Oasis Man: Confessions of a Closet Flower Arranger

  The Methodist church has strong links with Lincolnshire. Of course its founder, John Wesley, was born at Epworth, in the north of the county. Not surprising then that there were probably more Methodist chapels in the villages around Lincolnshire than in any other county. In some places chapels for both the Wesleyans and the Primitives could be found on the same street. Many have disappeared, been sold off and converted into stylish dwellings but several remain calling the faithful to their devotions week after week. The large Methodist Church at Coningsby where I grew up is at present in a state of limbo, no longer being used for worship but standing empty and rather forlorn waiting for the future to decide its fate. The congregation have a new place to meet now; the former doctor’s surgery in the centre of the village converted a few years back.  The old chapel stands proud on Dogdyke Road between the large Victorian manse and my parents’ humble cottage. It was in part because of this close proximity that much of my early life was bound up in the chapel. I must confess on one occasion I felt we were perhaps too close when, demonstrating my magnificent tennis serve to a friend in my back garden; I smashed a leaded window pane in the church porch. My father was for many years in charge of the coke boiler that provided heating for the building and my mother was caretaker and key-holder. I remember the bunch of keys attached to a wooden cotton reel, hanging on a nail just inside our kitchen door, there for collection by anyone wishing to access the premises. My brother and I spent several years in the Sunday school attending ‘Sunshine Corner,’ carol services, harvest festivals and Sunday school anniversaries. Every June wooden trestles would be retrieved from the stoke-hole and erected to support a large platform in front of the pulpit. This was to accommodate the twenty or thirty children who made up the Sunday school roll.  The church would be full to bursting for anniversary services. Visiting preachers were expected to host not only the usual morning and evening services but an afternoon performance as well, when all the children were expected to deliver their recitations off by heart, each one chosen because of its inspiring spiritual or moral message. Most were a little twee by today’s standards. I can still remember the verse I recited back in 1965:

“The best thing when you’re playing is to play the game right well

Drive the ball upon the green or shoot to ring the bell

Get your service o’er the net, or ride to clear the gate

But when it’s life you’re playing at, just play it clear and straight.”

 The other big event on the church calendar was the biennial flower festival. Coningsby had a fine reputation for spectacular flower festivals. All the ladies of the church really came to the fore when preparing for and supervising these events. They usually took a whole year in the planning and everything was organised down to the smallest detail and last sprig of Ulster Mary. A theme would be debated, for several months sometimes, before it would be agreed and the elements started coming together. Those trestles used for the Sunday school anniversary were unpacked and positioned at intervals across the tops of the pews down both sides of the church. Two or three more would be aligned across the rear of the church along the treacly-oak panels of the vestibule. Members of the local flower club, were usually awarded a trestle-table each whilst nervous amateurs and latecomers were allocated a window sill which, positioned in the gaps between the tables, were used for slightly smaller arrangements. At the front of the church between the pulpit and altar rail was a large area often given over, in courtesy, to (Mrs Cammack and) the ladies who ran the local florists; the church knew on which side their bread was buttered. The curved mahogany pediment above the door to the preachers’ vestry was a challenge normally allocated to a younger member of the flower club as she (for many years farmer’s wife, Lorna Curtis ) needed to be agile enough to balance precariously on a step ladder whilst completing her arrangement, some 8-9ft above the ground. The large vestibule with its leaded lights was where all visitors arrived before entering the main building. It too was adorned with flowers in both pedestals and vases. Everything lush and colourful; minimalism and ikebana hadn’t reached Coningsby yet. The theme of the festival was introduced by way of a simple printed guide. I still have a couple of these pamphlets from the mid-1960s, from the era of typewriters and Roneo copiers, when stencils were made on waxed mulberry paper to enable foolscap sheets to be reproduced in abundance. One year literary quotes were selected as a basis for all the arrangements. So Mrs Walker interpreted a verse from Luke 12 inviting us to "Consider the lilies of the field how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin. Mrs Cade opted for rather the more obscure, "I saw horses in the vision: those who sat on them had breastplates of fiery red, hyacinth blue, and sulfur yellow” from Revelations 9. Then there was my mother’s choice clearly prompted by the fact the author was a fellow yellowbelly, Alfred Lord Tennyson,

 "In the spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove;
In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.

‘Local luminaries’ were the subject of another year’s celebrations. That’s ‘Celebrities’ to you and me. I think the title was chosen for its alliterative qualities. The obvious ones were represented; Isaac Newton, John Franklin, Joseph Banks, the Wesleys and Tennyson of course. But also allowed their fifteen minutes of fame were other notable Lincolnshire figures; Captain John Smith (friend of Pocahontas), poetess Jean Ingelow, conductor Sir Malcolm Sargent,  golfer Tony Jacklin, Billy Butlin and the founding father of computing, George Boole, the brilliant mathematician noted for his work on Boolean Algebra.

It is at this point that I feel another confession coming on. It was at one of these festivals on the Friday evening when they were downing secateurs for the day, that I said to a couple of the ‘ladies’ why don’t you put some flowers on the ends of the pews. We had seen this done when my mother had dragged me round a similar event at Hawthorn Hill, Holland Fen or some such place where they hadn’t got the window sills to accommodate any arrangements. Coningsby’s centre pews were all around 15 feet long, chocolaty brown and quite dull, being devoid of flowers and foliage whilst the sides of the church were a mass of floral colour. My mother found me half dozen or so brass tobacco tins, already crammed with rectangles of oasis, secured by a criss-cross of green tape and elastic bands. I scavenged for a few flowers and managed to glean quite a lot of foliage which the others had already discarded onto the bed-sheets strewn in all directions around the chapel floor. I had to move quick in case they changed their minds but I had soon amassed enough cuttings to complete my task. With a little guidance from my mother on the first I created the remaining five, small arrangements which were duly attached onto the narrow, yet flat, ledges of alternate pews. Now they weren’t that great I’m know so I wasn’t sure of the reaction my efforts would get when Mrs Cammack, the floral stylistic equivalent of Gok Wan, turned up the next morning. She arrived to finish her own masterpieces and help my Mum make table decorations for the school-room where teas were due to be served. Arriving about 9:30 within minutes Mrs Cammack had asked my mother who had done the pew-ends. My mother sprinted through the wrought-iron gate that linked the properties, round to our back porch, and I was summoned.

“You didn’t do all these did you?” was her accusation.

“No,” I answered, “Only five of them, mum did the other one.”

I was a very literal child; anyway I wasn’t going take the whole blame. But she didn’t censure me, instead she turned to my mum and said, “He’s got an eye for it, let him have a go at some of those table decorations in the schoolroom and I’ll finish the pedestals.” And indeed that’s what happened.

So you see, I could have been a contender, Oasis Man, up there with Llewelyn-Bowen, Alan Titchmarsh and the like. But I never did pursue a career in floristry. However, even though thirty years later it is my wife’s name that appears at regular two-monthly intervals on our chapel’s flower rota, but guess who really ends up doing the job!

Bach in the Subway...does beauty transcend?

Having recently heard this amazing story at our local church I felt it was one that merited sharing with a wider audience. It concerns a shabbily dressed man who, stood in a metro station in Washington DC started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about three quarters of an hour. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that three to four thousands of people were passing through the station during this time, most of them on their way to work.

Three minutes went by. One middle aged man noticed there was musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule.
A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the open case but without stopping. Another commuter paused to lean against the wall to listen to the music for a few seconds, but then looking at his watch started to walk on. Clearly he was late for work.
The person who paid the most attention was probably a 3 year old boy. His mother tried to urge him along, but the child clearly wanted to stop and look at the violinist.  Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk on though not without turning his head several times. This action was repeated by several other children. Yet all the parents, without exception, forced them to move on after a few seconds.

In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.
No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the top musicians in the world. He had played some of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth a fortune. Only one person had recognised the maestro playing incognito.
Two days before his playing in the subway, the same musician had sold out in a theatre in Boston and the seats averaging $100.

This is a true story. At the suggestion of a journalist from the Washington post, Gene Weingarten, the virtuoso violinist, Joshua Bell had been playing in disguise at the metro station.
It was all part of a social experiment about perception, taste and the priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour do we perceive extraordinary gifts and beauty? Would people stop to appreciate magnificence? Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?
One of the possible conclusions from this experience Weingarten suggested was that if we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing some of the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing every day of our lives?

This story regarding the complete lack of reaction by the people who witnessed the impromptu concert surprised many commentators and many suspected that it was surely a hoax. However, the story was true as Bell himself explained later in various television interviews. In January 2007 he had indeed performed incognito in the metro-station in an experiment organized by the Washington Post.According to the article in April 2007 Bell had used his own violin, an instrument handcrafted by Antonio Stradivari in 1713 - that he bought several years ago for a reported price of $3.5 million.
Journalist Gene Weingarten was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for his outstanding and thought provoking analysis of the experiment. Weingarten discussed the ramifications of Bell's subway experience concluding that context clearly does play a role in our artistic perceptions. Our perception of beauty is obviously influenced by our mindset at the particular time we perceive it. If we catch the merest glimpse of genius we should acknowledge it or risk losing it forever.

The Passing of Cyril the Squirrel

 Recently my brother travelled over from Lincolnshire for Sunday lunch. Occasionally in the past he has treated us with a tasty offering like a haslet or some choice Lincolnshire sausages. The family were secretly hoping for a traditional Plum Loaf but this time he arrived with another old favourite from my childhood, Stuffed Chine. Sadly the chine did not receive much of a welcome, except from me. The rest of them turned their noses up when they saw the bacon joint generously striped with green parsley. Even after trying a morsel dowsed in vinegar they remained unconvinced of its merits. But though the reception for the chine was pretty disappointing it was as nought to that which greeted a second offering. My brother brought something I had not seen for nearly forty years, a stuffed red squirrel called Cyril.

In fact Cyril has never really been appreciated by my family since I first acquired him. At the age of 14 or 15 I was given the squirrel by a work colleague of my mother, District Nurse Taylor who lived, with Cyril, in a cottage in the grounds of Tattershall Castle. As I recall he had belonged to her father and I understood that he had acquired the squirrel in the castle grounds before having it stuffed in 1917. Therein lays confusion. I have recently been informed that red squirrels had all disappeared from the area before the end of the 19^th century.

What is the truth? There are no other clues other than  the fact that the rear of the case is lined with a page from the Lincoln Stamford and Rutland Mercury.
My mother had never really taken to Cyril although she allowed him to sit on a shelf in my bedroom until i left for college. When she died and her cottage was cleared my brother rediscovered Cyril in the roof space. He transferred him to his own garage where he remained for the last ten years. now he has rebeen returned to me but the wife has delivered an ultimatum either the squirrel goes or else… I have  had to make plans.
I decided to offer Cyril to our recently established school museum. Sadly the present curator, who up until now I considered a friend, was hardly thrilled and declined my offer saying he found it creepy and disturbing (personally I think this a wimpish excuse). He suggested I offer it to our Science coordinator to become an aid to teaching about mammals, food chains and the like. The science coordinator was equally unimpressed saying it freaked him out and couldnt have it in the room (another wimp).

I have therefore had to think again. I have considered it putting on display in my own classroom as the children seem to like the squirrel but my work colleagues are none too keen on the idea of Cyril watching over them when they use the room. I thought I might donate him to the school as a parting gift when I retire. But I suspect he would end up in the cellars or worse still be put up for sale at the next school jumble once funding starts to dwindling after the next inevitable round of financial cutbacks. Then another colleague suggested I smuggled him into Calke Abbey and hide him amidst the surplus of stuffed exhibits that the last of the Harpur-Crewes left around the decaying mansion. No-one would spot another amongst so many. Unfortunately the staff would probably spot a parcel being carried in passed the ticket desk. 

  I have already refused the indignity of trying to sell Cyril on Ebay. Then a solution presented itself to me. The son of a work colleague was rushed into hospital in the early hours one day last week with a suspected appendicitis. Talking over lunch a few days earlier it was revealed to me that the lad had an interest in taxidermy and so I decided that I would bite the bullet and hand Cyril over to a new owner who I know would really appreciate him.

Cyril the Squirrel

I would, however still like to know whether he was really a Lincolnshire red squirrel or just another of them ‘frim folk’.