We have been ticked off by readers on the Letters Page (10 August and see page 9 of the paper edition) for referring to the Falkirk Wheel as a 'rather Heath Robinson machine'.

For our part, we feel that W. Heath Robinson was an unrecognised and much maligned genius!

William Heath Robinson (1872 to 1944) was a cartoonist (and also a book illustrator) of exquisite humour.

His gadgets always have a simple aim, if not execution, such as 'resuscitating stale railway scones for redistribution at station buffets' and 'the multimovement tabby silencer' which automatically threw water at serenading cats.

To liken any technology to one of his machines is surely a term of endearment.

Labels: falkirk wheel, heath robinson

Those little clay figures at Summer Gathering went down rather well - Friends took them home and Linda Murgatroyd tells us hers in sitting on the piano.

Nicknamed the 'clay gatherers', they bedecked the stage in the marquee.

Eye was concerned to hear that Friends in Colchester arrived recently for Meeting for Worship only to find themselves locked out of the Meeting House. The lock to the front door had broken and the warden was away.

Not to be deterred, all and sundry decamped to the back garden and held the Meeting outside instead.

Great stillness was reported, as people sat on whatever they had to hand, including blankets, bags or even a feet mat from a car!

We have news of our former production manager Clare-Marie White who has bravely set up her own community newspaper for the towns of Burslem, Tunstall, Cobridge and Middleport, all made famous by Arnold Bennett in his Five Towns novels.

Eye is fascinated by the development of 'new media' that Clare espouses.

This is truly local reporting, what is becoming known as 'hyperlocal' coverage, in which the paper concentrates on small areas.

'Local papers have become too big', says Clare, 'as they chase circulation and advertising from wider areas. So people often find there is not much relevant news to them about their own streets.' We were touched to see that this week Clare has run a piece about the Newcastle-under-Lyme Quaker Meeting.

You can see Clare’s newspaper at www.localedition.org.uk

That old theatrical greeting - break a leg! - to actors about to go on stage had a perverse meaning for our Two Caravans stage manager Sue George last week.

Sue fell and actually did break a bone - in her ankle - and when the actors went on stage she was in another kind of theatre entirely, having the bone fixed.

After all her magnificent work for the production, Sue missed the performance. Everyone here in the office sends get-well greetings to Sue for a speedy recovery.

Eye is touched to hear that Sutton Meeting's Tuesday discussion group wind up their 'terms' with an evening going through recent issues of The Friend, choosing pieces they have liked.

The group meets at the home of Gordon Steel. 'These evenings seem to go very well' reports Gordon, 'I regard them as Friend promotion evenings.' And so do we Gordon!

The discussion group was taken with a Comment piece in 18 May (the editor on one of her favourite topics of spiritual writing) and made a suggestion that we might pluck out some spiritual pieces from issues long ago.

That might well throw some light on whether perceptions of spirituality change over time. Which makes us think that Sutton friends could have contributed - their Tuesday group is forty years old in September.

Labels: sutton steel tuesday group

An article in the Ipswich Society newsletter has been sent to us by Alan Swerdlow of Woodbridge, which points out how many streets in the Suffolk town were named after abolitionists. The newsletter says it is not surprising that Ipswich Quakers were aware of Thomas Clarkson's network of activists and took part in it themselves. Clarkson lived near Ipswich for the last thirty years of his life.

When Quaker Richard Dykes Alexander made land available for building houses in the 1850s, he wanted some street names to be those of abolitionists.

So in Ipswich there are streets named after Clarkson, Wilberforce, Benezet, Dillwyn, Eliot, Emlen, Gibbons, Sharpe. Can any other town claim so many? In Liverpool, in contrast, many streets are named after slavers.

Labels: ipswich quaker abolitionist streets

The country seems awash with climate change walkers.

A group from the Christian Aid march Cut the Carbon walked cheerfully into the editor's village this week and met the locals at a forum in the community centre.

They were young people from around the world and looked remarkably sprightly even though they’d walked from Belfast and still had most of their 1,000 mile, 80 day journey to complete.

There were stories of how the poor countries were already getting the raw deal in climate change, and there was empathy among villagers, and concern for how we in the west could lower our emissions.

But the editor, to use her appalling mixed metaphor, 'chickened out of putting the cat among the pigeons' by not bringing up the sensitive issue of wind turbines.

They are being fiercely resisted in her area, mostly she thinks because of appearance in a beautiful landscape. 'But the enormous electricity pylons which stride right through the county are the ugliest things you ever saw', she notes. 'I'd rather have a gleaming white, surrealistic wind turbine any day.'

Labels: christian aid climate change cut carbon wind turbine

Eye hears that European supplies of George Bush's least favourite vegetable have failed.

Supermarkets are air-freighting broccoli from California, producing greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 20-25 times its weight in CO2.

However, Eye is waiting on production editor Jez Smith's own crop of broccoli to develop, before decrying the demise of the whole crop this year.

Labels: broccoli

Arriving on the stunning Stirling university campus we were aware that our carbon footprints, in the shape of four car tyres, had been ratcheted up somewhat.

But then we were comforted to discover that The Friend's financial man Roy Prockter had lowered our overall total with his magnificent gesture - the whole journey, from Thorpe le Soken in Essex to Stirling, a total of 960 kilometres (560 miles to those of us EU unadjusted), on his three-wheeled bike!

This extraordinary vehicle was parked in the marquee for all to admire. It is a Longstaff trike to which Roy has ingeniously fixed his own Satnav system, a university layout picture on a small screen and a rolling road-to-road instruction panel fixed to the handlebars.

There's a rear view mirror and plenty of room to attach all manner of personal items Roy would need for the trek. On most of his overnight stops the trike was 'garaged', probably by B&B owners somewhat in awe of their wiry guest.

Roy started out for Stirling on Saturday 14 July and arrived - one and a half hours ahead of schedule - on Saturday 21 July. He cycled up a rain-sodden England (not much better in Scotland) but always staying just ahead of the showers. 'I only got soaked once,' he told us.

Labels: tricycle prockter summergathering

Quakers' own version of graffiti artist Banksy was also at Summer Gathering for the unofficial excursion to the Falkirk Wheel!

This rather Heath Robinson machine operates a pair of rotating tin baths which move boats from one level to another without the tedium of locks, in this case eleven locks which used to connect the Union canal with the Forth and Clyde canal before becoming disused last century.

Labels: falkirk wheel

It beats us how Friends chose from all the myriad of activities at Summer Gathering.

We watched that lethal game, croquet, being learned and played on the grass by a lake.

Our news editor, who appears to have played this game in the past, explained a little of it to us - 'it's like bridge, full of plotting and naughty strategies. The entire aim is to drive your opponents out of the game.'

So much for Quakerliness!

But there were many other more meditative pursuits for gatherers, including a continuous worship space on the campus, in a gazebo near the main marquee.

The purpose here, we understand, was to experience Meeting as early Quakers did, with no time limit. Another aid to meditation was a labyrinth mown into the grass. There was yoga and Pilates, dance, poetry reading, screenwriting, storytelling - and even a reflection on the George Cadbury story, so entertainingly told in George and the Chocolate Factory (which was staged at the Gathering).

As Eye drove off campus, feeling less guilty thanks to Roy and his trike, we reflected that the planning committee's hoped-for inclusive community at Stirling had certainly flowered.

Labels: summergathering

Of course Eye does listen to sessions at big Quaker gatherings, but we feel our best role is to gauge the general mood among Friends.

The four-yearly Summer Gathering is a spiritual encounter, helping us to remind ourselves why we became Quakers in the first place. It is a thoughtful time.

Even the 'action' part of the gathering's theme Faith into Action had first to be grounded in this way.

So we were not surprised to be told by our Friend Kurt Strauss the reason he found the Faslane outing so moving. Not because of the biggest Meeting for Worship ever at the site, not because of the Japanese blockade or the water brought by the Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors from their own 'ground zero' to sprinkle on Friends' hands; no, it was what happened after one Friend fainted.

'Her head just missing a boulder, her specs rescued in the nick of time before she could roll over onto them', he recounted to us. 'Within seconds there appeared water, sugar, a canvas chair, an umbrella to shade her from the sun and the focused thoughts and prayers of the worshipping group.'

Labels: summergathering