As one of those that the theologian John Drane termed the spiritual searchers, I've explored a number of different approaches to the transcendent. In beautiful downtown Banchory, I once attended a Quaker meeting, where a kind lady offered me an alfalfa sandwich, but as it looked like two slices of bread filled with grass I politely declined. I knew better than to claim the spirit had moved me to speak there. A delightful Quaker theologian who went by the name of Ben Pink Dandelion (not his birth name, and I've forgotten why he changed it, but it was something to do with supporting the oppressed) once told me that there was a strict hierarchy at Quaker meetings – it wasn't the spirit who moved people to speak, but the fact that they had been there the longest.
Anyway, I found the Quakers delightful and genuinely nice people, but they were so nice and good that I felt somewhat inadequate in their presence, particularly with regard to their insistence on 'plain dress'. Now I used to have a fairly large wardrobe of clothes, half of which I have donated to the local charity shop as they wouldn't fit in my new house, and what is left I don't necessarily wear as I am no longer a size 10 or a size 18 (me at my thinnest and fattest – now I'm something in between). But I still love the colours and patterns on many of these unwearable pieces and feel that getting rid of them would be like taking Freddy le Chat back to the SSPCA.
But the worst offender in terms of my embracing the Quaker way of life is that I have ** pairs of shoes (I won't say precisely how many in case any Quakers are reading this and I don't want to appal such nice folk). Their view is that two or possibly three pairs should suffice. In my case, it's not vanity, but the fact I have funny shaped feet (long and narrow with the prehensile toes common in my family – maybe we were originally Neanderthals). So, whenever I find a pair of shoes that fit, I buy them for when the others fall to bits, but as I have quite a few now they are unlikely to wear out…
Thrift?
In my defence, the majority of my shoes were bought in sales where the price had been significantly reduced. My latest acquisition from M&S was bought for £12.99 reduced from £45. But I'm sure that wouldn't impress the Quakers, who are hardly fans of shopping per se. I am thrifty in other respects though – I always cut tubes of toothpaste or shampoo in half to make sure I don't waste any, use up bars of soap until they disappear, and never fail to make stock out of the chicken bones – there's a pot boiling away as I write this.
The late Mr B never threw away a piece of string or a bit of wood, in case it ever came in handy. It never did, but it's like my purchase of Euromillions tickets – it might do at some point. He would also never waste paper, which I used to find rather disconcerting as writing down phone messages I would come across early versions of my PhD thesis.
There are fairies at the bottom of the garden
My granddaughter is a funny mixture of the rational and the imaginative – maybe I was equally odd as a child. She makes up complex stories with her Barbie collection, yet is scornful of the idea that fairies really exist. Or she was – my good friend Aileen has moved house to join me in the excellent village of K, and she explained to Olivia that the fact her new garden overlooked the cemetery was not scary as the fairies often played there. Olivia was doubtful until she received a letter from the said fairies (in this case their messages were passed on by Aileen's granddaughter, who is a few years older than mine). Olivia was very impressed with having a direct communication from Fairyland and is now wondering whether the fairy folk are real after all.
Personally, I have no doubt they are – for many years I couldn't work out how the worlds of, say,
The Wind in the Willows and the everyday world could meet, until it was explained to me that they inhabit different dimensions of reality that sometimes overlap with ours. Doubters should read the wonderful book by Patrick Harpur,
Daimonic Reality. I have always felt that in human literature the fairies have had a bad press, portrayed as sneaky, trickster-like individuals who want to make life difficult for humans. My understanding is that the opposite is the case – it's humans who are the baddies and the fairy folk are the nice people.
Fairy stories, like history, were written by the victors, but my as yet unpublished fiction (are you there, publishers?) tells the story from the fairy viewpoint. Like the tale of the Reverend Robert Kirk of Aberfoyle (look him up on Google), who wasn't kidnapped by the fairy folk, but requested political asylum with them and lives there to this day as the resident Ambassador to the Other World...
Customer care
I wonder if the lady who was at the checkout I used today in Tesco was a fairy in disguise. I have previously complained in these pages about retail assistants who seem to prefer stacking shelves to dealing with the public, despite the fact that the introduction of more self service checkouts means fewer jobs, regardless of how exciting such a job might be – and I have done it – it's not that bad.
Today, the lovely lady at Tesco was very happy to have a conversation with me while expertly whizzing through my purchases, and then, amazingly, as I left she said 'thank you for coming' – and said it as though she genuinely meant it. This may not be 'exceptional service' as understood by Tesco, but wouldn't the world be a nicer place if people made time for the courtesies?
Dr Mary Brown is a freelance education consultant
