge of work with adolescents, whether normally balanced or maladjusted.  I learned a great deal and moved into very interesting experiences.
So what happened in 1983?
In 1973 I was elected as a City Councillor representing the Labour Party in Splott Ward.  The Education Committee was a County Council responsibility but the then Tory County (I was told) were not happy about an active Labour Councillor teaching in her own ward.  They moved me to a school the other side of the city.  Each day I left home in North Cardiff did a long drive in heavy, congested traffic to teach in Fitzalan School, in the South.  Home for tea and family, then to Splott  for evening ‘surgeries’ or specific site visits, or committees at City Hall or Labour Party meetings. Finally home for a little family time before falling asleep,  drugged with fatigue as often as not!l
It was too much strain.  We discussed it with our youngest son David.  He was in his last year at Whitchurch High School and it was a pretty difficult journey by bus.  Bicycles had been a passion for a long time; He had even saved up and got a unicycle on which he caused a bit of a sensation by delivering meat on it when he got a weekend job at the local butchers.  Anyway we offered to get him a moped to make the journey more acceptable.  He was delighted and threw himself into both adventures – moving to a new area and house and (most importantly!) buying a mo-ped.
1040 words
Chapter four
Major changes
In 1972 I suffered a nervous/emotional breakdown.
Who knows triggers a situation in which one weeps for twenty-four hours at a time?  Work becomes impossible:  family relationships become meaningless:  friendships totally unimportant!
We try to rationalise.  We need to find reasons.
I was teaching in a special school for severely emotionally disturbed children. 
My original training was in nursery and infant teaching.
Finding that the majority of  pupils in my unit were adolescent was an exciting challenge.
Two evenings each week I was also working in a youth club.
Having taught in the school for a few years I felt I needed to take a year out for ‘recharging batteries’. I needed to learn about fresh ways to work with these young people.  I applied for secondment for one year. A particularly good course on Adolescent Development was offered at Swansea University.  Following a gruelling interview I was offered a place on the course. 
The local authority rejected my application for secondment. They said that the course was not relevant to the work I was doing! It didn’t include the word ‘maladjusted’ or ‘disturbed’ in the title!   
The course was much wider than that.
I then applied for leave of absence on no salary but with guarantee of return to my post at the end of the year.
Refused because I had previously applied for secondment!!
It was suggested that I should "hang on" in my job for another year and apply again.  I remember saying quite vehemently to the education organiser who made that suggestion that I did not know how one could "hang on" in any teaching situation;  let alone the kind of work which I was doing. 
Either one is teaching or one isn't. I have never found it possible to "go through the motions" - as I have heard it said!
My husband suggested that we might try to find an organisation which might make a grant or loan to enable me to take advantage of the course.  We are both Quakers so, with little optimism,  I wrote off to a Quaker charity.
Meantime I was struggling at school. My need for a temporary break from the pressure was greatly increased, and I had already asked my doctor for help.  He had advised me to have some time off. I was reluctant so he prescribed a mild dose of valium which would allow me to function but reduce my sense of despair.
I remember vividly the morning in May, just after the half-term break.
It was a perfect morning; sunny, gently warm, leaves green and flowers bursting.
After assembly - a motley affair - we were all walking out of the hall up the path to our units. My head of department put his arm around my shoulders and said comfortingly “How are you feeling now Joan,are things sorting out for you?"  I started to answer. To my horror no words would come.  Tears exploded uncontrollably.         
In some consternation Glan led me into the main building to the Headmistresses room.
This was a tremendously caring environment.  We members of staff worked well together, respected and were fond of each other.  I was offered a cup of tea - and wept as I shook my head.  I heard Aefron telephoning my husband's school - and wept.  I heard her ask if he would come to take me home as I had "a bit of a breakdown" - and I wept.
In due course my husband arrived - I still wept.  We walked home - tears flowing unchecked.  When we arrived home my husband suggested a game of Monopoly!  
Desperation I guess until surgery opened! Weeping I nodded my head.  And so we played Monopoly, with me dripping tears quietly until I began to lose the game when tears became sobs, we closed the game and started another! 
In a play it would look hilariously funny - but it wasn't!
That was actually the end of teaching in that particular school, though I didn't know it at the time.
 
I was given sick leave, and helped by an enormously wise and understanding doctor.  But I was dreadfully, clinically depressed for the whole of that term.
My sister Ruth lives in Cornwall and invited us to go and stay for a while during the summer holidays.  Our sons were good friends with hers and she lived in a lovely village near the south coast of West Cornwall.  It sounded blissful.
By then I felt I was convalescent and the sun, sand and sea combined in healing.
Penzance was only a few miles from her home so a few days before we left we went there for the day. Our sons wanted to visit the docks. I didn't want to. I wandered up through the town looking into shops and generally "mooching about".  I thought I knew the town pretty well and had no fear of being lost. 
Suddenly I was in a street which I didn’t recognise at all! I thought I was making for Causeway Head, but this wasn't it.     Interesting though.    Some rather quaint shops with objects which would make lovely presents. Not typical gift shops.  There were quite a lot of people around, and a generally festive feel about the street.  I felt better than I had felt for some time.
Idling along I felt my wrist suddenly grasped. 
The sensation was that of a bird's claw gripping almost painfully.  I think I gasped slightly.  A woman had appeared in front of me.  That sounds sensational, I hadn't seen her approach and that was my impression. Daydreaming I expect.
She was very small, her head level with my shoulder.  I am five feet one inch tall.  Her features were quite sharp and she was wearing a winter coat and woolly hat.  This struck me as being a little strange since the day was so warm; she was speaking:-
 "I've got a message for you” she said, still gripping my hand and looking up into my face.  "You've been ill, very ill.  Not in your body. You're going to get well, very soon."  
By now she had my total attention.  My initial recoil had been subsumed into complete fascination by her words.  "I've got to tell you that you are being given some money.  The next year will be good for you.  You're going away and will meet a lot of new people.  I don't think you're leaving your family, but you'll be away from them."  
A part of my mind was thinking that she was crazed, but I didn't really believe that part, she seemed very certain of what she was saying.
 "Don't be afraid of the future.  You will have good work to do.  Keep this and remember what I have said."
My hand was pressed very firmly, and then she was gone.   In the palm of my hand was a little black cat made of plastic!  I carefully looked around but could not see her.
The holiday was over.
We returned home.  Everyone was relieved and glad that the holiday had done me so much good, and that my serenity had returned.
When we examined the post there was a letter from the Quaker charity telling me that they had decided not to make me a loan.
They would make a grant of £1100 to enable me to go on the course. 
This would mean that any decision I made about career would not be dictated by having to repay a loan. 
The year on the course was one of the most valuable experiences I have had – but that’s another story.
I have made many visits to Penzance since this occurrence.
That street has eluded me every time.
Of course there have been a lot of renovations which may account for that ----
The sensation of that claw like hand is very fresh; I wasn’t even asked to ‘cross her palm with silver’ - and the gift of the black cat?!
I have it still.
Vietnam – The Just War?
The torn body of Christ  -
Scattered in so many places –
In children’s faces – dead – his imprint lies,
And they un-mourned beneath the darkened skies,
For how shall the dead mourn their own?
 
Orphans, those little ones who grieve,
shall they believe that God is good,
And God is love?
For who shall teach them?
 
We, perhaps?
Who by our silence
Permit the violence
The monstrous pain,
We show that war’s expediency
Once again
Suffocates the will to love – to live………..
 
Bitterness is great, and sorrow swells within
for suffering humanity.
How can God bear it?
And we, who - by our silent acceptance
of the causes of war sin daily -
Need do no more to crucify that inward light
That seed of God.
 
Joan Southern    8.7.1966
 
Chapter five
Retreat at Trefecca
[In 1972 Joan suffered a major period of depression which ended her time at Greenhill Special School. Her recovery was greatly helped by a week-long retreat in an annex to Coleg Trefecca especially set aside for private contemplation. This is a transcription of her hand-written diary. – John]
Tuesday May 15th 11.25a.m.
 
I find myself smiling for no particular reason! Since John went just after 4.00 o’clock yesterday I have spoken to no-one. I went for a walk in the fields nearby and shot off a whole film! – Very extravagant! Having prepared my supper (salad, a steamed potato, strawberries and soya milk) I carried it on a tray to “my” sitting room and watched some television. It was about 8 o’clock by then and I felt drowsier and drowsier so when it finished at 10 o’clock I went to bed and slept like a log until 5 past 7. The sun was not shining, so I just went to the loo and then hopped back into bed and was out like a light until just after 9.
I shall definitely walk into Talgarth but am delaying a little in the hope that this light rain will stop. The sky looks fairly light, and the rain is just a pleasant, gentle-looking downpour, so I won’t mind too much – thanks to the waterproof John discovered – Still, dry would be better!
This morning I’ve been reading, and listening to the radio (Chopin at the moment. The novelty of this situation is delighting me. Pity about the electricity but at least there is plenty of opportunity for being comfortable. I have switched on the over-night heaters but I don’t know enough about time setting to be able to control when they come on – I’m just grateful when they do because it is actually quite cold. Well, if I’m to get these few essential items, I have no alternative but to get wet! So, I’m off.
1.45 Wouldn’t you know! It stopped raining completely just as I got to the Trefecca sign – on the way back!
Friday May 18th 10.a.m.
I so enjoyed yesterday’s bus rides to and from Brecon. A real shopper’s bus! Both drivers knew everyone, mostly by name. Each time the bus stopped and someone else got on there were cries of greeting and catching up with the news of everyone else’s family. There are a number of scheduled stops, but all the older people who live on the route were dropped off at the nearest convenient point – after all, it’s raining badly and she’s got terrible arthritis poor soul! It stopped 6 times in one small village (Llangorse I think)
It was very funny though, because every time I saw a road sign pointing to Brecon and sussed out which way we were going it shot off in a different direction to go to another tiny village. Really a community service. The bus got in to Brecon just after 11.30 and the return bus left at 1.00. It was raining the whole time but was pleasant enough. I couldn’t get a rain cape so bought a collapsible umbrella in a sale. The smell of fresh ground coffee was so good I daren’t go into a café in case I wasn’t strong enough to ask for orange juice! One or two of the shops were quite interesting and I bought a few necessary things.
When I got back, wondering why I was so tired, I realised that although I wasn’t “walking” in the way I usually mean it, I had in fact been walking non-stop for 1½ hours. I spent the afternoon in front of the fire reading Leela’s book, which I found absorbing and very good: A mixture
 
During the week I have also been reading Thomas Kelly, A Testament of Devotion, again, and have got back in touch with my adolescent spiritual self again. It has never really been lost, but has become somewhat overlaid.
“Religion as a dull habit is not that for which Christ lived and died.” (George Fox) …”the insatiable God-hunger in him drove him from such mediocrity into a passionate quest for the real whole-wheat Bread of Life.
“Our churches, our Meeting Houses are full of such respectable and amiable people. We have plenty of Quakers to follow God the first half of the way…”
I feel I am being strengthened again in that searching of the soul which drew me into membership. (Nearly 40 years ago! 38 anyway)
The sun is shining so I’m going to dress and go for a walk.
“Eternity is at our hearts, pressing upon our time-torn lives, warming us with intimations of an astounding destiny, calling us home to Itself.”
I’m wondering whether that which we identify as depression, nervous breakdown – maybe even high blood pressure – is in fact the needs of the soul breaking through. Maybe God trying to get us back on our previously committed track.
Saturday May 19th. 955a.m.
Had a lovely walk yesterday.
I bought a book of “25 Circular Walks” and did both ends of the one around Talgarth!
All the walks are hilly and about 4-5 miles long. I am so much better but is seemed a bit daft to bite off more than I could chew especially alone. (And I had to walk into Talgarth first, and then back again afterwards!) The last part of the walk came past St. Gwendoline’s Church (14C) and the guide stated that Hywel Harries was buried there. Sadly, the church was locked and I felt rather cheated, and also, I couldn’t find the stone, - but I enjoyed the quietness of the walk. Coming back from Talgarth I just got slower and slower and was very glad to lie flat for a while when I got in!
There is so much property for sale around here. I looked in an estate agent’s window and saw two properties for sale around £35,000. One – ½ a mile from Brecon city centre – had four double bedrooms, 3 reception, large kitchen, and scullery. Large garden, outbuildings, garage, downstairs toilet and cloakroom. The other was a group of farm buildings including house (4 double + 2 attic) outbuildings etc. I am trying not to let my mind run away too much with fantasies. This past week (including West Wales) has reawakened so strongly my feeling that I want to be working in a good rural setting, and that our God-given gifts could be used so positively in some kind of guest-house/ conference centre set up. To balance that against what we are already doing become a mental tangle, and what we need to do is tune in to the Spirit. I think, too, I am very attracted of having a situation  in the country in which Chris, Susannah and Alice, and perhaps more of our children, would be able to live and work alongside us, as a basis for a community. MIND – be still!
5.15p.m.  
What a wonderful day!
I have found the name of the village “Llanfillo” cropping up in my mind the week as somewhere I should get to. I just saw it on a road sign, and then it appeared in the book of circular walks, and I felt a sense of compulsion.
 
This morning was beautiful  so I decide to set off up the road towards Llangorse, turn off for Llanfillo and then come out on the road just this side of Talgarth and back home again. The road was very up and down and I only took cuts through fields when very obvious as I didn’t want to add to what was already a longer walk than I have yet done. In fact the road seemed to be going in a totally different direction from the way I thought it would go so, having walked for about 20 mins. From the main road with no signs and no houses I decided to walk for another 10 minutes and then turn back and walk the fields rather than risk over-stretching myself.
Within 5 minutes I came to a cluster of houses around a larger farm and buildings, which I took to be Tredomen, and a sign telling me that Llanfillo was one mile in that direction. The views through various farm gates was breathtaking – as was the steepness of the road! However the last half-mile or so of the road into Llanfillo was downhill (after all that was the reason I chose this way round and not the other! – Easier walking home I mean.)
The first building I noticed was the church (ST, Bilo’s) which was open with a very welcoming message on the door, (and no collection box!) It is mainly 14C with bits which are earlier, and a pre-Norman font. Small, beautiful and a lovely atmosphere. I remained in worship for quite a long time, and then took some photographs of bits, then meditated some more.
When I came out a lady was sitting on the grass tending a grave which had no headstone, but a rosebush growing on a grass mound, and some pansy plants and a lovely small tun of cut lilac and jonquils.
She looked up as I came out and I smiled at her and said, “What a beatiful church.” She agreed, and then commented that she was cutting the grass with kitchen scissors because someone had taken her shears, and then went on to tell me that her husband had died last June, and she was finding it very difficult to cope with living without him. They were both very involved with the church and community having retired to Llanfillo fourteen years ago.
Before retirement her husband was a headmaster and she was a fashion buyer for the biggest dept. store in Hereford. We talked about ways of coping after shock! (Fine one, me!) Her husband had not been rally well for just over a year but the doctor thought it wasn’t anything much. However they had him in for tests and when he had been in for about a week the doctor saw her, told her it was terminal and he expected it would be one possibly two years. Ten days later her husband died. She lives in a beautiful little cottage next door to the church.
I blessed her and continued through the village (no shop, pub, just cottages and beautiful farm buildings). There was a notice on one cottage saying “EXHIBITION”, and a smaller notice on the double gate saying “cottage and studio”, I continued down the road a few yards and then thought “What the hell! Since I don’t know why the Lord has told me to come to Llanfillo anyway, why not look at an exhibition – of whatever!”
I rang the bell and was greeted by a dog and two cats. The door opened and a white haired lady about my size (bit taller) looked at me with warm hazel-greeny eyes. I looked back and said “I don’t know why I’m in Llanfillo, but I thought an exhibition would be nice.”
She said “Do come in, I don’t have any idea what time it is, but it feels like lunch time, will you have an egg and toast with me?” – It didn’t even occur to me to demure.
Her name is Elise Miers, she has a 30 year old daughter, she is a painter and Christian Scientist, a member of the Liberal Party, and we have such a similar way of life.
It was about ¼ past 1 when I got there and, at ½ past 3 I felt I had better get going. (It looked as though it might rain). Elise came to main road to do a bit of shopping in Talgarth so we had yet more exchanges on the two-mile walk.
She had something of the quality of Mary Hughes, but that may be because she is the kind of age that Mary was when I first met her – 70-ish. She says she would love to have us to stay if we feel like it – though it’s what she calls “picnicking” (up a stepladder to the attic room, on the couch in the living room – lovely fireplace – or in the caravan outside. We’ve exchanged addresses. I liked some of her paintings a lot, but/ and there’s a tremendous variation. She loves painting fantasies, and juxtaposing them on real scenes. Her painting of the church is, I think, lovely, and not at all photographic, though recognisable. But £100 I couldn’t afford!! She is someone I look forward to meeting again.
It is now nearly ¼ past 6 my total intake today so far is ½ a grapefruit, 1 slice of wholewheat bread and a boiled free range egg, and a small glass of orange juice – so I’m now going to make a large salad.
John I feel very close to you. I love you so much and I am really looking forward to seeing you.
Sunday 20th May 9.25a.m.
I am going to the Trefecca church to join in worship with the group that is there this weekend. Don’t know which denomination but I’m told they have a “very lively” form of worship – not a bit like Quakers. As a Quaker I feel I can worship with anyone, but I may find I’m mistaken!
At last the cow in the farm across the road has stopped crying for her calf. I wonder if she has given up or whether they have relented! Not the latter I expect.
Everywhere I have walked this week I have seen and heard cows and calves separated, grieving for each other. I don’t think I am sentimental about animals, but this seems to me a fairly appalling way to build an economy – of which, I know, I am a part since I like to eat cheese. (I realise this is the only animal product which I do eat, with an occasional egg).
These are fairly high grade mammals with intelligence and feeling, and we choose to deliberately treat them as if they had neither and cause them suffering through their lives with a degrading end.
The specific cow that I mentioned has mourned non-stop since Tuesday morning – if not earlier – and thinking of what actually happens to the calves is no consolation, knowing of the rise in veal consumption.
In the days when a family owned a cow or two and it was known and treated as part of the family group – in the sense that they acknowledged their dependence on her and hers on them – it seems to me that after a reasonable life to devour such an animal could have been a fitting, honourable end. But not the way it is now. And, as always, I am even more concerned about what this is doing to the people who operate such a system.
Another thought has struck me too: With the increased demand in goat’s milk products, and now sheep’s milk products, are we going to see the same inhumane methods introduced into a branch of animal husbandry which has hitherto been conducted on an individual level, and small scale, with mothers and babies being allowed time together with surplus milk taken for human use, and extending lactation periods after weaning, and so forth.
This is all part of God’s creation. His overwhelming Love takes it all in his compass, but we are also his creatures and must be aware of what is happening.
11.15a.m. 
How stupid I am!
My watch seems to have slowed down like me!
I thought I was in good time for the service (Like bang on 11 o’clock) but they had already started.
The entrance is through the museum door, and peeping through the crack I could see the congregation all facing the door through which I would have to go – and I chickened out! Not having spoken to any of the group, I felt I couldn’t make such an ostentatious entrance.
(It did in fact sound as if it wasn’t at all my favourite kind of service, so I’ll go and sit in the Trefecca Coleg garden for a while.)
   *    *   *   *
[his following story is told with names changed, but it is autobiographical – John]
Reality of Dreams?
How lovely to be naked, to walk about in freedom, unrestricted by material considerations.
Freedom - Hmm!
It struck her that she had been rather obsessed with thoughts of freedom in the past few months. What was it that Hugh had said? ~Complete freedom is an idle dream of the insecure" - something like that - not altogether sure what it meant but she supposed it boiled down to the fact that you couldn't really do what you wanted even if this was called the permissive society! 
Ruefully she examined her reflection and pondered on a quotation repeated by Hugh, "Beauty is in the eye of the Beholder." "Not much beauty in my eye then;" she thought. Four stone less than a she was a year ago and 1ooking quite good in clothes.  Now, in the bright light the slight crinkles of skin which had been stretched for many years to accommodate too much flesh, and stretch marks from rearing four children, showed up the image of someone no longer young.
"Muu-mmy" a two-note call from downstairs- Ken, the youngest, first home from school as always- "Coming darling. “The woman quickly dressed, and ran downstairs to hug and kiss her nine-year-old, who always wanted a demonstrative greeting.
Glass of milk and a piece of home-made flapjack and he'd be off to play on his bike, but by then Kip and Angus would be in from school. Mick, the eldest, having finished exams was off walking with some friends, but he would be in for a meal. Hugh would be late in from school today because he was in charge of the meeting for parents of the new intake for next term. That meant he would be tired and needing to "talk himself down," so the woman began to prepare the evening meal  knowing that she would want to be able to sit down with him for a little while.
No mushrooms today though! She hadn't yet managed to get a  job since her course finished and mushrooms were expensive. Egg and cheese flan with lettuce and tomatoes was more in keeping with a budget meant to keep six people well fed - it also meant that Kip, who was vegetarian, wouldn't need something different prepared for him.  As she was washing the lettuce Kip came bursting in, straight upstairs to the toilet as usual. Then rushing downstairs again "Anything to eat I'm starving!"  Full of stories about school, criticisms of teachers' lack of understanding, imagination and humour.
"They don't seem to think we're people at all just because we're children."   She felt a particularly warm bond with this third son so much like herself as a child. He liked Simon so much, and she hoped that when the sadness had grown out of the situation they would be real friends. They had so much in common, and when it came to theatre Simon had so much more to offer than she or Hugh.
[Moth to candle flame.  Why on earth did Simon keep coming into her mind]
During the nineteen years of their marriage she had sometimes felt uneasy at the fact that she was strongly attracted to some men. It bothered her a little, but Hugh, secure in the deep love they had for each other accepted it as part of herself.
From the time she was fourteen she had fallen in and out of love with great enjoyment, (though in the late 1940's and early 50's physical expression of this love was minimal).    She was actually engaged to someone else when she became friends with Hugh. He, on the other hand, had not been really in love with anyone before her and did not seem to be tormented by unwanted sexual fantasies now.
[She didn't really know how old Simon was, probably he didn't know her age either.  It had never seemed relevant, though she had no qualms about telling if people wanted to know - perhaps because she actually seemed younger than she in fact was! Certainly she was several years older than he, though in experience he won hands down.]
Stay with the feeling - was the advice given in the Gestalt Therapy about which she had been reading in the past few weeks.  To deny or repress the feeling is unhelpful. But it's not always possible to 'stay with the feeling.' 
[The Friday morning when they had actually stopped living together Simon had said, taking her in his arms, "Grieve, not for too long, but do grieve a little as I shall – it’s been good”
It had suited her metabolism beautifully to love two people!   She found she could enjoy her body completely with both, quite differently. Each Friday when she was coming home Simon would say, "Give my love to the children" - which often caused uncontrollable mirth as the slight farce of the situation struck them. The four boys and Hugh all liked him, and he them and she with her desire to “integrate" parts of her life (doing knitting' one friend had once described it) had been glad.
Marvellous to be slim again!  The woman had been dressmaking all day, using remnants bought last summer and lying in a box all year while she had pursued a university course in a nearby town. Her family had managed well, and they had all benefitted from her time away. She had grown in experience and the value of this was immeasurable. One of the major projects was the recovery of her less than nine stone weight. Since Mick was born she had not been less than nine and a half stone. Just over a year ago she had had a long spell on antidepressant drugs and her weight had shot up to thirteen stone. A combination of strong-willed dieting, exercise, interesting change of environment, new friendships, and above all, falling in love – however spurious - had caused the pounds to fall off and reveal herself again.
This morning she had made a gorgeous full maxi skirt with a deep flounce around the bottom, all in red broderie-anglaise, and this afternoon had made a long, full-sleeved blouse in white muslin. With lowish elasticated neckline it was nice and peasanty, lovely for ordinary evenings at home or informal parties.
[Strange how clothes become associated with events, and how sometimes it seems necessary to discard them for a while until the memories stir up less feeling. Would she ever wear the dress bought specially for the going down dance?  She didn't know.  A  beautiful gown, silky, muted colours with a sheen, in a kaftan style, floating and full.  "Shades of Arabian nights” Simon had commented when he first saw it, but had admired the way she looked in it.  Strange evening!
The next morning she was to clear her clothes out of his place. His parents were coming for a holiday. Their last dinner together was almost silent, not very usual by that time, though he was a moody person who could be quite frightening in silent unexpressed anger.
This was not an angry silence, but a gentle one - so much caring and love of an intense, immediate kind, and enjoyment of living together.
He washing up - she bathing - not too much water in the bath, leave enough for him.  Better put a rubber hat on to preserve a hair style. Nice warm towel brought in and burst of laughter at her appearance. "Ha, funny isn't it? I haven't got hair like yours - worse luck" (curly and thick)- conciliatory kiss on wet shoulder.
Very careful make-up, mustn't let the side down, not done to show too much feeling. Perfume, then the lovely dress. Tender and passionate kiss to hit the ceiling with.]
 [That night she had wanted so much to get drunk, to sink into oblivion, to be anaesthetised. It was a good dance, but curiously lacking in the ebullience which had been present at the Christmas dance. (Ah – of course that was when she had first become aware of him)  But even six double whiskies had not helped, and she had remained stone cold sober - what a waste of money!
Then “home”- which would be home no longer come the morrow.
Spurious sadness at the end of an imagined ‘dream’                            
The woman chewed the end of her pen and reread the list she was making out. Groceries for six for the week - double green shield stamps on Wednesday, and she was saving for either a new tennis racket or a double burner camping stove. Butter, sugar, bacon - all the usual things. Yes, she'd get a bottle of cheap wine for dinner.
She and Hugh had always worked at their love and marriage and recognised that good marriages didn't just happen. If excitement was something that had faded a little and become necessary again, then work on that too, Hugh was always expressing how exciting he found her, even more nowadays since she had to some extent become rather mysterious. She loved him so much, wanted to delight him, and care for him, but the word excitement didn't really fit just now.  Hang it all, it was his birthday, after all, tomorrow, and there would be money coming from the supply teaching she had done on the last week of term - so, steak and mushrooms, and red wine to put in the glass decanter Hugh had given her for her birthday.
"What are we celebrating?"
"We are celebrating trusting each other, loving each other for twenty years!      We are celebrating Simon not loving me!"
 [She said, "If you had loved me I would probably have come to you."
"I know".
"But I suspect you only ever fall in love with people you know won't, for one reason or another."
"You are right."]
 Curiously, Hugh's lack of interest in celebrations, parties or dances was one of the factors in the man and woman being drawn together.
She loved parties and long ago had loved dancing, but not caring to be unescorted (or even accompanied by a reluctant escort) had accepted a life of very few parties, convincing herself that they were unimportant, when viewed in the context of their total life together. But return to student life for a year had provided opportunity for going to parties and she had thoroughly enjoyed them.
For the first time she discovered what it was like to be sloshed.
Wow! That party!
[She and Simon had gone with two other people to a school play, and then met up with some more of their group in a pub frequented by the crowd. Collecting the glasses the landlord was lending to them, they went on to the house where the party was being held.  White wine was her drink for the evening and because of her diet she ate very little. Dancing was lovely, and she danced with a lot of people, all the time knowing that Simon was there, and that he would take her back to her digs. (The next week they all started practical field work and wouldn't be seeing each other for several weeks.) Halfway through the night she missed him. Not dancing, not in the kitchen either.  Must be upstairs - couldn't see him.   Obviously in the loo, but when the door opened someone else came out.
Downstairs again, and two more tumblers full of wine. Weeping "He's gone - he didn't even say goodbye."  Grief, anticipating the future?
Someone said, "He's only gone to pick up some more people who are coming from a dinner."  Then suddenly he was there, and holding her, looking down at her, "Woman, you're pissed!"  She felt safe.
Unreality of the situation.  Feeling of being in a dream. Focussing on two strangers in the group (friends brought in by someone else,) - - - accusingly, "How did you get into my dream. I don't know you!"
Lovely, melting dancing with him.  Being driven to her digs, walking up the path, lingering kiss and embrace.  "Can I say just this once, I love you, because I do, so much."  "It's nice to be loved", he replied.]
When Hugh drove over to fetch her the next day she was still smiling beatifically, but had no hangover, not so much as a headache. She just couldn't think coherently about what she wanted to take with her for the next six weeks, so sat on the bed smiling while Hugh packed everything.
Other people seemed to think that there was something odd, almost unmanly in Hugh's attitude to her loving Simon. During their years of marriage they had come to recognise love as a dynamic force, changing in expression, and free flowing, not confined and packaged. The more love one gave, the more one seemed to receive to be able to give.
The woman's love for her husband was undoubted, and he felt no fear when he recognized the intensity of her love for Simon, and on meeting him, felt the undercurrents of their mutual attraction, He had encouraged her to accept the invitation to Simon's party in the middle of her field-work, the end of his, and to stay at his bungalow.
(I've got two extra beds".)
"You are your own person," said Hugh. "We don’t own each other.  We love because we want to, and if you want to make love to someone else enjoy it. It takes nothing from our marriage."
He had not actually anticipated that for most of the final term of their course they would be living together - he had envisaged odd nights after parties. But the difficulties he experienced in accepting the situation were to a large extent balanced by the re-emergence of the woman he had married that he was able to feel positive and almost glad that the relationship and situation had developed in this way.
"I WANT YOU TO GO AWAY    I WANT YOU TO GO AWAY"
Hard, cold voice, staccato words, dark hostile brown eyes, so unlike the warm caring look to which she had become accustomed.
 "I want to be myself, I want to say goodbye to my friends without you being there. I've got to get used to being without you."  "Don`t look at me as if you hate me."   "Well, what do you expect, what do you expect? How brutal do I have to be, why do you keep coming back?"
For the first time, wounded by him, not quite able to understand this storm of words.
But she knew he did not want to be told of her need - he would find being needed too great a burden.  So, deep breath, remembering that she came into this situation with eyes open, knowing she would be giving, already having received so much more than she expected.  
"I'll go tomorrow, you seemed glad I was here.   I wanted to stay,   I thought that was what you wanted.    This time I misinterpreted the meaning behind the words and silences."
 "Is that meant to make me feel guilty?"
 "No - don't you know me better than that?" 
 “No”. ]
Push the trolley round the supermarket, gather necessities from shelves. Life goes on in spite of one's lack of desire to live in this place…………
"Can't go on , if living is without you" sings Shirley Bassey - but one does nevertheless.
Strange the ways in which another person is missed.  Will this constant grief diminish? it will, and the past become a beautiful dream from which one was reluctant to wake.
 
So this is how it ends.  Just a bit of a struggle and "Goodbye." which should have been said long ago.
The woman digs deep. "We have loved and valued each other, and now I can and will put you firmly in the past where you belong.  Be happy my dear."]
Weight gone from her spirit makes her body feel lighter.
How lovely to be naked, to walk about in freedom!
[This story refers to the same events but written in the third person - John]
Say goodnight
Moth to candle flame.  Sitting in the car with Mike.  In the dark.  Raining outside and long, hurting silence.
"You are a happy person with a happy life.  If I enter your life I will hurt you and make you unhappy.  I am a destructive person.  I can only hurt other people."
Joan had replied, “I've never believed happiness to be the most important thing in life.  All I ever asked of life was to live it to the full.  This involves some sadness and some happiness; and I'm not afraid of either."
That was months ago and their relationship had grown to become one of the pivots of her life for a short time.
She knew it was temporary. ‘All part of being away at University for a year taking a post-graduate course,’ Mike had teased.
On the morning their courses ended and they had stopped living together, Mike had said, taking her in his arms, “Grieve, not for too long, but do grieve a little."
And now here she is, grieving - quite a lot actually - and trying to work out what had actually happened.
The basic story is a common one - married woman,  goes away for a while,  meets very attractive man,  several years younger than herself, has an affair,  end of Course,  end of story.  But somehow it felt less crude and more important.  Perhaps the first insight for Joan is that everyone who has a serious affair must feel this.
There is no need for justification, but some importance in exploring reasons.  Perhaps it is important to look at how or why?
During the 1939-45 war many of my schoolmates at junior school on a council estate found that their fathers were called up for military service and on many occasions another man moved in and took the vacant space!  At the High school to which I gained a scholarship it clearly happened but in a more discreet and ‘civilised’ way!
It seemed understandable.  Suddenly wives were alone with a home to run with rationing becoming a nightmare and with no partner to give the support needed at this difficult time.  Bombing raids every night with hours spent in shelters or cupboards under stairs, not knowing if the house would still be in a liveable state, combined with many women being directed to take jobs to help the war efforts,  turned ‘safe society’ upside down! 
In an unknown and frightening situation men and women need each other to be whole and competent.
Men who were called up for the services and subsequently sent far away from their homes met similar needs and problems.  “Every nice girl likes a sailor” – says the song – that applies to any serviceman.  (I’m told uniforms are a ‘draw’, but it never did it for me!)
War itself can occupy many pages, of needs, justifications, avoidance possibilities,  but that would require another piece of writing.  What I am looking at now is the particular need of someone who – for whatever reason – is in a totally unfamiliar situation separated from the person closest to them.
In a kind of way Joan was in this kind of situation.
Happily married with a family of sons, one of whom was still in primary school, she had got a place on a one year long post-graduate course at a University in a town a number of miles from their home.  She and her husband had found ‘digs’ for her in the home of a friend who was a member of their church community.  Her course meant that she would be away during the week and home at weekends.
The course was demanding and quite unlike any other study she had ever done.  Well experienced in teaching primary age children her post in a unit for emotionally disturbed children had recently included an increasing number of adolescents – an age group in which she felt the need to gain more experience and training.
The first term involved lectures and study of various kinds during the day.  Each student was allocated an area of the city in which s/he must identify a group of young people, not attached to a youth  club,  make contact with them and then work with them for the rest of the term, using various developmental techniques such as discussion on a particular subject, helping the young people to find what their hopes were – short term or long term – and gradually encouraging them to explore ways of achieving them.
Joan’s group of fellow-students were all considerably younger than she was and although they all worked well together had little contact at the social level. There were just four men and two women in the group.  The other woman was an Irish nun.
In the same area of the University campus was a School-Counsellors course. Our course in Adolescent Development had a number of weekly sessions with them.  This was a considerably larger group (probably around 40) and most was much more Joan’s age group.  It was natural to spend more of her social time with some of the members of that course.  After evening sessions working ‘on the streets’ – as it were – it became a good ‘unwind’ to meet up with a group of them in a local pub on the way back to her ‘digs’.   She even learned that she enjoyed whisky to drink – after a lifetime of no alcohol!
Through talking, walking, working in some of the group work she and Mike found a great deal in common and enjoyed each other’s company a great deal.
Increasingly Joan was missing her family dreadfully.  She was just recovering from a breakdown caused by the pressure of the work of the past year,  so some social contact with a peer group was of immense value.
At the end of the first term came the Christmas break.
But first came the end-of-term dance.  Everyone was going.
–‘Oh dear!  What do I wear?’ ‘ I haven’t been to this kind of thing for donkey’s ears!’
 
  But there was no way her fellow students were going to let her duck out of it!
That weekend Joan’s husband helped her to choose a dress which she liked and suited their budget.  All set for the first ‘proper dance’ she’d ever been to!
For her it was a magical time.  The dancing was wonderful she found she danced with practically everyone.  The supper was great – and she experienced being ‘a bit tiddly’ for the first time in her life!  She danced quite a lot with Mike and felt glad that he walked her back to her digs, and warmed when he kissed her goodnight on the top of her head!
The next morning her husband came to take her home for the Christmas vacation and found her still in a slight state of euphoria!  A wonderful man who she loved more than anyone else in the world, without the slightest word of rebuke, he packed her bags,  hugged her in a wonderful embrace,  packed her into the car and took her home to the family for the Christmas celebrations.
It was unthinkable for Joan not to discuss her confusing emotions with John – they discussed everything!  You might say it was part of the mortar mix in their marriage!
His attitude was along the lines of ‘You’re at University for a year.  It’s a totally new and one-off experience.  Go for it,  enjoy your year’.
After a busy and enjoyable holiday with family and friends,  as well as quite a lot of ‘writing up’ of her detached youth work assignment and an essay,  the time to return to the course seemed to come all too soon.
Fairly early the next term Mike took over tenancy of a small bungalow on the coast.  It was a holiday let during the summer and the owner of the small estate found he could still get some rental by letting the cottages to responsible ‘mature students’ – NOT school leavers!
The students of both courses were on practical placements over quite a widespread area of Wales, so didn’t meet up again until the end of those assignments until they finished.  Very busy and quite hard work.
At the end of that time Mike invited a lot of people to a party at his new habitat.
John drove Joan with her stuff for the term to her digs, and then out to the coast to Simon’s place.  He didn’t stay for the party because of the boys at home, and after a cuppa, left.  The party was fun and went on quite late.  Joan stayed overnight, as did a couple of other friends.
Very soon it became the pattern that Joan stayed for part of the week with Mike and went home for the weekend.
It hadn’t registered with her that she was actually ‘having an affair’!  A bit naïve really, she found no difficulty in loving two men for a short time.  Selfishly she believed John when he understood what was/had happened.  She knew that love between them was deep and on strong foundations and that this unexpected and exciting relationship was an experience which would end with the ending of the courses.
What was very unexpected was the intense grief she felt at the complete parting.  She had – very naively – thought that friendship would continue (without the trimmings)!  But Mike didn’t think it was possible.  That was a pity. Her boys liked him and so did John –Joan knew she would ‘get over her crush’ pretty soon.  The healing took a little time, and for years certain places, or references, caused a slight stab of pain.  Years later, when she was a City Councillor and also involved in theatre Joan met up with him at a theatre contest in Cardiff.  It was very pleasant to have a ‘normal’ conversation and enjoy seeing each other again – talking about our kids!
A very good ending to an enriching episode.
Chapter six
Kaleidoscope of theatre
My story of Music Theatre Wales
I have always been fascinated by kaleidoscopes.  As a child I was given one from time to time.  The constantly changing shapes and patterns were endless enchantment and different to every individual – yet everyone started with the same basic material!
Any memory of a lively and changing company of musicians (of actors or dancers for that matter) must I think have the same kind of kaleidoscope effect.  We all start with the same basic facts but our intense recollections will be varied for each individual.
Certain factual events can be date-verified of course but I am moved to just beginning to write recollections of my part in the life of MTW.  Curiously the history of the company coincides in an interesting way with one of the most fulfilling and creative bits of my own life!
So – a bit about me!  In 1979 I was teaching at Willows High School, a comprehensive school in Splott,  Cardiff. I had been there for about six years.  I already knew Chapter and was a member of Everyman – an amateur theatre company.
In May 1979 I was elected as a City Councillor for Splott, representing the Labour Party.  Great delight all round!
About two weeks later I was told that I was to be redeployed to a different school.  I felt it was a political move as the County Council was strongly Conservative and responsible for Education.  I won’t go into all the discussions at that time,- this is not my life story!  Enough that I was transferred to a school the other side of Cardiff.
My life therefore became a kind of equilateral triangle, home, Rhiwbina, school Fitzalan – (long and miserable drive in a traffic jam morning and evening).  Drive from home to Splott for council surgeries and meetings (Party and individuals) and home late at night.  Then of course, City hall meetings and committees, sometimes in the day (other side of triangle).
Anyway, (John being unemployed at that time) we decided at half term that this was not the way we wanted to live! So talked with our sons – only one of whom was still living at home – and we all made the decision that we would look for a house in the centre of town – giving ourselves a fairly wide choice.
After a fairly brief search we found a perfect house in Hamilton Street, off Cathedral Road. Our house in Rhiwbina gave us enough to settle the mortgage, pay cash for the new house and do a few things like instal an AGA, make a huge kitchen, washbasins in all the rooms, make a ‘laundry’ room with downstairs loo!  All this, because we wanted to share the house with other people.  (Another story)
One of the joys of moving to Hamilton St. in 1980 was that it was so much nearer to Chapter! In addition to Everyman I was able to get to other events – such as Pip Simmons etc.
If this is all a bit garrulous be patient………..everything links!
I finished the year at Fitzalan in a part time capacity and left to work at the Youth Opportunities Centre, which had recently been set up.
At this time our youngest son Dave left school, was involved in Circus school activities in Splott and was employed on a work experience scheme at the Sherman theatre.  Working back stage he was thoroughly enjoying both the work and the contact with performers and other people involved in production.
One day he burst in and told me I had to go and see the show which was just going on.  He was ‘bubbling’ and told me that ‘there are these two guys doing a post graduate course at the Sherman and they want to form an opera company to do new and not very well known Opera – and they’re great.  I went – and they were – and I’ve been ‘hooked’ ever since – but not quite involved then ……..although we did meet Michael McCarthy and Michael Rafferty.
A couple of weeks later there was- again, a show that John and I ‘had to go to’. We were introduced to the work of Paupers Carnival, though not the performers at that time.  A few weeks later however Vanya of Paupers Carnival rang and asked if I would be interested in taking part in the Moving Being presentation of the Mabinogi.  Of course I would! …and that brought me right in.  I loved performance and everything concerned with it.  They were looking for a new administrator, I asked if they thought I could learn to do the job we had a meal and pleasant evening at their flat talking about all manner of things – and that was it! I “understudied “ Sue Yeo for a week or so while I tied up the ends of the Youth Opportunity job, and then started a most satisfying time of creative working from the beginning of 1981.
I was increasingly involved in CHAPTER having been appointed as the City Council delegate to the Board.  Subsequently I was elected to CHAPTER board as an individual member and remained there for something like nine years – through some bad times as well as good .By 1982 the two Michaels had completed their time at the Sherman and were planning a tour of three little known short operas.  I remember that one was Mozart’s ‘Impresario’ but will need to check what the others were.  (I guess I remember the Mozart a) because I love his stuff and b) because Aneurin Huws sang in it, stayed with us for the first time during rehearsals and subsequently became a good friend.
The Company (at that time called Cardiff New Opera Group) needed someone to bring together the confirmation of venues for performances etc. and I undertook to do it.  It was very different from the needs of Paupers Carnival touring and I was never quite sure whether I had done the company - Cardiff New Opera Group – justice, but I loved doing it.
From the beginning the company has had strong and caring Board of Directors.  Sydney Isaacs was the first Chair and being a solicitor helped enormously in setting up the legal requirements of the company. I was invited to attend the meetings at the time of the Triple Tour to take notes/minutes and can’t quite remember at what point my role changed and I was invited to become a member of the board.  The change was very smooth-which reminds me that I do remember Sydney always brought a bottle of wine, which was a pleasant ‘oiling of the wheels’  - later the business became more complex and ‘insistent’ and members had to travel greater distances and the habit died a natural death.
Three aspects of the company which have taken major amounts of time and discussion have been funding, office and storage space and rehearsal space. The need for staff to take over specific jobs has grown with the company’s reputation and popularity. In the beginning planning meetings were held largely I believe at one of boys homes, with Board meetings taking place in Chapter.
When Sydney resigned from the Chair Peter Clee was elected and brought with him a lot of business contacts and knowledge.  During this time the idea developed that it may be possible to find a home at St Donat’s Art Centre and be based on the campus of Atlantic college as a resident company. The Director of St Donat’s was already a member of Cardiff New Opera Group board and supportive of the work.
I think it was around this time that we began thinking of a name other than (Cardiff New Opera Group) on the basis that we were moving further afield.  Various suggestions were made and eventually Music Theatre Wales was chosen – though my memory can’t recall quite when or how the decision was made.
The registration year for Music Theatre Wales was 1988.
As various grants became available we recognised the need to appoint an administrator.  I am deliberately vague about this because, although involved in some of the decision making process I cannot recall details from memory! The first appointment was part-time, and relieved Michael M. and Michael R. from some of the clerical and office-based work giving them time to find instrumentalists, singers, look at new work and in general taking all the responsibility of finding new work for the young company.
Peter Clee and myself were on the board of Atlantic College as representing the interests of MTW and there were good times including some interesting performances at St. Donat’s theatre.  (Incidentally, Michael, I don’t think I’ve ever experienced the evening of violin music performance which I won at one particular ‘fun show’!)  But companies continue to develop and needs change.  For a variety of reasons a move back to Cardiff was decided and office space in a building in ???? and owned by Chapter became available and served pretty well for a number of years.
Peter found it necessary to withdraw from the Board due to personal pressures. We had a strong group of people as board members including David Ambrose administrator of St. Donat’s Art Centre, Neil Wallace Director of Chapter,[also a  number of people whose names I can’t recall – senility sets in!]
I was elected as chair when Peter left, which aroused a complexity of emotions for me!  Feelings of joy, surprise, humility, some inadequacy, and determination to the best I possibly could for this company which already had my love and commitment.
Chapter seven  
An ending and a beginning.
My mother is dying.
The time for which she has longed is almost here.
"Beloved, will you be waiting for me as you promised - will I be complete again?"
She is glad that her three daughters and her youngest sister (more like a daughter) are sharing in her terminal care.
At the moment they happen to be in her room together. "Who's here?"  Her eldest daughter, not yet realising, answers "Ruth, Joyce, Vene and me".
Again, "Who's here?  Oh, Alf, Em, (both long since dead) how nice to see you, Uncle Harry, Vi  ---- goodness, do you all want to come in?.........it's not a very big room, but you're all very welcome.  It's a bit of a squash I'm afraid".
Her hands, raised as if in supplication, suddenly turn palms down and she reaches for the hands of the four supporters.  Gathering them in towards her face she murmurs "I'm so lucky.  Thank you God for my wonderful family".  Then, "We must all be together, that's how we'll get through".
Hands unclasped she says "Oh, I am so..oo thirsty";  then with a smile of pure mischief says "I have no pain now Mother dear, but oh I am so dry, connect me to a brewery and leave me there to die"!  (This from a life long teetotaller)
The delightful and surprising thing to us, accompanying Mum on her journey as far as we are able, is that  all the gruffness of pain and age has vanished from her voice and she speaks with clear young tones remembered from our childhood.
Her second daughter, Ruth, holds a cup of water to Mum's lips, supporting her back firmly and tenderly.  But that is not what is needed right now.
Stretching her hands forward our Mother moves her fingers around in what is clearly water of some  kind.  Laughing with delight she splashes and then throws water over her face and runs her hands  over her head.  Evidently refreshed she leans back on her pillows and closes her eyes.
[     Those jaunts to the river with her two brothers when they were all kids!  Lucky, living in little streets in town to have water so near.  Ooh, the taking off shoes    and  socks (forbidden of course), the walking along the stones - what fun it all was - well worth the telling  off at the end of the day over the dirty clothes and wet feet! ]
Opening her eyes Mummy indicates that she wants to be up on her pillows.  Settling herself with a tender smile she is plainly holding a baby in her arms.  She traces the curve of the tiny head and body, plays with the hands and uncovers the feet, then goes through the motions of breast feeding with loving intent expression.  This playing with the baby goes on for a long time and then she sits the  baby in front of her and plays with it.  Giving no warning she makes a noise through her lips as her first and second fingers drum on her lower lip - a sort of "br.br.br.br." noise!  Her daughters laugh at the sound and see clearly when the woman wobbles the child's nose - but she is unaware of external sounds, being well on her own journey.
Occasionally she lays her hands palms downwards and notices whichever of her daughters are in the room at the time.  From time to time her questions are pertinent, relating to her grandchildren, son- in-law, sisters, but their happenings no longer involve her.
The three daughters have discussed their role in this business of dying.  They know that they want their mother's passing to be natural, and uncluttered by any clinging on their part.  They will not cling to  her hands, their hands are upturned ready to receive hers if she wishes.  They will not continually “rally" her with items of trivia from this physical world which she is leaving.  They are concentrating on the idea of "spirit, go free".
Many times over our mother repeats the gathering-in movements and without looking seems to know which of her daughters is not present. "We must always hold each other in our arms" she says.  Then, laughing, "Of course we can't do that all the time - arms wouldn't reach, but stay close together.  Hold hands together - that's how we'll get through".
 
[These daughters of hers.  How lucky she feels.  So much love.  (And where had they learned to love after all?) 
     All the pain at sometimes not being written to or telephoned enough has been washed away since those two massive coronaries eighteen months ago.  Her youngest daughter, totally committed and devoted in her caring.  The woman has worried sometimes about her future - "How will she manage?" she has sometimes asked.  But seeing the way Joyce has coped in the past few years and acknowledging the way in which the three of them have worked together in this last final week the woman isready to let go, knowing that Joyce will not be totally   alone. ]
Mummy is very dreamy. 
Her eyes drift around the room hardly noticing the objects they pass.   Suddenly her gaze lights upon the commode.  Thank goodness the district nurse had fitted that tube to her yesterday.  She had been so afraid of wetting the bed, but couldn't seem to move herself about, as if her body wasn't there somehow.  It had worried her that it had taken all three of her daughters to lift her on and off.  They found it pretty worrying too!  (Let's do it by numbers, Ruth had said "One, two and UP).  The woman glanced at the commode again.  How pretty it looked with the seat newly covered in pink cloth - and a matching cushion.
That's Ruth, her second daughter.  Of course, one shouldn't have a favourite child, but Ruth is most like Mum.  An excellent needle woman, of many skills, competent and practical.  It is Ruth's slant which has found many of the solutions to the problems of nursing at this time.
Propped up again, Mum's hands start shaping what are obviously books on a table (how did these stiff arthritic hands become young and supple and light again?)  "Wouldn't it be better to put them both together and that over this side?"
Again, "Put them both together like this."  Hands lifting and moving something then, hands folded, eyes shut and still.
Then the whole episode repeated.
"What is she doing?" asks Joan.  "Oh" says Joyce "She's arranging the room for Meeting for Worship.  I've seen her do it dozens of times.  She always thought it best to have the flowers one side and the Bible and the Quaker Book of Discipline together on the other side - but people would keep putting the flowers in the middle".
Vene comes in "Go on you girls" (59,58,53!)  "Get something to eat;  you don't know when you'll get another chance"
Zap!  Two minutes later downstairs in the kitchen the three middle-aged sisters hugging each  other, laughing/crying, dancing up and down like children, shouting "Isn't it wonderful" - "What a bloody good show!" - "If ever I direct a death scene it will be just like this" - "No-one would believe it!"
They didn't ever finish their meal.
The woman suddenly asked for her daughters and the three sharp bumps on the bedroom floor from Vene brought the three of them swiftly upstairs.
Our mother has asked for her three daughters to 'gather them in' one more time.  Then, wondrous gift for Joan, in a complex movement Mum links her little fingers into the little finger and thumb of one of Joan's hands and intently strokes the palm with her thumbs.  First one hand, then the other.  It feels like  benediction.
[Months later, when studying aromatherapy Joan was taught that Shiatsu movement as part of the massage course.  What an apt memorial!]
Still holding Joan’s' hand our mother's eyes turn to the window.  In the bedroom, full of spring flowers, everything is peaceful and loving.  The woman’s' face becomes radiant. "Oh, how wonderful to see you again".  The joy and longing is too much for the daughters;  they hold each other’s hands and weep as the woman’s' gaze moves around from the window to the large photograph of her husband whose  death twenty-six years ago has left an emptiness never filled.  With a little sigh and expression of contentment she settles back on her pillows.  Her daughters cannot be sure whether she says "He said not quite yet, just a little bit longer" or "I said not quite yet, just a little bit longer" - it doesn't really matter.  It is clear that her journey is nearing its end for this lifetime.
Ruth has been stitching a tapestry of cats during the past week.  In the early stages Mum was quite interested; but is now beyond it.  However, Ruth finds it calming, satisfying.  Each daughter has her own way of using positively the time spent sitting in the woman's room.
Knowing that the night is likely to be long, Joyce is having a little rest; Joan is making some tea downstairs with her husband John; Ruth and Vene are sitting together in the magnetic room.
Mum opens her eyes and tries to sit up.  Willing hands help her.  When she is securely sitting she carefully puts her hands together, like a child at school prayers, and says as clear as a bell:  "All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small, All things wise and wonderful the Lord God made them all."  "And that's right isn't it?"  she continues,  "God did make all things bright and  beautiful....
Thank You God for this wonderful world, and Thank You for my wonderful family".
Lying back against the pillows she snuggles over on to her side and lapses into a sound sleep.  The carers are aware that they will not hear her speak again,  that she has already crossed to where they can no longer accompany her.
"Spirit go free".
     [For a week the daughters have taken four hour watches in rotation - one sitting up, one sleeping on the other bed in the woman’s' room, one sleeping in the spare room.Tonight they decide to sit together for first watch and see what the situation is at 1 a.m.]
Ruth has almost finished her tapestry. It seems to have become very important to complete it before our mother stops breathing.
By now her lungs are filling.  The district nurse pops in to check how things are and reckons it will be some hours yet. 
The four people who have been involved with the woman’s' progress all day feel differently - but they are not professionals, this is an unfamiliar experience.
Almost one o'clock, let's have a drink of something and then see.......... Ruth stitching like fury - don't you dare stop before I've finished this!  As the breathing becomes bubblier Ruth stitches faster. 
At about ten past one she fastens off the final stitch.
"There, now it's done".  For a few more minutes the breathing  continues and at about quarter past one the room falls totally silent.
The daughters hold each other and the woman, sharing their grief and joy privately before starting on all the public jobs which are now necessary.
[For a while the woman lingers around the shell which has been such a burden to her for the last few years.  Trust that lot to make another cup of tea; still it's good of John to take that on; she’s glad he was round at Vene's house and could bring her to "the girls" so quickly.  It doesn't really matter, but she can't help feeling pleased that they haven't covered her face.  She'd never been able to understand why that was done - except in hot weather.  After his first surprise at the "tea-party" going on in the bedroom with her still in the bed that doctor locum had been very nice, and took it quite naturally that "You don't want her face covered do you"?]
They'll be alright.
[The woman feels herself melting, no longer worried about what might happen.  She is beyond fear and anxiety.  Occasionally she focusses sharply on something and then lets go again.]
She has run a good course in this lifetime and left her daughters, sisters and friends with much love and joy.
All is well. 
Spirit is free.
Joan Southern
 
Spiritual experiences
August 11th 2006
Well, so much for “good resolutions” as started on November 19th  2005.
I have at last written the record of Vene dying just before Christmas
Tim and Jane discovered just before Christmas that Jane had breast cancer. She had a mastectomy just after Christmas and I have failed them completely. I feel full of grief not to have phoned, sent cards or expressed caring every day. I have recently faced up to the fact that I am not the person I like other people think I am. Maybe I talk the talk, but don’t do the deeds to support it. I have just written a letter to them which doesn’t make up for the neglect in any way. It seems that Dave and Jackie (and to some extent Mike)  were the only people from this family who were constant in their emotional support. Impossible to “un-ting the bell” but hopefully I have faced the fact that people who are suffering need to have other people make the contacts, it’s almost impossible to ask for them when one is in pain and fear.
I feel like weeping all the time at the moment so I’d better keep up this writing for a while, I can say things that I can’t say and no-one will read it till after I’ve gone most likely!
Alone – Lonely
1.     I sometimes feel lonely when I’m in the middle of a crowd of people
They laugh, chatter, move and so do I – but I myself am in a different space.
I don’t feel connected, I feel isolated.
2.     And do I tread this earth but once?
What happens to all that I have learnt?
Does every generation start from nothing?
Or do we come with learned experience which we can share?
 .. mistakes which we can rectify?
– knowledge we can pass on?
 
Is it because I know I am nearer to the end of my life than the beginning these questions teem?
Not Really!
 
I have often felt connected to other experiences than my present.
I have known spirit guides.
Perhaps I haven’t nurtured them?
Perhaps I am not the nurturing person I think I am – would like to be!
 
August 12th 2006
Happy Birthday Mum!
August 13th 2006
Mum died on April 1st 1989. I have written elsewhere my account of her death from my view. In September of that year I began a one-year training as an Aromatherapist, having been interested in forms of natural/alternative healing for some years. I qualified the following year and very soon had several clients and a very good therapy room on the 1st floor of our house in Hamilton Street. I was also very involved with Labour Party matters, Quaker activities and grand-children! My first client living with cancer was Liz. She had had a partial mastectomy and was in recovery, working at a responsible job and having singing lessons. She always came on a Friday evening after she finished work,  On this particular Friday I was feeling particularly exhausted, and my usual ‘quiet time’ before working didn’t even seem to do the trick on this occasion. However, I began the massage and halfway through I felt absolutely drained, and said to God – silently of course – “Come on Lord, I need some help here or I’m not going to manage it!” Immediately I felt a sense of peace and a strange sensation of hands placed exactly over mine. I was aware of long sleeves and white cuffs folded back for working and a heaviness against mu thigh. (Like a bunch of keys on a chain, I felt). The massage finished and there was utter peace and Liz expressed that that was very special. After that it happened few times with one or two of my clients who were living with HIV/AIDS. In my quiet times I found she was a French nun, Sister Claire who had actually been on this earth an century or so ago and had been in a healing Order.
I shared my experiences with Dek and Kay Leverton, and during that week Kay popped in with a paper about some spiritual healing workshops which were about to start, run by Jack and Jan Angelo. We registered for the training and we were all changed in subtle ways. Ir would take too long to recall and write down all the experiences, separately or in a group. Most of the healing which was done through me was through my aromatherapy so I didn’t actually complete a log of cases and register as a spiritual healer with the National body. With Kay and Dek and Horace I took part in a healing group one evening a week. For a time we were giving healing to many souls who were killed in fighting during the Crimean war and had been in a kind of limbo unable to pass through.
One Sunday in August ’91 the Angelo’s invited the ‘students’ to have lunch and a social afternoon at their house. They have a lovely house and beautiful garden. After lunch most people went for a walk around a nearby lake. I had been suffering from back-ache and was advised not to as it was quite a hefty walk. So Jan’s mother Nan and I sat quietly in the garden watching a couple of field mice playing under the hedge. We were there in silence for quite a long time. Nan’s voice quietly said ‘There’s someone here – I think she’s for you.’ Not knowing how to respond I said nothing.




Nan


It’s someone very close to you, and she passed over fairly recently, a mother?
Silence
She’s got one of those walking frames – a zimmer I think it’s called. She’s got lovely colour hair, fine grey aut as though it’s really ash-blond.




I said


It’s my mother




Nan


(chuckling) Oh – she says she doesn’t need the frame now, she only showed it so you’d know it was her.




           


[All this time I was mute, a totally new and unfamiliar situation and all Nan’s words were punctuated by fairly long silences where she was ‘somewhere else’.




Nan


You’ve ritten something when she passed and gave it to your sisters. She says don’t mind that they haven’t said anything, it’s fine by her.




 


She’s very happy you’ve given her engagement ring to your future daughter-in-law, the right thing to do.




 


Long silence




 


I asked, “can you ask her something? Has she met up with Dad?”




 


Silence




Nan


She says she’s with him sometimes but he has quite a lot of little jobs to do – he’s doing one now.




 


I have to admit that when all this started I was rather sceptical – how we all fear being tricked. No-one in the group knew anything about me at all. We weren’t encouraged to talk about our lives, they didn’t know my Mum had recently died. That last statement convinced me of the truth of the experience. All my life I had seen Dad slightly rubbing his hands together saying, “I’m just going to do a little job Kid.” To my Mum and off he would go to his hut. As she was describing Nan was moving her hands in exactly the same way!




Nan


She’s going now – oh no, she says a lot of people over there are sending you flowers. Oh there’s one lovely one I’ve never seen before – it’s a rather deep unusual pink on the inside of the petal but a kind of silvery pink on the outside.




 


I said, It’s Rose Gaujard and it was one in my garden and Mum loved it so much I actually managed to strike a cutting for her that grew wonderfully in her garden.




Nan


She says it’s time for her to go now – she’s been with you quite a while but you smell rose perfume – and don’t realise it’s her.
Long silence , peaceful and loving.
Then Nan took a deep breath and ‘came to’.




I don’t know how much was still in her mind, but I quietly thanks her and said I felt blessed and remembered that Dave and I had both been aware of scent of roses inexplicably. She said that to receive flowers from the other side was a most wonderful gift ok love and I had been showered.
When we moved here in 1997 Joyce came to stay fairly soon and we went to a Nursery and bought a few roses. The first one was Rose Gajaud the second Queen Elizabeth (another favourite of Mum’s – her namesake) we now have a beautiful rose bed and these two flourish the best of all. – I think they have a special influence!
Chapter eight
A meditation
July 23rd 1989
On my 60th birthday we had a wonderful party at Chapter Arts Centre. Many friends, members of the Quaker meeting, staff of Chapter, fellow Councillors – of all parties! – and family.  A particular joy for me was hearing our four sons playing in a band together – the one and only time as a special gift for me - and it wasn’t recorded!
Increasingly I had become interested in alternative therapies and particularly in aromatherapy.  Smells had always been important to me and I could never develop a garden unless I started with fragrant plants.  I decided to spend a chunk of my superannuation to train as an Aromatherapist at the London School of Aromatherapy.  It was a home-based course with periodic weekend lectures and workshops in London, and with a personal tutor who marked and discussed the written work and study which was done at home.  At the end of the year, having qualified, we created a therapy room in our large house in Riverside.
This was a rich time for me. (I am referring to experience here – not monetary gain!)   I became involved in the Natural Health Clinic, which subsequently became a co-operatively run clinic.  I offered one day a week to the Body Positive Centre free aromatherapy massage to people living with AIDs who attended the centre.  Some of the members were able to afford a fee and made appointments separately. I loved the work and felt a sense of achievement when I was given permission by the Professor in charge of the HIV ward at Heath hospital to give massage to any of his patients who asked for it.  He had noticed that those people who had been receiving massage from me recovered more quickly from incidental infections than those who had received no such treatment.
One Friday I was particularly tired, it had been a very full week.  However, I had a short relaxation said ‘come on God, I need a bit of help here, my work is needed and I don’t feel able’
For a while I felt I was going to faint but then became aware of my hands feeling lighter and a sensation of long grey sleeves rolled back with white close fitting sleeves covering to the wrists.  I also was aware of heavy keys on some kind of chain bumping my thigh.
Liz said it was the most wonderful massage she had experienced – I just said I felt I’d had a bit of help.
*   *   *   *
Logically I’m not likely to exist in the ‘all too solid flesh’ for many years longer – not more than 20 I’d say!
So what is left that I would like to put in or get out of the years remaining.
I hope I can retain a sense of humour.  Especially the ability to laugh at myself as well as others.
My mother was a dedicated believer in the adage “laugh and the world laughs with you – cry and you cry alone”.
If I really need to cry I usually sit in my garden seat under the trees next to the small pool we created.
The birds don’t seem to mind if I’m sad, though one particular robin sometimes sits on a low branch and looks at me with head on one side – almost as if he’s asking “so what’s got into you today?”
Is it a sign of impending madness that I find myself trying to explain to a robin something I barely understand myself?
What causes my sudden bursts of sadness, depression and hopelessness.  My feeling of total uselessness?
Perhaps all ‘80 pluses’ go through this.  We don’t talk about it because we don’t want to be a burden?  Because most of the time we don’t feel our age anyway?
Or are we afraid of weeping in public if we try?
We are unique individuals.
But our joint humanity gives us bonds which we don’t always acknowledge.
What makes us different from the rest of the animal world?
Is it our imagination?
Our ability to identify with someone else and their feelings?
Why did God send his ‘only begotten son’ to die on the cross in order to give us eternal life?
Most parents would give their own lives to save their own children,  wouldn’t they?
“God so loved the World – (which He had created) – that He gave His only begotten Son.”   to die the most painful death imaginable.
How does this demonstrate love?
God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.
I suppose not separate, but part of the same.
We create, we love and own, we embrace other concepts and accept those who own them. We become complete.    Amen
Later the same morning.
I am so depressed I don’t know what to do with myself.
Trying to activate my Tesco card has turned into an absolute nightmare which is making me feel as if I really am going certifiably bonkers! The woman supervisor was understanding of my difficulty in hearing on the phone and spoke clearly making sure I had heard the question.
I was then passed on to someone ‘just to verify’!
The coarse Scottish accent was to me totally un-understandable1
I love Scottish accents, but this one was too strident and quick for my deaf ears!
He started to go over again all the things we had sorted with the supervisor.  I was almost in tears.  John took over and demanded to be put on to another operator or back to the supervisor.
Finally an operator with a clear unaccented voice took over and the operation was completed.
However, I do not like the subtle change in the Tesco card arrangement.  I did not intend to become a member of any BANK other than my Co-operative Bank.  I am therefore pretty certain that before very long I shall close my Tesco account altogether and shop at the local Co-op, which is improving.  Not quite as convenient as Tesco - but that’s not quite the point.
About Prison Ministry.
Every prison has a Prison Chaplain to whom prisoners can go if they have problems or questions.  He also arranges services for specific events and gives counselling.  Other denominations have the opportunity to appoint Prison ministers who are part of the spiritual care of prison inmates.
The Society of Friends (Quakers) have – since the time of Elizabeth Fry – been involved in prison welfare.  It is the right of every offender to be able to ask for, and receive, visits from a representative Minister of their denomination.
In 1984 I was appointed as Quaker Prison Chaplain to Cardiff Prison.  This is a Home Office appointment after nomination by the business meeting of the Society of Friends (Quakers).At that time it was not a particularly arduous position, which was just as well since I was a City Councillor representing Splott Ward for the Labour Party.  I had left teaching and my waged work was as administrator for Paupers Carnival – a small theatre company (that’s another story! 
Shortly after my appointment I was asked if I would give a talk in the Prison Chapel to the Young Offenders.  I accepted readily – after all working with children and teenagers had been an important part of  my life!
One of the Prison Officers escorted me to the door of the chapel and waited with me whilst the young men shuffled in.
“Hi!  Mrs. S!”  “Hi Joan” “Hello Miss – great to see you” “What you doin’ in this dump?” – and so on from ex-pupils and Youth Club members.
The officer queried the different naming.  I explained that at Splott Youth Club the members called me ‘Joan’,  but that custom had not reached school so pupils at Willows (where I had taught) decided that nobody could complain if they called me Mrs S!
A significant remark by the Officer standing with me was “Gosh! You must have done something right!  Even now if I saw one of my teachers I’d cross the road rather than talk to them.”
I replied “Yes – but which person goes home at night!”
My meetings with prisoners were arranged to be held in the Chaplains’ Office  (women not allowed in the cells I was told).
A meeting with a young man who had been moved from Portland prison led to some interesting contact with the Quaker Prison Minister in Weymouth.  I had only two sessions with this young man.  He was engaged to a girl in the West country.  She was unable to get to Cardiff for visits.  He became terribly homesick.  Having always lived in a coastal/rural area the constant noise of traffic was actually causing ill-health.  Since he had quite a short time left of his sentence it seemed more sensible to the authorities to move him back nearer his home.
My most significant contact was with a man who was a member of the Society of Friends (Quakers).  He was in prison convicted of manslaughter of his wife.
He had been in prison for much longer than he should have been.  Men who had murdered came and went , and he was still in a prison in England.  He had been in the same cell for many years, and had not needed to share it.
He enjoyed reading, drawing, writing and seemed resigned, if not happy, in his lot!
Then the prison authorities saw fit to arbitrarily move him from the cell which had become his home.
He kicked up a fuss – and was moved to Cardiff.
I met with him a few times and had some repetitive conversations.
He seemed to find them of some value but I didn’t ever understand why!
Suddenly I had a message to say that he was on hunger strike.  Immediately I arranged to go into the prison.
On arrival I was told that he was in the Prison hospital block of cells.
“Women not allowed! Sorry!”
I pointed out that I was appointed by the Home Office to be the Quaker Minister to people in prison.  It seemed to me that should override the rule for normal visiting.  I implied that it could be taken to a higher authority if necessary!
Following discussion with the Governor and the full-time Chaplain my statement was accepted.
I told them I was perfectly willing to have one of the prison officers sitting on a chair a few yards from the open door of the prison cell if the authorities would feel happier.
This poor man was hardly breathing.  Very weak and old.  I held his hand between mine.  It was cold, felt very frail – rather like a bird’s claw.  I focussed on the words “Spirit, go free” and prayed that his passing would be a release for him.
He died later that day.
I was thankful that I had maintained his right to have my visit.
Shortly after this I asked our Quaker Monthly Meeting to appoint another member to take over that particular piece of work. My Council work and my paid work as Paupers Carnival administrator were becoming heavier and I didn’t want to fail with any of them. 
I feel grateful for the experience, insight and knowledge gained.
Anyone who thinks of prison as an ‘easy option’ should take up any opportunity to visit. Not very likely except on a specially engineered ‘open day’ I would think – but you never know!
 
[I discovered a notebook entitled “Jottings”. Some of it repeats what is told elsewhere but I have copied it in its entirety. She started many notebooks in the last few years and I have copied what I can – John]
 
Chapter nine  
Jottings
Prosaic, dull, ordinary – that’s me – as I am now. |Once I was witty, good company, enjoyed living, giving ideas, never pretty, but not unattractive – shall we say. Today I disappear, no longer here. Good day.
Write a funny poem, I thought, and thought with no result. Alas, poor me, condemned to be a boring drag on company. Poor John, who has to see my face of misery across the table. He just ain’t able to make me smile. But in a while the sun will shine and I’ll be mine again.
“If thou of fortune art bereft
And of thy dole thou has but left
Two loaves – sell one
And with the dole buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.” Chinese proverb.
72 years ago my favourite teacher Miss M F Axford wrote this in the new autograph book which I had been given for my tenth birthday.
I haven’t come across the book for a long time, but it will probably turn up when we’re emptying the attic. (Face it – I may not even be there!) The proverb was very influential in developing my attitude to living, thinking, speaking and possessing.
Miss A’s voice was lower pitched and more musical than the harsh accent of a Bristol council estate. I consciously tried to emulate it. In order to do that I endured teasing from my classmates who accused me of trying to be “posh – over myself.” They weren’t viscous and I was happy in or out of a gang so all was well.
My ability to mimic stood me in good stead when I won a scholarship to Clifton High School. In the scholarship exam (which later became the 11+) the top ten places could go to Clifton, the next ten to Redland and the third ten to Colston High School. I actually wanted to go to Colston (an aunt and uncle were caretakers there at the time) but I had passed too high, so it was Clifton or the local Merrywood Grammar.
It was difficult. My living experiences were so different from everyone else’s. Doctors, lawyers, teachers, barristers, a bishop – and a cigarette machine operator in Wills’ cigarette factory – from the time he was 14 years old. I realise now that I was a snob – inverted. A fellow pupil in a similar situation (her father was a postman) thought I was mad to be so open, referring to her Dad’s office – but never saying Post Office. Perhaps a part of me thought that if I was open about my background I would be more admired or something – at least I couldn’t be “found out” shamefully. Anyway, it only cropped up occasionally. All my friends came to know our council house very well, and grew to be comfortable in someone’s home, however palatial. My family are Quakers and when I was teaching became good friends with Donald and Ruth Ironside.  We were on a few committees (of which there are many in the Society of Friends. With no paid clergy it’s really a D.I.Y. community.) Just a few years ago Ruth and I were exchanging “growing up” memories and I mentioned Margaret Frances Axford, my beloved teacher, and Ruth was astonished. “Good heavens, she’s my cousin. Why haven’t you said before?” I said, “Well perhaps we could arrange to meet up now.” “Oh Joan I’m so sorry my dear, she died last week.”
*   *   *
I am angry, so angry, the old woman said.
Does he want to discount me, and put me to bed?
Out of the way, unable to follow their conversation –
All voices sound hollow, they echo all round me, which just makes it impossible
knowing the subject, spotting the voices.
When youngest son comes, the atmosphere changes, he walks to my bed, puts his arms around me, looks round and then says
“Why ever did you not put her in the chair? No reason at all it just seems to me. You’d better come nearer and just learn from me.”
He made sure of some cushions
Supporting my back,
Then looked towards his brother (name Jack)
Said, “Hey bro, talk me though it – so I can trust you – ‘cos you’re going to do it
When I’m not around – True?”
“Sure, true” said my brother.
So lessons continued. Soon everyone knew how everthing functioned, and what they can do.
The mood became warmer, and happier too.
No longer helpless, they were all in queue to greet all around the next time the visited – this “hello crowd!”
 
*   *   *
In thinking back over my life I find that my reputation has been regarded as a caring, trustworthy person. How then can my mind go blank when trying to consider the Tsunami which occurred in 2004?
I could not think what a Tsunami was, let alone where of what happened.
What has happened to make me so forgetful? Numb.
The Lollipop Tree
John and Joan were excited.  They were in their late sixties and both teachers who had, after years of enjoyable teaching, gone into other interesting employments.
Now, Joan, in particular, was suffering the effects of living in the centre of Cardiff and they both felt that they would benefit from moving outside the city centre.
Perhaps the sensible thing to do would be to look in the suburbs for a smaller house than the three storey Victorian house which they had bought sixteen years before.(That’s another story which will undoubtedly emerge at some point!  But not in this tale!)                      
They looked at a few buildings, but couldn’t find much enthusiasm except for new build around a water development.  (Very expensive – and would their ‘life-style’ fit? (J. and J. weren’t exactly ‘champagne set’ and nor did they want to be!)
Their son and his wife and small son Isaac were living in Cwmtudu, near Cardigan. John and Joan had visited them a few times and really liked the area.  They had also attended meetings in Cardigan.  The town appealed to them, and they already knew some of the Quaker members living nearby from the occasional business meetings which were held there.
Next step – an estate agent.
Three possible addresses were given them, and they set out from Cardiff to do the tour!
The first house was quite appealing, but a bit ‘geometric’.  (Joan felt she wouldn’t be able to live up to it!  The pond had a huge model heron in the middle ‘to keep the real ones away’.
The second one was a cattery, with a business of caring for cats when owners were on holiday. The house was pleasant enough, but so many outbuildings didn’t appeal.
They were on their way to a conference when they visited a bungalow in Cardigan. It was named ‘Hafan Dawel’ – which appealed, especially as the house they had lived in when they first came to Wales in 1960 was named ‘Dol Dawel’. 
As they drove up the drive – a lane shared by the two other houses – Joan had a distinct feeling of ‘coming home’, but said nothing. The house seemed to be the sort of thing they were looking for.
Walking in felt like coming home!  The rooms were a good size, though
the kitchen would need a lot of work.  They had very positive feelings about it.  but they needed to think about it over the weekend.
The weekend seemed very much longer than usual! What if the house had been sold?
Well of course, it hadn’t.  When something is meant to happen fate or the universe or some other energy makes sure that it does! And it did….
As winter disappeared and spring became more evident they began to discover what was growing in their new garden.  It was a much larger one than they had ever worked in before and even had a good sized piece of woodland (too much for them to think of to start with!)
Joan was determined to grow some sweet-peas, one of her favourite summer flowers.
The seeds from the garden centre flourished and some strong looking young plants emerged. They were all planted out with canes to climb up initially.  However that quickly became inadequate so John put two strong young tree branches a few yards apart with strings between them and the sweet-pea plants flourished.
The house constantly displayed pots of fragrant flowers, and the more often the blooms were cut the more they flourished on the plants. Wonderful!
At the end of summer the household (i.e. John and Joan) were coping with the builders finishing off the extension and clearing up the debris left from putting in stairs and creating two bedrooms upstairs for Alice and Francis, and a ‘studio’ working space for Joan.
Life was busy indeed. Not only house and garden.  As long time Labour Party members and with an election brewing they needed to contact the local party and get themselves known a bit.  (Was this retirement?)
Being sociable folk they fairly soon got to know a number of people and altogether felt that they had made the right move.  Gardening was an enjoyable activity as each month showed more delights for the eyes.
Winter was busy with moving furniture around, providing furnishing for the two new bedrooms, unpacking and sorting more ’stuff’ as they opened more boxes.  Finding somewhere for the washing machine and drier became insurmountable as they were much too big.  They were given away and a suitably sized machine installed.
At last the weather turned to Spring. The garden showed wonderful daffodils, some hyacinths, forsythia and other brilliant foliage.  Some new discoveries were revealed each week, and the weather was dry and blowy!  Now would be a good time to wash some curtains and larger things which had been left in boxes ‘for the time being’  (a useful saying).  Oh! Of course, they’d had to get rid of the dryer!  Never mind, there were those two sticks that they’d grown the sweet peas on.  With a new cord strung between them that would do until they got a proper clothes line fixed on the back grass.  The system worked beautifully for some months.
Before Christmas they tackled the business of providing a ‘proper’ clothes line.  A metal pole, of great height was erected on the back lawn to support one end of the line.  The other end of the line was fixed to a tall strong tree.  A rotary handle raised and lowered the line as needed. It was a wonderful addition and carried as much wet washing as Joan felt able to provide!
Life became almost as busy as living in town!  But it was good.  Friendships grew as mutual interests were developed. The one mile road into Cardigan was safe to walk at most times of day even without pavements, and local interests were quickly developed.
John and Joan quickly knew that this was ‘their place’, and that they wanted to spend the rest of their life here. The only ‘noises’ were the sounds of the two children next door as they played in the garden, the occasional sound of traffic along the road at the bottom of the track and the sound of Canada Geese morning and evening as they flew from the Cardigan end of the river to who knows where?  Joan used to picture them with shopping baskets – probably going to market in Newcastle Emlyn!
These two newly retired people enrolled at the local college for courses.  John pursued carpentry and Joan art.  Life was pleasantly busy, making new friends, entertaining visiting family and friends, working with Labour Party and enjoying the peacefulness of their new surroundings was wonderful1
Two excellent bookcases now grace their living room, as John, always a good handyman, honed his capabilities.
A few of Joan’s paintings are hung and a slightly crude (in her view) plaster cast based on a drawing of their youngest son is on the desk, (also designed and made by John)
These years passing had shown that there was no need to purchase another tumble-drier.  Usually the wind was so strong the laundry could be dried outside, and a rack over the AGA (one of the first additions to the changed look kitchen) was useful for overnight drying.
The one major job they hoped still to do in the garden was something on the front left of the house (seen from the front door).
They had already proved that too much work and expensive attention would be needed to actually grow crops of any kind (even potatoes refused).  So they let it grass, with a little help, and paid heed to the crop of stinging nettles and eradicated them. Having scythed the grass, they admired the work so far.  One of the poles that had originally supported sweet-peas had sprouted into a young tree! John bought some wood and ringed the tree with a low seat. We now have a sweet place to sit in the shade!
Moving in
We moved into our present house in January 1997.  The furniture van was unable to come all the way as it was too wide for the space left between the uncut hedges which the previous owners had left!  It was already growing darker when we arrived and we were all tired so we made a wonderful compromise!
The removal men carried manually first the bed and some bedding, then crockery and a motley collection of cutlery stuff and a couple of cooking pans and a kettle – oh and of course a teapot!
Then the men locked the van, found a bed and breakfast place and left until morning! They probably had a more comfortable night than we did!
It was a very cold night and I think we just made a warm drink and got into bed as quickly as we could!
Next morning was still dry!  Fairly early a smaller van with driver appeared hired from a local firm and our goods and chattels were decanted from the over- large one into the new recruit.  Some of the smaller stuff was also carried by hand.  Thankfully I didn’t do a great deal of the lifting, my role was more ‘directional’ and, of course, I was frequently making tea for the hardworking men.
By lunchtime we began to feel that we were in our home, and could relax. There was an enormous amount still to be done, but at least some of my cooking pots were able to be used, and we were able to light a coal-and-log fire in the living room.  I seem to remember that we slept rather well after all that activity!
A blow by blow account of the first few weeks is not necessary, even if I could remember the sequences. We did a great deal of work and John drew excellent plans of our ideas for work to be undertaken during the summer.  We found two young builders who had just gone into business and spent a couple of fruitful and enjoyable evenings with them discussing the possibilities of expansion and comparable costs.
I think ours was the largest job that the two of them had tackled and we were all very excited about it;  Even more so when during the summer it all came together and work started.  Another young man worked with them as labourer and tea-maker and general ‘dog’s body’! They built an extension which became our dining room (and for watching the huge number of birds that frequent our garden).  Two bedrooms and stairs to get up to them and a wonderful space -  mainly consisting of windows – which became my ‘studio’.  (another word for ‘glory-hole’).
 
‘Heritage Design’ is now one of the leading companies in this area and I can’t help a small feeling of gladness that we were part of their greatness!
What Joy!
 
Lady, my cat
So meticulous
It seems ridiculous
To lie in the sun and carefully lick
Each padded paw –
-        What fun!
 
The dust, and the grass -
She lets nothing pass without careful
Scrutiny -
What will the next be –oh my – of course
She’s forgotten her ears,
She purrs as her licky paws get to work -
She will not shirk this last part
Of her toilette
This Belovèd pet of our old age.
 
Joan Southern                  Sunday April 22nd 2012
(84 words0
 
In our favourite corner of the back garden by the little pool.
(not really a poem)
More of Sun
I wish John could have his office in this area.  I am sitting in my favourite garden spot!  A wooden seat, part of a fixture of two rough wooden seats joined with a wedge-shaped piece of wood which acts as a small table . 
Lady is luxuriously spread on the adjoining wood, fast asleep.
The small fountain in the pool is spurting, sparkling in sunrays.  The stream is flowing from the top of the four small pools which descend, gradually filling and splashing into the largest pool.  Water then pumps back to the main flow and repeats the operation.
I think John is so clever.
But his computer is in pretty well the darkest room in the house. With his new computer and all the things he is determined to do/learn/perform – he doesn’t seem to spend a great deal of his time in the garden ‘just being’.
Unlike me, he seems unable to just ‘drop everything’ and ‘be’ – or write rubbishy prose or poem!
Come to think of it – a couple of years ago I would have been unable to ‘take a Sunday afternoon off’ just sitting in the garden enjoying :-
 
The warmth of the sun,
The sound of the water
 The purring of Lady -
The absolute peace and joy of this sunny garden in April.
So increasing old age has its benefits after all.
After all this thinking excuse me if I take a little snoozzzze……
 
                       Joan Southern
                       Saturday  April 22nd.2012
 
About a Lady
It’s odd that our cats’ name is Lady – her name before ever we met.
It could be just co-incidental – and yet…..!
For my 20th birthday a wonderful gift came my way.
A beautiful spaniel for whom I had yearned lit up this wonderful day.
Her fur was a soft shining golden, her eyes a dark melting brown,
She was friendly – we so quickly bonded
I thought she’d be with me for life
How naïve!
 
Six years on met a sad situation –
her pain from joint problems was sharp
she frequently cried, wouldn’t eat – and beside which would constantly vanish into holes in the garden outside.
The Vet: couldn’t offer much healing.
Early onset of old-age he thought.
 
As wedding day came so much closer, decisions became very fraught.
We at last found a flat – but ‘NO PETS PLEASE’
None of our friends and relations felt able to give her a home;
in pain -she could scarce leave her bed.
John was the strong one who uttered the words which we all knew must be said.
“We must go one more time to Vet’s surgery and agree that he administers”  
Dead
 
Now 56 years onward a new Lady has entered my life.
A beautiful long-haired grey tabby.
It was love at first sight.
Playing, eating, washing and sleeping –
Just two ‘old ladies’ love life with an absence of strife!
       
What do I want to share with the world?
Some of the facts about my mainly happy and fulfilling life.  The influences gained in childhood which have sustained me in adult life and hopefully some uplifting and entertaining events which have contributed.
 
Are there specific milestones or events in your life that you would want to talk about?
What are they? 
Yes there are quite a lot. My parents family backgrounds.  Their faith.  Their love, for each other, for us, for other people, and their loving contributions to the Bedminster Quaker Meeting which we attended.
 
What changes have you gone through?
It depends how far back we go?  Apart from purely physical changes I sometimes feel as though I have been through transformations at some levels!  Clarify.
 
How have you helped or touched people’s lives?
My favourite aunt was Vene, (short for Lavinia), my mother’s youngest sister.  She was only 7 years older than me and used to take me to the park near my Gran’s house in Bedminster to play.  Being the eldest of all the nieces and a little more articulate than most of my male cousins I was asked by Vene’s grandson if I would conduct the service at the Crematorium.
Where or how would your story end?
I hope not with a bang or a whimper! On the whole I think I’d like to leave it on an ‘upbeat’ note. The future is always an adventure, so who knows?  Life stories seem to go on until they stop!
Who are the other characters in your writing, and how do you bring these to life?
I think the only way for me to bring characters to life is to experience them. If they are real people I sit quietly for a few moments and imagine them with me, sometimes with an imaginary conversation (in my head, not wishing to be carted off), sometimes remembering an occasion when we were together.
How do you ‘treat’ the dignity of all of the people involved?
Is this possible?
I try to treat with respect everyone I meet. I do believe that there is ‘that of God in every person’. 
For about two years I was appointed as Quaker Chaplain in Cardiff Prison.  A few weeks after my appointment I was invited to take part in a Service in the Prison Chapel for the younger prisoners.  As I waited with one of the Warders the inmates filed past  “Ooh!  Mrs S.  what you doing here?”  “Hi, Joan how are you?”  And so it went on………….The Warder said “Gosh, you must have done something right   - these buggers usually ignore teachers who come on the scene – and that’s on a good day!  Did they call you Joan in school”   I explained that while I would have welcomed that change, in fact it was at the Youth Club that I had been called Joan, but the other members of   school  staff weren’t ready for that enormous change! So the school attenders decided to call me ‘Mrs. S’. 
Our sons discussed with us many years ago whether we would mind if they called us John and Joan and we were happy about it.  After all a name is just a name – a relationship has to be built and respect earned!
I’m glad that nowadays almost everyone refers to me as Joan. It feels very comfortable and warm.
Small children use it more easily than older people.  I guess they are brought up in a less formal way – and one word is much easier than having to think of the prefix!
Then?
It's not the rain that depresses me
but the grey dullness of the day.
Try as I will, I am still unable to stay
in the joy and lightness of heart
which sun and warmth impart.
 
It's not growing old that bothers me
but the grim stiffness of the limb.
Try as I must, I can't just be as nimble
in the work god leads me to continue,
pray, or start anew.
 
Oh!  Stop fretting and getting in a state
the sun now hidden will show up soon or late.
Remember the joy.
Love from family,  channelled Spirit
warms my soul.
Christ's light makes whole.
In their praise I will fulfil the purpose of my God-given days.
 
About cats!
When Star entered our lives I was bowled over by the love I felt for him and the reciprocation I received.  It was sad when he died, I felt devastated, I had never loved a cat as much. (Dog person – me!)
Lady was gentle, loving and became stronger as a single cat.
Star was in our lives for such a short time and will remain a gentle, lovely memory.
Lady is wonderful. So far as I’m concerned, she can do no wrong!
I love her to bits.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
It’s odd that our cat’s name is Lady – her name before ever we met.
It could be just co-incidental  - and yet –
Came my 19th birthday.
A beautiful spaniel, for which I had longed became mine.
Her fur - soft shining golden, her eyes - dark melting brown,
We bonded, as we walked around town.
 
Seven years on came a sad situation. 
Her pain from joint problems was sharp.
She frequently cried, wouldn’t eat,
beside which would constantly vanish into holes in the garden outside.
The Vet: couldn’t offer much healing.
Early onset of old-age he thought.
As our wedding-day came ever closer making decision was fraught.
We at last found a flat – but ‘no pets please’
My Mum couldn’t cope she was ill.
She loved Lady dearly, but her own health problems were real.
John was the strong one who uttered words we all knew must be said-
“We’ll go to the Vet:  he already warned us that he thought her pain would go only when dead.”  The Vet:  spoke to her kindly, she knew him and felt no fear.
 And now after 56 year a Lady has entered my life! A beautiful, long-haired grey tabby, who gives us no trouble or strife.  We all get along very well and John teases and says we’re:-
‘two old ladies enjoying their life’.
 
[Lady died a few months  after Joan.]
 
*   *   *   *
Charlotte Square
Life couldn’t be better: We were really lucky to find this house. The boys can each have a room and with slight alterations the kitchen can be extended into a dining area. That means the piano can be in the largest room, and the television in the smaller one. The boys can do their homework in their rooms, or on the dining room. I can’t wait to get started in the garden. Joan knows more about plants, especially flowers, so that’s her department. I’m better at digging, and that sycamore tree is beautiful – and strong enough to have a swing on it for the boys.
Our neighbours are welcoming. With their two kids fitting in with the ages of our four I should think we’d get on OK. Pity they’re members of the Tory party, but that’s their choice and we’ve never seen any point in trying to convert members from another party. I think we’ll get on in general.
One thing occupies me at the moment: Last night we were desperately tired. Just moved in, and our four boys were really over excited about their first night in a new house. All Joan and I wanted was to sink in to oblivion and sleep till morning. Huh, some hopes! Next door had a party – with dancing it seems. For several hours even if we didn’t recognise any tune we had the thump/ thud of drums, and guitars in some kind of rhythm pulsating right through the house.
Thank goodness the boys’ rooms aren’t on the party-wall. Our room is. This morning we felt like rag dolls with a touch of zombie thrown in. We talked about it over our early cup of tea. Joan and Val are having coffee together mid-morning and Joan has decided to broach the subject.  Parties seem rather frequent and it would be quite handy to be prepared. We both enjoy the odd party but on the whole a pleasant meal or snack with a few friends and a drink or two is more to our taste. We’ll certainly invite them over. There’s no way a promising friendship should founder over something fairly trivial – so, on with the day, Joan! And don’t forget the ear plugs!
 
Chapter ten
A Creation Story.
God the Spirit used Their-Breath to explode into being the Sun and the Moon, the planets and stars, to set them in the right place in the universe.
Their-Breath cooled the planet which became Gods' Heart, and water covered a large part of its surface.  When Heart had reached the proper temperature Their-Breath scattered seeds which grew into fragrant, colourful plants and trees.  As this beautiful Heart developed crawling and flying insects came in on the Breath and fruits developed on the trees.
The sea, for that is how the water came to be called, was home for many fish and other creatures, some of whom became adventurous and struggled on to the shore.  After some experimenting many of these creatures remained on land, though even now they are made of two-thirds water.
One of the most magnificent creatures, greatly loved by God, was a Serpent, sometimes called Dragon.  He was large and powerful, his breath carried fire, to warm or destroy, his powerful wings could, when necessary, carry him long distances, and the Heart speech of the Deities was treasured in him.  His favourite resting place was a glade, in the centre of which was a large tree.  God laid on the Serpent the responsibility  of caring for the tree.
As the sun shone on the tree it glowed fiery gold, the shape perfect, the green leaves touched with magic.  From its leaves, bark and flowers came perfume to rouse or calm the senses, depending on the needs of the beholder.  No-one could pass the tree without being drawn to touch and caress its bark, leaves, or beautiful round fruits which developed from the flowers.
When ready the fruit, dropping into the touchers hands, tasted exactly as one would want it to taste.  The branches shimmered with sound of humming insects, singing birds and rustling leaves.  Large and small animals grazed peacefully together in the trees' presence, or lay at its foot.  God and the Serpent loved this place.
Some of the land creatures developed more quickly than others, and began to see that they could give themselves an easier time if they adapted some of the plants and trees to make themselves shelters and implements.  One day this man and woman walked into the glade for the first time and saw the tree.  They had never seen anything so beautiful and stood in silence, gazing.
The Serpent had never seen a man or woman before and was startled by their appearance.  He did not recognise the feeling of fear, which was also new to him.  He only knew that he needed to protect the tree.  Breathing fire he spoke to them in Heart language, forbidding them to eat from the tree, which he was inclined to think of as his own.
The man and woman didn't understand Heart language and were looking around for a weapon to defend themselves.
Sunlight shifted and they became aware of a figure standing between them and the Serpent.  Neither male nor female, it shimmered, formed of light-energy, breathtaking.  The two people knew they were in the presence of God; recognition from before time itself.  No words were used but they understood that they were standing before the tree of Life, Knowledge  and  Understanding.  If they chose they could destroy it; they might suffer forever;  the choice was theirs.
As the Light-form passed through the surrounding trees the Man pointed out to the Woman that the wood of the tree, with its straight strong trunk and limbs would make a fine frame for a house.  That with small pieces of wood, fire from the Serpent, they could be warm on the coldest night.  That if they gathered all the apples they could be eating them for a long time.
But the Woman was uncertain.  It was clear to her that they had received a warning.  The Man however was adamant that as the choice belonged to them they could do as they liked  - and prepared to chop the tree.  Grieving at the imminent destruction of such beauty the Woman pleaded with her partner not to destroy all of it, but to leave at least a part, so that it might grow again.
And so the Man, having gathered all the apples - just to be sure - split the tree from top to bottom .
All the sounds in the glade seemed to merge into soft moaning sobs, carried on the air.  The resinous smell was too powerful for enjoyment.  As the severed half fell, the maimed giant was silhouetted against the sky, jagged and mortally wounded.  The Woman wept;  then pulled herself together and helped to move the wood.
In the time following, the man and woman made their comfortable home, and lived well, discovering how to prepare and cook their meals.
…………………………………………………
The Serpent pined for the beautiful tree and took to hiding away when the man or woman came near - from distrust of them.                        
The tree bore no more fruit, and did not flourish.                   
            *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *
*Sometimes the man or woman creeps into the glade.  They look at the ruin and a great sense of loss overwhelms them.  They never speak of it to each other.
They had snatched at the Knowledge.
The need for Life and Understanding and the presence of God is a deep longing within each of them,  to this very day.
Joan Southern.  Woodbrooke  November 1994.
 
 
 
Post script Joan as I saw her
[The trouble with autobiography is that you don’t get to write the final chapter. Anticipating that the end might be near, I wrote this in April 2013 – three months before she died. – John]
Today I want to write about Joan: What has she done and achieved over the 83 years of her life so far? She frequently asks herself this question these days. We sit at home most of the time, our lives turning around the soaps that we watch at more or less set times, and the need to eat. Joan’s life for the past few months has been dominated by not doing so much as to leave her exhausted and incapable of more than the completion of simple cross word puzzles. She buys the puzzles in little books and, if she buys the same book shortly after completing it, she can start again because her short term memory is sadly deficient.
Her long term memory has never been more active. She can still recite much of the poetry she learnt in the ‘thirties. She repeatedly tells me of events and personalities in her early life in Bedminster, of her school days as a scholarship girl in one of Bristol’s best schools, and of her parents, her relations and her music teacher. She is vivid in her description of being taken to see the headmistress of her soon-to-be primary school a few weeks before the start of her first term. “Tell me Joan, do you know what you want to be when you grow up?” She asked.  “Oh yes, when I am old like you I want to teach and have a room like yours.”
Her first achievement was probably the disposal of her Bristol accent. She tells me she hated it. She was outstanding at poetry recital, as were many little girls of that period. Grown-ups loved to be entertained by such events in the 1930’s. Her music teacher shared her studio with an elocution teacher. Aged eight Joan went for her first piano lesson with a music satchel that meant the music would have to be rolled up. Miss Garjulo said it would really be better if her dad could buy the right type which would keep the papers flat. Next week Joan returned and Miss Garjulo asked what her dad had said. Joan’s accurate imitation of her dad’s grumble at “wasting five bob” led the two teachers to an entertaining session while Joan recited poetry. The elocution lessons that followed were given freely and made her entry into Clifton High School for Girls much easier. He father was a self-taught pianist and gave up photography as a hobby in order to pay for her music lessons. Her second achievement came after many years of study and practice when she graduated at “performance” level from the Guildhall School. In a sense we met over her piano. I loved to sit behind her and listen to her play Beethoven or Schubert in the little front room of her parents’ council house in Daventry Road.
Qualifying as a teacher was perhaps as hard as her piano achievement. The course was then two years of study at a Training College. She failed the psychology course because her standard of practical work was too low. It is almost inconceivable today that training had to involve making of all the reading cards and other teaching aids used in primary school classrooms, but this was all part of the psychology course which itself was so fundamental to the course as a whole that she failed to qualify. She returned to her job as “helper” in a local nursery school and studied over the next full year to re-sit the exams. I forget which bit she failed at that second attempt, but she did not finally qualify until two years after she left college. So many girls would have given up along that road, but she loved the work with the children and I think I admire that achievement more than any other in her life.
From that point on she started to make compromises, as of course we all must do. When I met her she had worked in the same inner-city primary school – in the Infant Department with its own Headmistress – for several years. She specialised in Reception Class work. She boasted that by lunch time on the first day of term she knew the names of all 40 of her class, and by the end of the week she knew all their family names too. Teaching at that time was conducted in large classes, often more than 40, with children sitting in pairs at desks all facing the front black board, and arranged in neat rows. It was customary to set the under achievers at the back and bring forward the brightest to the front to impress visitors, I suppose. Joan arranged the desks so that a pair of children faced another pair across the two desks pushed together. It allowed them to work as a team. It also meant they could talk and debate amongst themselves, and feature that naturally made the classroom noisy and full of life. Schools at this time judged a quiet class to be a good class, and it is to Joan’s credit that she was allowed to maintain this arrangement. It wasn’t many years before the Local Authority inspector offered her a deputy headship in a new school designed to work in the Activity Method way. Here was her compromise: We were now engaged to be married. I had a further year at college during which time she could expect to continue teaching until I had a job, a house, and we began thinking about a family. Or she could embark on a career climbing the professional ladder. There was no bar by this date to married women teaching, but she was unlikely to go far in the profession.
She had, of course, already made one huge compromise and abandoned a musical career in favour of teaching. She loved to play and our first major acquisition when we had a house of our own was the piano – which we still have to this day, though she rarely plays it.
She longed for her own children and we had wild dreams of raising a large family of perhaps a dozen. (There was a very popular book on sale called “Cheaper by the Dozen” about a woman - Monica Dickens - who had done just that). We didn’t know how easily she could conceive of course. She persuaded me that we should abandon using a contraceptive while I was still in my final year as a student teacher, and almost immediately she became pregnant. Her last few weeks teaching in the summer term were a heavy strain on her. Michael was born at Christmas. For the next ten years she stayed at home as our family grew. We really needed a second income and the debts grew. We were greatly helped by my father who provided us with a house to rent, which we ultimately bought as “sitting tenants” a few years later, and by several short term loans from him. Finally, when David was old enough to attend the nursery class at the local school where Joan was able to work, she went back to teaching. There were relatively few working mothers in the ‘sixties so Joan didn’t think of this decision as a compromise. But we could have stuck at two children and had the second income and a much more comfortable life-style. The thought that Chris and David may never have existed makes it easy to dismiss this possibility. We now have four wonderful boys who love us. I think without a doubt Joan will agree that is her greatest achievement.
As an adolescent she wrote a lot of poetry. Her Quakerism was very strong and she often expressed it in this medium. She would have loved to be a writer. During her stay-at-home period I converted a small space designed as a clothes cupboard in our bedroom into a hide-away where she could write. We have some interesting fragments from this period, but most is lost. She rarely used it and I re-converted it into a shower cabinet a few years later. Recently she has taken the business more seriously and bought a correspondence course at great expense, but soon abandoned it. She has attended extra-mural classes in creative writing for the past two or three years. And yearns to take this up again when she feels stronger. But really I believe she has no drive to achieve in this medium.
To get herself elected as a City Councillor in a safe Labour ward is not much of an achievement. But her attention to that work over eight years is. She showed no ambition for a political career, but worked tirelessly for her constituents and for the party machine. She made many friends, some among the opposition parties, in a medium where friends are rare. She served two terms and would have easily been returned for longer but she could see her sister’s work of caring for their mother was getting more demanding, and she declined to put herself forward. For many months she drove over to Bristol each weekend to help out. She was rewarded by being with her mother at the end.
She had been deeply frustrated by the decision of the Tory-led County Council to move her to a school on the other side of the city. They always denied it was a political move. She first worked part time then gave up altogether. David’s connections to the developing arts scene at Chapter Arts led to her involvement, first in amateur dramatics, then as administrator for Pauper’s Carnival and work on the board of the Centre. As Chair of the board she guided the disparate personalities with love and skill. An undoubted achievement.
************
Now she is home again from her second crisis of breathlessness. Before Christmas was the first and last week was the second. Each time the ambulance men calmed her with oxygen and took her in to hospital early in the morning. The first time doctors decided to physically drain her chest. The more recent visit they set up a medical regime to help reduce the retained fluid in her body, most noticeable in her ankles. She will be called back in six weeks to see what the new daily regime of drugs will have achieved.
Now, recovered and feeling better that for a long time, she says, she does not want to go through all that again. I do not want to die in hospital, she says. She was confused and frightened each time. The nurses were lovely but she was never sure of her whereabouts, or what day it was. The routine is to hold a patient in the A&E until a bed is available in the Clinical Decisions Unit and then, technically when a clinic decision is made but I think more than likely when a bed in a ward becomes available, they wheel her up to the relevant ward. She thought they had put her in a dungeon for a time, but I am sure that lying on a moving bed and going up in the huge lift would feel the same. Each time she ended up in a room with only a single bed. Good in a way because it could have been really quiet had the nurses been a bit more thoughtful just outside her door, but was actually very boring. They couldn’t find the remote to control the TV which was too high up the wall for her to reach. But she lost a lot of surplus weight and they have arranged to see her again in six weeks time.
“So,” I said, “next time you just manage to gasp out ‘999’ do you want me to ignore you? I will if that is what you really want.” We were still in bed finishing the first cup of tea. “We’ll talk later and I will write down my thoughts,” she said….
Yesterday she wrote:
Lady, come Lady, I called.
Want her near me – so recently told I’m “of beam” or wearing out –
whatever – I don’t know how to act.
We, at present anyway seem to be in a place we’ve not been before.
I feel cold, and second rate, and yet, I know John and I love each other.
No laughter in the air or in the eyes.
No surprise if I’ve been as bad as I feel I must have been –
but how? Why?
I want to be here with John and Lady until the end of life.
If John wants rid and lady my only support. WHO can speak for and cherish me.
 
***********
Leela Attfield wrote a nice piece in Hedyn[1].
 
A highlight in Cardiff was the memorial meeting held for Joan Southern last October in Rhiwbina, where she and John brought up their four sons. Getting on for a hundred people sat in concentric circles facing a table. I counted eighteen pieces of ministry, all fascinating – but it never felt rushed.
 
Afterwards eleven people helped to set out and hand round the food, including of course our own Alice Southern, now a stalwart of Cardiff Meeting herself. Two of my grandchildren helped with the food, and since Rueben came in his Llanishen High School uniform, John was able to tell him that years ago he had taught there. It was particularly good after such a long time to see former Cardiff Meeting Friends from far away – like the Todhunters, Sue Motram and many others, and of course folk came from all over South Wales.
 
There was also ministry from a family who had lived near the Southern’s in Charlotte Square, who remembered with joy the extraordinary atmosphere Joan and John created in their home: tolerant, welcoming to other children, and with new and unknown kinds of food! Overall it was an afternoon I shall not forget.
***********
Dear John,

Thank you so much for your letter which I received this morning. It was
such a surprise to hear from you, though I am sad about Joan's death,
and send you my sympathy and thoughts at this time.
Joan was a lovely person, and I remember her well. She was so kind to me
when I did a School teaching Practice in her class at School[2], and then
when I was appointed there as Nursery Teacher, she befriended me and was
always so helpful to me. We became good friends and I recall many happy
times with her. I recall scouring Bristol for a record of Kathleen
Ferrier when she was very ill! I went with Janet Price to your wedding
and remember someone speaking about a Dutch Interior painting, and
someone else talking about weaving and the patterns of life.
I recall the Coronation Concert when Joan played the piano, of course, as usual,
for all the class songs, and none of us on the staff could keep a
straight face  when the children sang, "Hail The Flag, The bonny Flag of
red and white and blue" Those Bristol children of course , even after
many rehearsals and urges by Miss Dowling to sing "Hail" always sang
"'ell the flag."  I last saw Joan when she came here one late afternoon
on her way to a convent in Bethnal Green, where she had arranged to stay
while she attended a conference or something. My son drove her there and
we all went too.
And of course I remember several evenings when you both, with friends
came to our flat in Pembroke Road. My mother loved being surrounded by
young people and you all had such good discussions. I think it was on one
of those occasions when you decided to be a teacher too.
Anyway, I do hope you will continue to be so positive and that you will
decide on the future with care. It isn't good to rush these things. I
have always found that one never stops the "missing" but one does in
time learn to cope. I'm glad you have sons near. .

Take care of yourself John.

Thank you for writing,
With thoughts and prayers,
Sincerely,
Marigold.
 
***********
Monday August 29. 2005                                                                         Hafan Dawel
 
Dear Vene
What a lovely surprise, it made my day! I put on the CD at once and loved it.
Actually I remember quite a lot about York Street, and yes, the room on the front of the CD brought a lot more back. I remembered playing some of these pieces to Dennis Saddler and Dick Sansom when they were around, and all the kids having tea round the table – with you in charge (and weren’t you bossy?!) I remember the dark passage from the front door past the sitting room, and the pantry at the end where Gran kept some “goodies”. I remember Granfer before his stroke sitting in the wooden armchair in the back room, and once or twice I saw him with a glass of beer I think. (I’m not sure whether I remember you spitting in one, or whether that is received memory form someone else – but it’s a lovely thought.) I do remember being taken to Sutton’s and Granfer lifting me up to stroke the nose of ‘his’ horse. I remember the great old couch in front of the back window, kneeling on it and looking out on the yard, and goods trains rumbling past.
Every Sunday Granny baked cakes and when we called in on our way home from Alfie’s Morning Meeting she nearly always gave us a cake – usually pretending it was much too hot to eat. The lovely smell! And did she really have pots of geraniums and different herbs along the window cill or is that something my mind has made up because it’s what I would do? – and that cold loo!! Brrrr!
Oh yes – Boxing Day parties when Ruth and I would sleep in the little room looking onto the railway. It was so novel going into another bedroom first. I loved it. And a lovely small china-headed doll which, if you thought I’d been “good” enough – I was allowed to nurse. I remember one Christmas we bought some “play” buns. They were made of rubbery stuff, and had a squeak in them but looked quite realistic. We put them on a plate with other cakes and were stiff with excitement while Gran took ages and ages to make up her mind between a Victoria bun and a Chelsea – and the hilarity when she bit into it and a loud squeak emerged! Of course, I realised later (much later probably) that she was “in on it” all the time.
The other thing that stands out clearly is that we were never ….[text illegible…] wanted to leave the party and go to bed. Then someone would suggest a balloon game and hay! We docilely went to bed of our own accord – hated the bangs – still do, for a lifetime of other reasons!
I loved your description of Miss Fry – sounds as if she could have been one of Margaret Rutherford’s characters.
Don’t weep too much darling. They are all there waiting for us. I have the feeling that Mum and Dad are now well settled, I haven’t felt them for a while now, but I get a feel that Grace is around for you – p’raps she’ll be your guide when the time comes. We’ll try to get over to Joyce soon and when we do I will certainly come and see you. I think of you a lot, sorry it takes me so long to sit down to write.
Love from us, especially
Joan
***********
 
 
 
Joan Southern nèe Forse    Curriculum Vitae




 


Born Bristol July 1929


Died Cardigan June 2013




Experience


1981 – 1984


Paupers Carnival theatre company
·       Administrator
·       Arranged bookings; drafted grant applications; dealt with correspondence and accounts.
 




 


 
1980 - 1981


South Glamorgan County Coucil
Willows High School, Splott
·       Scale II post: teacher in the “RoSLA” department.
·       Responsible to year 14 and 15 non-examination pupils (caught by the raising of the school leaving age.
·       Organised community project work in the local estate. Relating work to number and written classroom work
·       Used drama lessons to extend communication skills – role play e.g. of shops, clinics, trades union meetings etc.




 


1969 – 1972


Greenhill Special School
·       First woman teacher in the new unit for severly disturbed pupils – most adolescents.




 


1967 – 1969


Cefn Onn Primary School
·       Set up a remedial class.
·        




 


 
1953 – 1955


Bristol Education Committee
Newfoundland Road Special School
·       A Junior school for “Educationally sub-normal”




 


1949 – 1953


Carlton Park Infant and Junior School
·       Reception class teacher and music teacher




Education


2000 – 2001     


Coleg Ceredigion; Foundation Fine Arts course
 




 


1989 – 1990


London School of Aromatherapy




 


1972 – 1973


Swansea University Post Graduate study of adolescent development      




 


1947 – 1949


Teacher Training College, Bath




Qualifications


1990


Licentiate of London School of Aromatherapy




 


1973


Diploma in Adolescent Development




 


1951


Teaching Certificate




 


 


 




Also – for Pianoforte


1947


Teacher’s Diploma, Guildhall School of Music




 


1945


Performance Diploma Trinity College, London




Interests


 


Sometime member of the Board of Directors of Theatr Mwldan; Music Theatre Wales (Chair); Small World Theatre; Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff(Chair); Clerk to Meeting of Friends (Quakers) in Wales.




 


1982 - 1991


Elected Member of Cardiff City Council




 
 a selection of photos to follow



[1] Hedyn is the newsletter of Quakers in S Wales


[2] Carlton Park, Bristol