Quakers open doors to peaceful garden
Heritage Open Days run from September 9 to 18, and there are 19 in-person events just in Bath – to find out what’s on offer there’s an easy-to-use search tool at www.heritageopendays.org.uk/ visiting
They’re all brilliant, but please forgive me for plugging one that is especially dear to me. The Quaker Burial Ground in Widcombe is hidden away behind large wooden doors at the end of Clarendon Road off Widcombe Hill – and those doors will be wide open from 10am to 4pm on Saturday, September 10.
There you will find a lovely secluded garden of remembrance and peace. Come to walk around the garden, explore the heritage of Bath Quakers and enjoy the informal planting.
Features that visitors can enjoy include wildflower areas, spaces for quiet reflection, the wildlife haven, old stones telling stories, Quaker monuments, a view of the Bath skyline and (in season) remarkable fungi.
There will be a self-guided trail to follow and seats on slightly sloping ground.
Judith Eversley
A member of Bath Quaker Meeting
Life doesn’t seem to be providing us with much to raise a smile lately, but I have just had a real laugh reading The Bathonian.
It turns out this is a Tory newspaper which came through my letterbox recently.
Councillor Vic Pritchard, leader of the Conservative group on the council, when welcoming the defection of former Liberal Democrat councillor Dr Yukteswar Kumar to the Tory Party, said: “He is an extremely hard-working councillor, well respected in his ward and who holds himself to the high ethical standards we expect from those in public office.”
I do not doubt that Dr Kumar is a person of high standards – but, really, “high ethical standards we expect from those in public office”, from the party who gave us Boris Johnson as our Prime Minister?
Boris Johnson has no standards of decency or morality. Yet the Tory Party allowed him to become a prospective parliamentary candidate in the first instance.
He should not have made it on to anyone’s shortlist. He has been sacked on more than one occasion for telling lies, so the powers that be in the Tory Party must have known what sort of person they were unleashing on the public.
He has signed international agreements which he had no intention of abiding by.
He has canvassed Tory donors to pay for the renovation of his Downing Street accommodation. He has canvassed for his now wife to get a very well paid job.
Johnson doesn’t, apparently, think that telling the truth is an important part of public life. He is clearly a fantasist. The Tory Party should never have allowed him to become Prime Minister.
He has done untold damage to politics and public life, which will take years or maybe decades to recover from, if a recovery is even possible.
He has undermined the general public’s faith that politicians can be believed. My suspicion is that many people will come to the conclusion that it is not worth their while to vote at future elections, believing, wrongly, that “all politicians are as bad as each other”.
So even now that he is on the way out, I wonder whether his mission has been accomplished by demoralising the general electorate, and alienating the less well-off, those who maybe don’t have time in their lives to follow the nuances of politics, who should be voting in their droves to get rid of this pernicious set of politicians who, currently, we have the misfortune to have to refer to as our government.
Lesley Hankins