FRUITS OF THE MARAZION QUAKER LIBRARY (21) - JEANETTE WINTERSON (2025) 'ONE ALADDIN TWO LAMPS'

 Jeanette Winterson was born in Manchester in 1959 to a 17 year-old mother who looked after her for six weeks in a mother and baby home. Jeanette was then adopted by Mr and Mrs Winterson whose home was in Accrington. They were Pentecostal evangelical Christians who brought up Jeanette to be a Pentecostal missionary. That did not work out, as you can discover by reading Winterson's magnificent first book - Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit - published when she was 26. In 1975 when she was 16, Jeanette fell in love with another girl, a convert to the local Pentecostal church; her parents found out; Jeanette left home and somehow supported herself through A-levels at a local technical college. By the time she was 19, she had been accepted at my Oxford college, St Catherine's (Catz), to read English Literature. Three years later, she emerged with her degree. 

Jeanette Winterson

The story got even more personal for me as I watched a TV documentary about this contemporary star of English Literature who is now the Professor of New Writing at the University of Manchester. The camera shot half-way through the programme took the viewer into the inner quad of the college. This was the view from her room at college. I swear it was my room in my first year, back in 1967-68: Room Number 4:12. I had a definite frisson of recognition and excitement.   

Jeanette spins her tale around the stories in The Arabian Nights, including Aladdin and his Magic Lamp. The Nights begin with a Sultan called Shahryar who discovers that his wife and his brother's wife have both been unfaithful. In an appalling act of misogyny, Shahryar decrees he will marry a fresh virgin every night and then execute her the next morning. And so the slaughter goes on until it's Shahrazad's

FRUITS OF THE MARAZION QUAKER LIBRARY (20) - RICHARD LANNOWE HALL (2021) 'SAILADAY OK - RECOVERY FROM ADDICTIONS THROUGH MARINE-BASED ADVENTURE PSYCHOTHERAPY'

 Richard Hall is a member of the Marazion Quaker Meeting and he recently gifted our library a copy of his inspiring account of a remarkable new venture in psychotherapeutic practice which he pioneered so successfully he was awarded the British Empire Medal (BEM). Over a period of a decade and more, Richard employed his skills as a sailor and psychotherapist to help small groups of recovering addicts to develop their own self-esteem and resilience through learning how to sail, aboard his boat and under his supervision in a programmed period of several days. For Richard, the essence of being at sea was that everyone on board was immersed in being in nature, in the natural world - and therefore within its healing power. His book is a cry from the heart - so many forces are at work in the modern world that alienate us from nature, from what makes us whole. Here, at sea, wounded souls could mend and recover.

Richard Hall's account of his own life and recovery from addictions - and his development of marine-based adventure psychotherapy.

The success of Richard's approach is vividly represented in the pages of the book which relate scores of feedback responses from participants who experienced these days and nights at sea. As Sue Parker Hall, his partner at the time, says in the Foreword: 

'What Richard doesn't mention are the occasions that he would receive... some time later...  a postcard or an email thanking him again for all his help and telling him that their experience with him had literally saved their life.'   

Richard explains his insight and practice here:

'The essence of adventure therapy... is making this connection with nature and tuning in and adapting to what we have been given and making this work for us, to help in our growth. This is not something you

FRUITS OF THE MARAZION QUAKER LIBRARY (19) - FRED MURFIN (1965/2026) 'PRISONERS FOR PEACE'

 Six weeks ago at the Marazion Meeting House, I was handed a folder which contained the printed account of Fred Murfin's three years in prison as a C.O. (Conscientious Objector) during World War One. I had not seen this treasure in the Marazion Quaker archive before and now I was being asked, as the Meeting's librarian, to do whatever I felt fit with this document. The pages had been punch-holed and fixed together - but out of sequence at one point - and there was no proper cover. It had been written by Fred Murfin in 1965, six years before his death in 1971, and first published through the Tottenham Meeting House in 1965. At some point in his later life, Fred Murfin became a member of the Marazion Quaker community and worshipped here with Wilfred Tregenza, another C.O. who served time in prison for refusing to kill in World War One (see my earlier blogpost here by pressing this link). When our most senior member today, Tony Fitt, first attended the Marazion Quaker community with his wife, the late Moira Fitt, in the 1960s, he had the privilege of knowing both these gentlemen.

Fred Murfin (1888-1971) - a Quaker C.O. during WW1 and author of PRISONERS FOR PEACE

It has now been my privilege to bring this invaluable historical document to fresh life through the services of PlusPrint at Long Rock, Penzance. I cannot be sure how many copies were in existence before this reprint at the end of last year but apart from the Marazion copy there are only four others recorded: one in the Cornwall Area Meeting (CAM) library (CAM have the copyright); one in the Euston Road Quaker library in London (their catalogue card says "the original is with Bertha Fox"); and one in the Liddle Collection of the University of Leeds library. I have had 25 copies printed of this new

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