The novelist Patrick Gale, who has been much acclaimed for his novel Notes from an exhibition, has been saying nice things about us in interviews.

He explained to a columnist from The Times that he chose a Quaker to be one of his central characters in the book, because he needed an anchor for the emotionally unstable female lead. 'I came to the idea of having this Quaker, unjudgmental, who would be a perfect balancing figure', he said. This may be a romantic view! Patrick had known Quakers before researching the novel, but then he started to go to Meetings.

Being gay, Patrick felt that his strongly Anglican family had hoped he would go into the church, but he had other ideas and is not impressed with Anglican attitudes towards sex. 'It was very interesting to spend time with the Quakers', he said, 'to see how advanced they are.'

He won’t be joining us though - with a staunchly atheist partner he says it would cause too much trouble at home.