When I arrived, artist, Nicky Loutit was setting up in the Library, arranging some of her artworks. There was a beautiful, colourful painting on the screen. Women were gathering and were all invited to have a cup of tea.

The afternoon session was to be a “conversation” between Nicky and Sarah Ladbury. Sarah introduced herself by saying that she lived her life as an atheist, but she was intrigued by Nicky’s story and how she had come to be in Aldeburgh and attend church here. As a committed Christian, my ears immediately pricked up because I thought this could be a fascinating “conversation” and wasn’t sure what to expect. And so, Sarah gently asked Nicky about her early life.

Nicky said that from a young age there was no mention of God but when she was sent to boarding school at the age of seven, the hymn “O God our help in ages past…” made a profound impression on her. This was the beginning of her search for something spiritual. Nicky was also aware of angels being ever present in her life and incorporated angels in her paintings. She studied at the Slade School of Art and at Chelsea Art School and eventually settled in Herefordshire with her husband and three boys. They had a smallholding which, although very hard work, was fulfilling and idyllic. They became involved with Methodism whilst there.

Then, one day, a friend appeared at their home wearing orange robes and Nicky and her husband became convinced by him and other friends to give up everything and join an Ashram in India. This was not a happy time for Nicky, she eventually had to leave after five years and came back to Britain with her three boys.

To cut a long story short, Nicky eventually landed in Aldeburgh. One day, at 9am, she found herself in the Parish Church, sitting at the back in tears. A group of people were “gossiping” in the Chapel and one of them encouraged her to join them for Morning Prayer. She did and immediately fell in love with the calmness, order and peace of the service. She has continued to attend Morning Prayer regularly as well as other services.

Sarah conducted the “conversation” in a respectful, empathetic way, encouraging Nicky to talk openly. Members of the audience were able to ask questions and share experiences. Someone asked if Nicky felt “excited” by this journey of faith. Nicky liked that! There was a comfortable feeling of togetherness with shared emotions. I felt that Nicky had been very brave in sharing her story with us. She seemed at peace but excited about what was to come!  (Summary: Fran Smith)

In the summer of 2018 the Lettering Arts Trust in Snape staged a superb exhibition celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of Memorials by Artists. On 8 December, Harriet Frazer described to us how she came to found Memorials by Artists back in 1988.

The story begins with the loss of Harriet’s step-daughter Sophie who died peacefully by suicide in 1985. Harriet spoke most movingly and with great honesty about her family (Sophie was a twin) and about the difficulties they encountered in trying to create a fitting memorial for Sophie: something that would ‘lift the spirit and mark a unique life’.

Harriet commissioned the sculptor Simon Verity to design and carve Sophie’s beautiful headstone. But conforming with the strict rules for churchyard memorials presented huge obstacles. Out of the difficulties they encountered and overcame – Sophie’s memorial is now in place in the churchyard at Salle, Norfolk – was born in Harriet the idea to find other letter-carvers working in the British Isles and to publish an illustrated guide for people wanting a unique memorial about the use of good British stones and fine design and lettering. Memorials by Artists would be a matching service, crucially making it possible for client and artist to build a rapport so that the process of commission should be as creative as possible. That Harriet succeeded in realizing her vision was borne out by the wonderful examples of letter-carvers’ work shown in the anniversary exhibition and indeed by a member of the WISE audience, who spoke to me afterwards about how much her family valued the support they had been given by Harriet herself when they most needed it.

Harriet traced the history of Memorials by Artists in a series of images of remarkable memorials that have been created over the years. Ten years after its foundation, the first exhibition ‘The Art of Remembering’, was staged. Ten years after that, the ‘Art & Memory Collection’ was launched in the gardens of West Dean College, Sussex. Soon to join the number of memorials gracing our land is one to be sited on Orford Quay, in memory of the Boffins of Orford Ness.

Memorials by Artists is a treasure. Harriet claims that what drove her to create it was both ignorance and anger: ‘I knew nothing about lettering or the wide variety of British stones and slates. My anger was with the Church, with their insensitive and philistine rules for churchyard memorials. I suppose I had a sense of mission.’ She is modest about her achievements, but passionate about the importance of the work. Among her legacies is an educational trust, set up to ensure that the skill of letter-carving will endure through two-year apprenticeships and lettering workshops. As she said, it is crucial to have well-trained tutors to teach the young letter-carvers. We are thankful that her work will endure through Harriet’s successor, Executive Director Sarah Harrison, Lynne Alexander, the Lettering Arts Trust’s Education and Exhibitions’ Director and Mary Carter-Campbell who now runs Memorials by Artists.  (Summary: Suzy Powling)

For more information please see <http://www.letteringartstrust.co.uk

Our first introduction to the subject of Liz Shackleton’s talk was the colourful, textural array of rag rugging that we saw laid out in Aldeburgh Library as we entered. We were able to inspect, stroke and marvel at a variety of examples of her work, whilst Liz unfolded to us the inspiring story of creativity found in this craft, and its history, via Vikings, Danes and 19th Century northern England. She accompanied the talk with an excellent collection of slides and some amusing poems about the hazards of having a Progger in the house!

We learnt that the craft of rag rugging in Britain was a simple way of creating useful household items out of textiles that had become too threadbare for use in their original form. It was born out of poverty and a need for thrift. Where money was scarce to spend on comforts, fabric could be given a second or third incarnation. The technique of hooking or looping strips of fabric through a loosely-woven backing was used to make rugs or mats for the floor and for occasional bed and wall coverings, all items to add to the comfort of the poor household. They brought warmth and colour and provided a rare opportunity for women at home to have an outlet for artistic expression. Rug-making could also be a social affair, being done communally to produce a large piece and to enjoy companionship and chat.

The main makers of rag rugs were women: wives of miners and farmers, fishermen or military men who could be away at sea or at war for long periods, leaving their wives to hold the household together. Children cut the many strips of fabric needed for each rug and the men helped by making the wooden frame to hold the work and by fashioning the simple tools used. These were hooks and prodders, or proggers, improvised from all sorts of materials such as the shafts of old keys, nails, wooden pegs, pieces of horn.

We were fascinated to see the variety and beauty of the designs, from the initial simple interpretations of everyday objects, a few surviving from the 19th Century – vase of flowers, cat, dog, hens – to the growing intricacy of pattern, colour and effect of 20th Century examples from Britain and across the Atlantic. Over the years, rag rugs became treasured as desirable Folk Art in the USA and Canada. In Britain this has only latterly become the case. By the end of this talk, there were a number of new devotees!

Liz concluded her engrossing story with questions to make us think about our modern ways and their consequences – our throwaway society, our profligate use of resources, our detrimental impact on the ecology of our planet, our loss of hand skills, thereby our enormous loss of the satisfaction and joy of creativity, of its peace and mindfulness. Perhaps, as AI looms to take over the employment of the ordinary man and woman, we should make conscious efforts to revive many of the handcraft skills.

Thank you, Liz, for an inspiring talk.  (Summary: Ann Moynihan)

Rachel’s executive career includes publishing, museum management and business research but her volunteering began as a child helping her mother with Meals on Wheels.  This proved to be a rewarding experience and since then she has volunteered for many organisations:  English Heritage; The Tower of London; the V&A and Hampton Court Palace amongst others.  Rachel outlined questions to ask yourself when considering volunteering: why are you interested? What purpose do you have? Will you feel adequately rewarded for your time and effort? Do you have enthusiasm for it and will you be able to make a difference?

People volunteer for many different reasons, very often to meet people of all ages and backgrounds, to help others and to give something back to the community and hopefully to make a difference.   We heard that volunteering can open new opportunities for learning and self development on a diverse range of topics including Bee Keeping; or how to use Excel spreadsheets; how to communicate with different groups or to travel – Rachel went to China.

Rachel stressed that volunteers need to create their own goals and structures – for example Rachel started, and still teaches, exercise classes for older people and talks to them about ageing healthily and their own volunteering.

Rachel’s enthusiasm was contagious and working with such varied organisations has obviously been a very important part of her life, one that is both enjoyable and satisfying.  Her talk was followed by a general discussion on volunteering, both abroad and in the U.K., and the motivation and opportunities available for young people. (Summary: Anthea Shaw)

Suzy Powling’s WISE talk was an insight into a career most of us possibly don’t even think about. A book just ‘happens’, doesn’t it?

Suzy has worked almost her entire career as a non-fiction book and magazine editor, and it has certainly been a varied career that relies on her using all her ‘ideas, skills and experience’ (WISE words!) in a variety of settings, to support a wide variety of authors from idea to publication. She is now well read (she must read every word of course) in areas as diverse as marriage guidance, antiques, wine, motherhood, military history, physics, psychology and much more.

Although Suzy started out at Faber & Faber, it was at a smaller independent non-fiction publisher called Batsford that she explained was her ‘crucially formative period’ for learning the trade. Not only learning the different aspects that make up an editors’ role, but also how to treat an author – with a delicate balance of sensitivity and scrutiny.

At its most basic, Suzy explained, editing is being able to read and write (she has a degree in English and Latin), have patience and an eye for detail. The ‘red pen’ of the talk title is the clearest way of marking up a manuscript for accuracy and make notes for consistency – her watch-words.

When describing what editing is, it was clear that this is not an industry for ‘one size fits all’. Everything needed an individual approach. I liked Suzy’s anecdote about how a whole book on flower arranging arrived to her on pieces of paper, in different handwriting, and all in a carrier bag! She made a sense of it all and a successful book was created.

She has more usually worked freelance and talked modestly of writing over a dozen non-fiction books and numerous articles herself over the years, and in a very recent change, she is part way though writing a novel.

Suzy had opened by calling herself a ‘dinosaur’, as the traditional editor’s role has been transformed by digital publishing. So, from someone who once had to laboriously count every single word on a page to this new era of computer word counts, Suzy’s career has spanned all types of editing, multiple subject matter, and innumerable books and journals.  A WISE woman indeed. (Summary: Cathy Smith).

This talk by Sally Hartley on her work in Africa with disabled children, was fascinating and wide ranging. She explored how, over four decades, the interpretation of the Masai proverb had taken on deeper meanings. Her first job was as a VSO Speech Therapist, but over the years she had turned her hand to many things, and her stories were very humbling.

Every project she tackled was always underlined by the need for disabled people to be accepted into mainstream activities. Deaf children were often left in darkened rooms because they could not speak and were therefore not considered to be human. Signing was introduced to one village – a complete revelation that changed their lives. In a famine camp women were encouraged to make traditional bowls and spoons to sell for much needed cash. Sally was known as Madam Spoon!

After 20 years of development work Sally realized she was going to have to enter academia to examine and share her experiences. In too many instances the same mistakes were being repeated due to lack of guidelines to take them forward. Sally along with other researcher and colleagues in WHO, the World Bank and UNESCO produced many reports and guidelines that were there for us to browse. E.g. World Report on Disability http://www.who.int/disabilities/world_report/2011/report/en/

CBR Guidelines (Community Based Reabilitation) http://www.who.int/disabilities/cbr/guidelines/en/

She also described a CBR Network she helped to set up which now functions in 53 African countries. http://afri-can.org/our-core-functions/

Sally’s quote ‘One Head Cannot Contain All Wisdom’ was born out in different ways in every project she described – things are achieved by sharing, talking and working together, not by exporting our own culture and practices. Increasingly she was able to demonstrate the positive effect of including everybody in disability research and practice, particularly disabled people themselves.

She gave us this beautiful quote to finish her talk…..

Go to the people

Live with them, learn from them, love them

Start with what they know

Build with what they have

But for the best leaders, when the work is done

The task accomplished, the people will say

‘We have done this ourselves’

                                                 by Lao Tzu

Very inspiring!  (Summary: Sal Goldsmith)

Artist-printmaker Jila Peacock was born in Iran. In this talk she focused on the making of her hand-printed book of shape poems ‘Ten poems from Hafez’, which won the British Book Design Awards for literature in October 2006. As well as slides, there was a short animation film made with two images from the book with which she won a BAFTA nomination in 2008.

Hafez was a 14^th century poet and a seminal influence on Persian literature and art. Jila said that the aim of her project was to make what she called visual translations out of whole poems in which Hafez uses various creatures, – birds, insects, fish – as poetic metaphors, symbolizing various aspects of the human condition.

There are very few accurate details about Hafez’s life. He was born around 1320 in Shiraz where he spent his life as a court poet. He died in Shiraz around 1390, making him a contemporary with Geoffrey Chaucer in England and Dante Alghieri, in Florence. Unlike these writers however, you can find a copy of his poems in every Persian-speaking household.

The precise origins of the Arabic script/calligraphy are unknown although a Semitic script was in use on the Arabian peninsula in the 6^th century. In Persian poetry the beauty and the meaning of a poem are enhanced by its calligraphy; this elegant, legible form of writing lends itself perfectly to copying love lyrics and mystical or romantic epics.

There is a long tradition of the Persian Artistic practice of using calligraphy to make an image of what is best described as a ‘shape poem’. These could be said to be the perfect example of seeing an image and reading a text simultaneously.

Some years ago, Jila said she made a series of prints and paintings from the calligraphic image of a horse written in Arabic. This horse, from 19^th century Iran, is a Shia prayer from the sayings of Ali, the son in law of the prophet, who is said to have been a calligrapher himself. The horse is a symbol of submission and faithfulness. She has also written what she calls the poem of the parrot, over the top of a simple silhouette, generally choosing poems in which Hafez uses animal imagery to symbolize aspects of divine love.

When Jila had all the ingredients ready for an illuminated hand made book of calligraphic shape poems she chose the silk-screen process to make it. In this technique the images are photographically impressed onto a fabric stretched on a frame so she was able to screen-print the text of the book as well.

The afternoon was a wonderful insight into the culture and art of a country that is still relatively unknown.  (Summary: Caroline Fisher)

This talk on abortion was well attended and Fiona, who has spent several decades involved in reproductive health including abortion in the UK and the developing world, put women and families at the heart of this presentation.

Before the 1967 Abortion Act which allowed abortion up to 28 weeks’ gestation, abortion was a leading cause of maternal mortality in the UK. The UK law nevertheless requires the signature of two medical doctors. The time limit was subsequently reduced in 1990 to 24 weeks’ gestation in response to medical advances. But as Fiona pointed out, only 0.1% of all abortions are carried out at this late stage and recent data show that most abortions are under 10 weeks. The prevalence is now declining in the UK (especially among women younger than 30 years – though not among older women). 98% of abortions are paid by the NHS. Lacking access to safe abortion in Ireland, a few thousand women travel to the UK every year, while others obtain abortion pills from the internet. Fiona noted that although abortion pills are the most commonly used method in the UK they ought to have medical supervision. A referendum will soon determine whether the law in Ireland will be liberalised.

In the developing world especially where Catholicism is dominant and family planning services inadequate, unsafe abortions continue unabated contributing to up to 18% of maternal deaths. In Asia particularly, there are many unsafe or bogus abortifacient products sold across the counter. Bangladesh is a unique example where government policy enables women to have “menstrual regulation” or MR (up to 10 weeks) even though abortion per se is not legal. MR was introduced to help women made pregnant by Pakistan soldiers during the war for Independence from Pakistan. “Bringing back periods” became an acceptable way to deal with unwanted pregnancy.

Despite vast improvements to women’s access to reproductive health services in poor countries, the ‘Global Gag Rule’ re-imposed by Trump on his first day in office, has removed over US$9 billion of US aid funding for reproductive health, HIV/AIDS, malaria and nutrition programming. This is already having a devastating impact on the poorest women. ‘She Decides’ is a Dutch initiative that is now bringing governments and agencies together to leverage funds to fill some of this gap, but is only a small proportion of the need.

In the context of recent negative publicity of the aid industry, Fiona expressed concern that the UK Aid budget is potentially vulnerable. She suggested that lobbying our local MP and supporting organisations that lobby for change or give practical aid to women in developing countries are options for us all.

The Q&A was extremely active, with questions relating to HIV, the confidence UK young people now have in seeking family planning advice, the role of education both here and abroad, the urban/rural divide and the importance of non-governmental organisations among others. (Summary: Celia Allaby)

Please note: A report by the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group was published just after Fiona’s talk. Fiona recommends it to anyone interested in reading further on this issue. It is entitled: ‘Who Decides? We Trust Women’. APPG, March 2018. Download from: http://www.appg-popdevrh.org.uk/APPG 2018 AW.PDF

There’s something inspiring about listening to a person who loves what they do. “I love colour”, says Jennie Foley. “I love paint”. “I love pattern.” And she communicated that delight to us in her talk to WISE on 10 February.

When her mother asked the child Jennie what she wanted to do in life, the answer came easily: “I want to make the world more beautiful”. So Jennie went to art school, but had to decide between becoming a designer or an artist. Fine arts were thought of as more elevated than the applied or decorative arts; the artist alone in his or her studio more important than the designer pursuing her profession in the wide world.

Jennie was a successful textile designer for 30 years, creating fabrics that were taken up by Heals and John Lewis and numbers of international clients. One aspect of the work that she particularly valued was the constant feedback. Unlike the artist in his garret, the designer can always rely on a direct response to her work. At one of the large shows where Jennie would display her work, she could see immediately which designs had captured buyers’ attention. A design, once sold, might appear on furnishing fabrics, rugs & carpets, wallpapers, indeed a range of merchandise.

Operating in this world was fun, but Jennie admits it was tough, and she clearly had the drive and character to succeed – and the talent: that was evident from the gorgeous swatches and fat scrapbooks that she showed us.

Making the transition from designer to artist seemed like a natural progression. Jennie is now a painter, in acrylic and (especially for portraits) in oils. Some of her designs have been incorporated into her paintings, but loosed from the constraints of commercial design she plays freely with colour and media: cut-outs, collages, patchwork, painted furniture all feature. And all sing with joyful colour. For a happy hour and a half we were transported from the grey of a February afternoon.  Summary: Suzy Powling)

Sally Irvine retold medical history before 1830 to reflect women’s contributions. She used letters, diaries, parish records and local press, rather than books by men about men, to reveal the women who worked as wives, healers, midwives and practitioners.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries women played important roles as healers and midwives using herbs they grew and learning from their mothers as evidenced in Lady Fanshawe’s Receipt Book. Mrs Jane Sharp (1641-1671) wrote the The Compleat Midwives Companion covering anatomy and delivery techniques and Sarah Stone The Complete Practice of Midwifery, a casebook of 40 or more complications of birth.

Medicine was about symptoms not prevention, yet Lady Montague Worsley (1689-1762) watched doctors take a scab from children suffering from small pox in Turkey and promoted the idea of inoculation to Britain.

After a man died his widow was granted legal status and many doctors’ widows continued to run the practice after their husband’s deaths through engaging assistants and partners. Jesse Leeder’s wife was surprisingly listed jointly with him as ‘master’ to a female apprentice, Ann Turner in 1757, itself a rare occurrence.

The invention of the forceps during the eighteenth century helped to medicalise childbirth and by the end of the nineteenth century men were preferred as midwives particularly in the cities and amongst the well-to-do and aristocracy. This was far less true in rural counties such as Suffolk where the traditional pattern of female midwife bringing in the family doctor only in a crisis was more prevalent. Near to home the Romantic poet of Aldeburgh George Crabbe (1754-1832) was forced by his father to be a surgeon’s apothecary and tried to gain skill as a male midwife. However his second delivery left both mother and child dead and his reputation and confidence in tatters.

To become a doctor you needed an education (for a physician a degree in classics) and money. So few women are known to have practised – Sarah Mapp was an infamous bonesetter in 1730 but by and large women were pushed into the domestic sphere. Only twenty-five female surgeons/ apothecaries were active in the 18^th century and none are recorded between 1800 and 1830.

Through writing her PhD in 2012, Sally discovered that women’s role in medicine up to 1840 was useful but not professionally recognised. Sally’s in-depth, beautifully presented talk, of which I have skimmed the surface, needs to be published as a book.  (Summary: Vanessa Raison)