LIVING THE GOOD LIFE - MEET BERYL BROOKMAN, A MARAZION QUAKER

 

Beryl Brookman is now 83. Louise and I have known Beryl as a Quaker of deep faith and strength of character for the four years we have been attending the Marazion Meeting. I interviewed Alan Newton, her husband, and wrote up the outline story of his extraordinary life last year (see the blogpost here); now it is Beryl’s turn .

 

Beryl and Alan in their Gonewoods home in April 2024

Beryl Brookman was born in 1942 in Lancashire. Her guardian angels sprung into action immediately. Unresponsive, the doctor resorted to giving Beryl, the newborn baby, the ‘kiss of life’, a technique then new to the world. Beryl had had her first lesson in the art of survival and passed with flying colours.

 

Beryl was born into adversity. She was the second child of her mother, Betty and her father’s first and only child. Mum had married Jack who worked on the Manchester Ship Canal and they lived in Manchester. Then in 1939 came a tragedy which was to have such ripple effects. Jack suffered a broken neck in an industrial accident when a load fell on him. As he lay on the ground dying, he turned to his best mate, Henry Tobin, and said: ‘Look after Betty’. Betty was eight months pregnant. Henry was a

FRUITS OF THE MARAZION QUAKER LIBRARY (18) - NICK LOWLES (2025) 'HOW TO DEFEAT THE FAR RIGHT - LESSONS FROM HOPE NOT HATE'

Gordon Brown, prime-minster of the UK from 2007-2010, has described Nick Lowles' book as 'Brilliant and challenging'. I agree. Within its pages, Lowles outlines the history of the rise of the far right in Britain. This is such a useful reminder of the key events that have happened in our own lifetime. We all risk being swamped by the sweep of news that hits the headlines and then fades from memory. Our capacity to manage the future depends on our understanding the patterns that can be traced in the past. Lowles is a good historian and provides that outline - and of course he is also an activist who has been campaigning against the far right for three and a half decades. We need the knowledge that Lowles' book provides - and we also need the spirit of hope that has shaped Nick Lowles' activism. 

Nick Lowles - activist, journalist and researcher

The Hope Not Hate movement began life in 2004. Here is part of the Wikipedia entry:

Hope not Hate was founded in 2004 by Nick Lowles, former editor of the anti-

DISCOVERING THE AMERICAN-BORN BRITISH ARTIST, LILIANE LIJN - HER TATE ST IVES EXHIBITION IN 2025

 

Last year, in 2024, Louise, our friend Stephen Vranch, and I attended the exhilarating exhibitions of three female artists: Outi Pieski from Finland; Beatriz Milhazes from Portugal; and Malgorozata Mirga-Tas from the Roma community in Poland - see my earlier blogposts. Earlier this year, 2025, the three of us attended the exhibition celebrating the work of Ithell Coloquhoun, a British artist born in Imperial India in 1906 - and last week we saw the Liliane Lijn show a few days before it ended. At first, I thought that the Lijn show was only working for me at the cerebral level. How wrong I was. Once I was fully exposed to the wonders of kinetic art, I was hooked - especially when wrapped in the darkness  of a Tate chamber where all light has been excluded apart from the rays emitting from the exhibits themselves.   

Liliane Lijn is a ground-breaking American-born artist working in the field of kinetic art - (any art form that incorporates motion as an essential element of its design). 

Liliane Lijn in Vienna, April 2025

 

Liliane Lijn was born in New York City in 1939, four months after her mother and grandmother arrived by boat from Antwerp. Her parents were from Russian Jewish families and they separated when Liliane was 9 years old. By the time she was 15, Liliane was with her father and brother in Geneva. Soon she was living with her mother in Lugano and attending school there where she became fluent in French and Italian. She became friends with Nina Thoeren whose mother was a Surrealist painter - and that changed the direction of her life. By 1958, she was a student at the Sorbonne studying archaeology and at the Ecole du Louvre she was reading Art History. Now she began to draw and paint on her own and take part in meetings of the Surrealist group where she met Andre Breton.

In 1961, Lijn was back in New York and married to the Greek artist Takis. Here she started working with

FRUITS OF THE MARAZION QUAKER LIBRARY(17) - HUGH MCGREGOR ROSS (1998/2010) 'SPIRITUALITY IN THE GOSPEL OF THOMAS'

 I have already written about the Gospel of Thomas and referenced the writings of the Quaker computer scientist and theologian, Hugh McGregor Ross, who made his own study of this gospel and produced a translation from the Coptic of the Sayings of Jesus discovered in an earthenware jar in 1945 - see these earlier blogposts:

https://robdonovan.blogspot.com/2024/08/fruits-of-marazion-quaker-library-10.html

https://robdonovan.blogspot.com/2024/09/fruits-of-marazion-quaker-library-11.html

https://robdonovan.blogspot.com/2024/01/fruits-of-marazion-quaker-library-hugh.html

In this blogpost, I explore the insights in 'Spirituality in the Gospel of Thomas' by Hugh McGregor Ross (1998/2010). I believe that these sayings of Jesus examined by McGregor Ross are profoundly important for all of us. George Fox never knew the gospel of Thomas but our Quaker founder was tuned in to the wavelength of these sayings of Jesus, memorized by Thomas his disciple and then most likely written down by a scribe as Thomas dictated.  We as Quakers, following the inspired teaching of George Fox, believe that the Light is in all of us; we do not need priests and churches to guide and shelter us. We find the Spirit inside us. We listen in silence together and our souls are awakened to the deep Truth that is the heart of our humanity. 

Front cover, showing a 6th century icon of Jesus in the monastery church of St Catherine, Mount Sinai

Read the sayings of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas and you will find that such Quaker spirituality is wonderfully akin to the spirituality revealed by Jesus according to Thomas. But be prepared to reassess the orthodox understanding of the teachings of Jesus that we have grown up with. To varying degrees, we have all been shaped by the teachings of the church and the accepted canon of Christian revelation in the New Testament - and not all of this orthodoxy is necessarily as true and certain as it may once have seemed. I am reminded that George Bernard Shaw, the atheist playwright, remarked that Paul's teachings were 'a monstrous imposition upon Jesus' and fundamentally distorted the original message and purpose of Jesus. Hugh McGregor Ross, more kindly, remarks that 'Paul never met Jesus in person to have his abundant ahamkara burnt up' - but Thomas had had that advantage. 

The connection between Thomas and India is referenced in this AI piece below:

Evidence for St. Thomas's arrival in India comes from ancient Christian traditions, including texts like the Acts of Thomas and writings of early church fathers like Ephrem the Syrian, and local folklore in India such as the Thomma Parvam and Ramban Pattu. While direct archaeological proof is lacking, supporting factors include the presence of well-established Christian communities by the 6th century in India and the potential historical connection through the Indo-Parthian Kingdom.

Few of us will be familiar with the concept of ahamkara. I certainly was not. Yet it is vital in understanding the spiritual significance of the teachings of Jesus which point to the necessity of quenching ahamkara. No European language has a word for this concept so McGregor Ross has borrowed this Eastern word - ahamkara, meaning the dominance of the body, and of the mind and

CANADA THROUGH THE EYES OF HERCULE POIROT AND AGATHA CHRISTIE

The maple leaf is a national emblem for the state of Canada. Here in our own local area the grounds of the Anglican church, St John's in the Fields, contain a driveway flanked by a row of ornamental maple trees. The borders of the grounds are planted with a mixture of ash and sycamore trees. The sycamore is also called the English maple tree; their leaves are a similar shape. The maple emblem is one I know and enjoy. 

Canadian Red Maple

Canadian flag sticker 

Canada is a nation we have never visited but we have important friends who have made their lives sing more sweetly by moving to that country. John Reid, a contemporary of mine at Catz in Oxford (1967-70), moved to Canada to follow an academic path of distinction that now sees him a professor emeritus at SMU - Saint Mary's University, Nova Scotia. Mel and Dan Read are a couple we knew when we lived in East Anglia who moved to Canada with their two young boys to start a new adventure - and over twenty years later have reaped such rewards. 

This blogpost is therefore dedicated to John and his wife, Jackie, and their extended family, and Mel and Dan and their two sons, Jake and Finn. 

The trigger to create it came when the inimitable Sir David Suchet who played the part of Agatha Christie's Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, for around twenty-five years made a BBC series shown this year, 2025, which traced in five episodes the journey around the world undertaken by 

FRUITS OF THE MARAZION QUAKER LIBRARY (16) - MOIRA FITT (2022) 'THE GOLDEN THREAD IN MY LIFE - A SPIRITUAL JOURNEY WITH QUAKERS'

 In the last year of her life, in late May 2022, Moira paid a visit to our Stennack home in St Ives to thank us for a message of support we had sent. 2022 was our first year as Quaker attenders, not in person but through Zoom because we were fearful of the threat of Covid infection. When Moira came, Louise was gifted with a half-hour meeting; I was walking our dog. Moira left a handwritten card thanking us for holding her in the Light of God's love and healing. She wrote: 'The Meeting House is a very special place for me, somehow it has a "spirit of place" where the 330 years of Quaker worship seems to emanate from the walls and seep into us as we worship. Thank you for joining us.' That card has a permanent place on our mantelshelf.  

Moira's story of her spiritual life was the fruit of her last years as she sought to pull together her experiences so she could share her journey with others. In 2022, dying of cancer, she never gave up writing and editing to the very end. Her daughter, Penny, and husband, Tony, have published this book as a tribute to her passion and out of deep love. 

Moira Fitt (1940-2022) wanted to share her spiritual journey with others. 

Moira was convinced that her life experiences were linked by a single 'golden thread' which was a 'leading of the spirit'. In that odyssey, specific places helped nurture the development of Moira's faith over a span of sixty years, drawing her closer to understanding the mystic roots of the core Quaker belief: We, being human, all have access to that of God within. 

Moira was a bright child who passed the 11plus exam to gain a place at Watford Grammar School for Girls. Unfortunately, she was stricken by illness in her teens, suffering from both T.B. and meningitis. Slowly recovering but missing a whole year of school Moira passed her O-levels and went to secretarial college. Around this time she met her husband-to-be, Tony Fitt. He had started to attend Watford Friends Meeting and Moira began to attend too. A Quaker wedding followed in 1960 in Watford and Moira and

FRUITS OF THE MARAZION QUAKER LIBRARY (15) - ALTERNATIVE DEFENCE REVIEW (MAY 2025)

 This Alternative Defence Review was proposed and undertaken by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in response to the RMT union's decision to convene a labour and peace movement summit to work out the basis of a new foreign policy which would promote peace and social justice.

The Alternative Defence Review, published in May 2025

 

It is so refreshing to read a document that offers a new vision for peace, justice, and security - and challenges the war narrative that is becoming louder and louder, played out by the political elites, the military-industrial complex, and the mainstream media.

In summary, the Review shows how militarization:

• distorts national priorities
• fuels global instability
• undermines international law
• harms the environment
• diverts investment from public services and social infrastructure. 

Increased military expenditure will be economically inefficient, environmentally destructive, and socially regressive, offering limited job creation while stifling a more sustainable and just economy. 

We need a significantly demilitarized defence strategy rooted in human security and common security - prioritizing diplomacy, global cooperation, conflict prevention, and investment in health, education, climate resilience, social care, and the creation of well-paid, secure, unionized and socially useful jobs. 

We call for:

•  a significant reduction in military spending
• an immediate halt to arms exports to countries involved in active conflict or human rights abuses (including Israel and Gulf states)
• a Just Transition for defence-dependent workers and communities.

Unfortunately, the present Labour Government plans to increase defence spending from 2.3% to 2.5% of GDP, financing this escalation by cutting international aid and domestic welfare - directly undermining