Caroline and Jane mulled over why they had both become involved in volunteering for charities: what had motivated them and why they had chosen the organisations they have volunteered for. In discussing this talk beforehand they had discovered that their parents were all heavily involved in working with local charities and with the community in which they lived.

Caroline first volunteered in the 70’s with St Mungo’s Homeless Charity, going out on the night soup run to feed rough sleepers in Spitalfields Market and Kings Cross.  However, full-time work put paid to these all-night ventures. Caroline said the St Mungo’s work was not due to altruism but rather because she fancied the boy who suggested it.  She couldn’t remember having any training at all.  Then she did a longer stint with the Samaritans, again on the suggestion of someone else. The training was rigorous and selective and the support from the shift leader immense. There were scary moments, problems with nuisance callers, but, on the whole, it was an extraordinary experience. She said it gave her a new perspective on things.

Jane said her motivation was more work related at first; in her academic life charities such as Leonard Cheshire and Different Strokes (which works with younger stroke survivors) asked her to evaluate their staff communication programmes or the difficulties faced by stroke survivors returning to work.  In her academic life Jane said she worked closely with people all the time while Caroline’s more solitary life as an artist has caused her to seek people-centred volunteering.  Jane now volunteers for the Alde & Ore Estuary Trust where the environment takes centre stage.

Caroline now works with CRUSE bereavement support locally here. She wanted to work with people face to face and not on the telephone. Once again, she was well trained and has the support of a supervisor. She said “I think it’s important to stress the importance of support and of the wisdom of other volunteers (at our monthly meetings.) It means you’re never doing it on your own, and it can be remarkably rewarding for everyone. Certainly, the training I’ve received has also been a huge help in my own life. “

Jane and Caroline agreed that you receive a huge amount from this kind of work. It’s not why you do it but it is an important part.

What a wonderfully informative talk Alison gave us – clearly this area is a gem on many levels.  To the landward side the estuary owes so much to the river walls built from 1168 and renewed over the centuries, the last major refurbishment followed the significant damage following the storm surge of 1953.  What Alison made clear was that if we do not refurbish the defensive walls along the length of the Alde and Ore Estuary we will end up with vast areas of mudflats should a tidal surge inundate the fragile earth banks. It is planned to upgrade the existing defences, built of clay and grass covered, building higher and wider as necessary to increase resilience.  It is recognised that to build defences ever higher is both unaffordable and unsustainable.

To provided defences that can survive intact whilst allowing the water to overtop is a sustainable solution for both the uninhabited and inhabited parts of the estuary. It is of course of paramount importance that the flood waters quickly drain back into the estuary, through the sluices, as the water levels recede. The plan has to include all walls as the estuary works as a whole so that flooding in one flood cell can affect another.

Facts not fake news…We would upset the fragile equilibrium that the bird and animal life enjoy.  We would lose sailing on the river in the way it is now.  We would lose many miles of enjoyable river walks, and other leisure activities.  There would be a resulting reduction in tourism, reducing footfall to businesses.  There are some 300 houses/businesses dependent upon the walls to keep them safe.  The local economy is worth some £100 million a year.

Most of all we would lose vast acreages of farm land used for vegetable production – with the loss of the freshwater aquifers used to irrigate the sandy uplands. These aquifers are protected from saline contamination by the estuary defences. The damage to agriculture and the many jobs it supports cannot be overstated.  This touched me as the reason my father decided to moved here in the 50’s was to improve the self-sufficiency in food, at a time when food was still rationed.

Alison’s talk ended with the Alde and Ore Estuary Trust’s pie chart showing how funds need to be raised to do the work. The local community’s share to raise is £5 million. Other sources are the Government, landowners and charities. The wall is in a perilous state as at any time there could be another high tide with wind conditions that lead to an overspill of the river and we could lose yet more of our surroundings that we have grown to love. It is a stewardship issue. We must not be the generation that falls short in its obligation. (Summary: Amanda Churchill)

Many of us were still sipping our pre talk cups of tea as Sarah Ladbury introduced Melissa to us. Such an everyday activity that we probably take it for granted, but about which, within minutes, we were going to be hearing some uncomfortable home truths.

Melissa describes herself as a Cosmetic Acupuncturist and Luxury Transformative Retreat Leader but she was here to talk to us about a project in Sri Lanka that she is passionate about supporting called Tea Leaf Vision, run by the UK registered charity Tea Leaf Trust. Her association with the charity began as a result of her own personal story: she told us about a series of extraordinary coincidences which resulted in her managing to find, not only her birth mother, but also two full brothers and her grandmother, living on a tea plantation in Sri Lanka. She described the elation of meeting them but this was tempered by her concern about their living and working conditions.

Poor education keeps the Tamil workers of Indian origin, who were originally brought over especially to provide the poorly paid labour on the tea estates, firmly in their place. Melissa told us that wages are below the UN poverty band and that the tea plantation area in Sri Lanka is known as the world’s “fourth hotspot” for suicide.

Melissa is keenly aware that, had she not been adopted at eight weeks old and brought to the UK where she received an education that has enabled her to pursue her own career choices, she would be one of those plantation workers herself. She has been determined to find the best ways to help not only her own family but also the wider community.

We were shown a short film about Tea Leaf Vision which outlined their work in providing free education programmes, taught by qualified teachers, to the poorest tea estate communities. These programmes have proved life changing for the students who have had the chance to study on them. Melissa told us how she was able to get her two brothers onto the English Diploma Programme. Learning English opens up opportunities for work and the programme includes IT skills and business training. In gratitude to the charity Melissa helped raise the funds for a mobile library, including upkeep for the vehicle and the salaries for three teachers and a driver for a year. The bus not only takes over eight hundred books out to children on a daily basis but also provides safe transport for the diploma students to and from their place of study.

One of Melissa’s brothers now has a good job on a plantation that supplies Direct Trade tea, which promotes fairer, living wages. Melissa herself has launched her own tea brand: “Niroshini Direct Trade Tea” which is produced on this plantation. We were given a sniff of Melissa’s first hand rolled tea, “Flowering Black Velvet”, which has whole white tea flowers in it, which open up once the hot water is added, producing “fragrant, delicate overtones of honey”. A percentage of the profits go to Tea Leaf Vision and Melissa is continuing to search for new ways to support their work.

There were many questions at the end of this fascinating talk and I am adding some website addresses for those who would like to know more.  (Summary: Sarah Dawson)

The Tea Leaf Trust (which runs the project Tea Leaf Vision): https://tealeaftrust.com/ More information about Melissa’s tea:  http://niroshini-acupuncture.com/direct-trade-tea

Lamorna first became interested in the history of Thellusson Lodge, Church Walk, Aldeburgh when she and her husband moved into the house in 1996. She read that in 1789 the 1st Marquis of Salisbury had lived there. Over the next five years Lamorna visited the archives at Hatfield House, much encouraged by the archivist there as she was the first person to research this part of the Marquis’ life.  She continued her research of Thellusson Lodge families up to 1901.

The characters Lamorna introduced us to included royalty, aristocrats, dandies, fops, mistresses and political hostesses. She talked about their ways of life in high office, involvement in legal inheritance battles, their support of the local community, their births, marriages and deaths.  We heard about several notable families and their offspring, namely the 1st Marquis of Salisbury and his wife, Isabella Strode, Sir George and Lady Wombwell, George “poodle’ Wombwell, Arthur Thellusson, and Henrieta Vernon Wentworth.

Lamorna’s historical sources gave us fascinating detail. The local tavern receipts, estate agents’ sales and contents particulars, letters, newspaper articles, portraits, Gillray cartoons, and census information brought the characters and history of Thellusson Lodge to life. They also gave us an insight into the development of Aldeburgh as we know it today.

Lamorna’s talk was well attended – we all look forward to the next instalment when Lamorna has undertaken the next phase of her research.  (Summary: Sally Simmonds)

Two very different poets discussed their very different poems: Vanessa Raison, an ebullient teacher on a middle-aged gap year, and Lizzi Thistlethwayte, an intrepid sailor and published poet. Both are members of the East Suffolk Poetry Group. On the table in front of them were Vanessa’s pamphlet Open and Close and Lizzi’s two pamphlets No Name and Angels and Other Diptera (the latter was shortlisted for the Michael Marks Award for Poetry in 2016).

Vanessa. On coming into the packed space in the library I saw on the screen:

‘It’s not so much what poems are, in themselves, but the infinitely larger optimism they offer by their intermittent twinkles: that beneath the little lights on their tiny masts, so far from one another, so lost to each other, there must be a single black sea. We could have no sense of the continuousness of the unknowable without these buoyant specks.’  (Kay Ryan, extract from Specks)

I thought, erroneously as it turned out, that this meant that the economic metaphors of poetry pointed to the transcendent. Vanessa gave no explanation for the quotation but the moving poem which she had written two days after her mother’s death, and which was read at the funeral, and to us, emphasised the optimism of poetry.

Vanessa said she had started writing poems when her mother died a year ago, and she has written a poem every day since then. She talked about grief, quoting the Kubler-Ross five stages: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance, but went on to explain how the dead continued to live on with us. She put up on the screen a picture of her mother walking with her dog Rusty along the boardwalk at Snape. Unbeknown to her it was taken and published in the AboutFram magazine as an advertisement for Snape Maltings two months after her mother’s death. This photo is included in her collection of poems Open and Close, from which she read three poems: ‘Holy Bhaji’, ‘Snapshot’ and ‘April Fool’s’.

Vanessa’s talk was not all about grief. She told us what poems engaged the children she taught. Poems by Roger McGough and Wendy Cope led to interesting discussions and questions. Her favourite poem, which she read, but was not recognised by anyone in the audience, was ‘You’re’ by Sylvia Plath.

When asked the process of composition Vanessa said she always carried an exercise book in which she could scribble down sights and ideas which might give rise to a poem. Sometimes awake at 3am a poem might come to her fully formed. Perhaps the unspoken message she left us with is ‘A poem a day… Keeps the Doctor away’.

Lizzi.  Lizzi began her talk by answering the question of why she wrote. She said she used to be a paper conservator, bookbinder and teacher, but after her daughter became ill she found she could no longer do these things, so she began to write. She said she finds it difficult to articulate thoughts or ideas in any other way:

‘I love words. The look of words on a page is as important to me as the sound and all the different meanings of a single word. It’s akin to choosing the various materials I need to make a book: first the weight and feel and look and sound of a single sheet of mould-made paper, then balancing these elements against the format of the book, folding the paper, choosing the thickness of linen thread to sew the folded sections together. Poem-making is haptic (and choreographic) as well as aural, visual…and of course the words need to make sense. The constraint is in being truthful to the emotional landscape the poem is rooted in.’

Lizzi continued by relating ‘who and what’ influenced her. The landscape is an influence, both emotional and geographic; attempting to find a reference point within that landscape. Words in a particular order, just a few on a page, no clutter; kept inside your pocket or your rucksack, you can pull out a pamphlet of poems and read and feel Yes.

Lizzi said many poets have influenced her. The first was Ted Hughes; she then quickly found her way to the Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai and then to the European poets that Ted Hughes and Daniel Weissbort published in the 1960s in ‘Modern Poetry in Translation’. She likes to explore poets in translation; her particular joy is to come across bi-lingual editions so that she has, for example, the Norwegian printed opposite the English translation. She said, ‘I like to pretend I can read the unfamiliar words, the sounds (my invented pronunciation of the words!) conjure up a new soundworld. New landscapes. That’s exciting.’

She read four of her own poems which all showed her love of word play: ‘Mirror’, ‘Colonsay’, ‘Still the Rain’ and ‘The Angle of Dip’.

To conclude: these two poets, Vanessa and Lizzi, gave us an interesting and enjoyable afternoon.  (Summary:  Angela Sydenham)

If you would like to obtain copies of Lizzi and Vanessa’s work please get in touch with them directly – for details and prices click on the ‘Links’ page of this website.

Hannah gave a talk about her Gap Year as a volunteer teacher in India, a destination partly inspired by her grandmother’s love of her own visits there.

Hannah’s talk was fresh, amusing and at times very moving as she candidly described her mix of feelings on having thrown herself, on her own, into this unknown territory of job location, encounters and experiences completely unfamiliar to her.

She chose to find a volunteer opportunity independently, rather than via an organisation, since she wanted to be in direct contact with a local community and the headteacher of its school.  Internet trawls and sheer chance brought her to an ad for a 6 month post as a volunteer teacher at a community primary school in northern West Bengal, near Kalimpong.  This method of finding her ‘opportunity’ also brought enormous parental  anxiety as to whether the ad was a route to an internet slaving scam!

Hannah gave us lively descriptions of the school day and life (and the delicious food) in the hostel she shared with the headteachers, their families and 23 of the school children.  She told us about the community, its social life, particularly the many weddings, where everyone was involved in the preparation and cooking for them in the most reciprocal way.  She made many friends, in spite of the sometimes difficult language barrier and was repeatedly the object of enormous generosity, despite the givers being relatively so much poorer.  She learnt about a different approach to life, lacking the time-saving modern domestic conveniences that we have, yet making time to share a cup of tea and human empathy.  In this community, she also learnt about the joys of freedom from preconceived judgement and found the fun and outgoing confidence to join in, to sing and dance even in public.

Hannah spent the first three months in India on her own amongst her Indian friends.  When she returned after Christmas, she brought with her a friend Seb who, to the huge delight of the boys, loves football.  Playing team football became a regular event.

Hannah’s own contribution to the community, above daily school lessons, engagement with everyone and teaching English here and there, was to try to awaken in them the desire to care for their local environment and to better their own surroundings.  They all worked together on projects to change attitudes to littering in both adults and pupils, first clearing the playing fields of huge quantities of litter and then making and decorating bins for future use.  She introduced them to the delights of story books and being read to and to the benefits of practicing regular personal hygiene, such as good tooth-brushing and dealing with outbreaks of head-lice.

In conclusion, she urged us all that a Gap Year was for anyone!  And, after the initial understandable qualms of a novice, she can’t wait to go back next year.

There were no meetings in June, July and August, we stopped for the summer. 

Caroline Fisher, child care lawyer, led this WISE session. It was part role-play, part explanation and part discussion. Caroline’s aim was to show the part played by two organisations – Citizens Advice (CA) and the Child and Family Court Advisory Support Services (CAFCASS) – in resolving family disputes around children. It was the first time that a WISE session had used role-play.

In the first role-play two WISE members (well briefed by Caroline beforehand) played the roles of a mother and a Citizens Advice adviser. In the second role-play Caroline played the role of a CAFCASS officer and the two WISE members played the roles of the respective parents.

The first role-play was set in the Citizen’s Advice office, where a mother was seeking help over an issue involving her ex partner’s contact with their children. The mother told the Citizens Advice adviser that her eight year old son had shown a worrying change in behaviour after seeing his dad and his new partner. The mother wanted to refuse the father contact with their children. At this stage the CA adviser persuaded her to try and solve the problem through mediation rather than go straight to court.

Caroline explained that despite an attempt at mediation, there had followed a period of three months with no apparent change in the situation.

The second role-play took place at the first court hearing following the father’s application for contact with his children. It was set in the office of the CAFCASS officer (played by Caroline) interviewing the father and the mother. The CAFCASS officer encouraged the parents to reach an agreement, which in the role-play scenario they did. It was now necessary for a court order to be made so that the new plan for the father’s contact with the children was incorporated into a legally binding agreement.

Caroline emphasised that in all such disputes the well being of the children is always paramount; the role of CAFCASS is to represent the children’s best interests in court.

The use of role-play turned out to be an unusual and effective method of conveying, in a simple way, the complex circumstances around family breakdown and the workings of the Child and Family Court system.

The session generated a lot of interest and many questions. We all enjoyed the session and went away much better informed. (Summary: Jila Peacock)

Among Arabella Marshall’s inspirations are Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture and Matisse’s chapel at Vence. In her 40s when the children left home she felt free and brave enough to pursue her creative visions. She attended City and Guilds  in 2001 (20 years post art school) and it was in subsequent week long master class that she gained the necessary toolkit for setting up her own  studio. Arabella now has a two meter kiln and sculpts – fusing together layers of coloured glass along with glass granules called frit and copper, gold and silver foil inclusions for detailed patterns. Her pieces may take the form of outdoor sculptures or architectural installations.

Arabella loves the environment and connects her sculptures with spaces. She is not a Christian but enjoys the feeling of awe you get upon entering a church or cathedral. The discovery of the ruined monastery at Minsmere fascinated her with its range of contradictory emotions arising from the tranquil landscape, the RSPB birds, Sizewell power station, boggy land and the red brick remains of a WW11 pillbox which gives the site the site listed status! She knew she had to make a sculpture here, to fill the open air window arch with coloured glass and from that moment she became a project co-ordinator.  Funds were needed for the builders and engineers to fit the glass in the stone and the metal worker to make the frame. Permission was needed from Historic England and the RSPB. Cathy Smith from Suffolk Coasts and Heaths AONB helped her apply for grants. With this and the support of many individuals and two local companies (so far), all the work will be undertaken this year and the piece itself will be installed in May 2020.

Arabella has always loved connecting place and sculpture but a new thrill has grown from this project, that people share and are inspired by her vision and are working as a community to effect change in the world. (Summary: Vanessa Raison)

If you would like to get involved with the project or make a donation please visit the project web site: http://www.awingandaprayer.org.uk/

We started with a quote from C.S. Lewis “Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again”. Lizzi , an East Anglian poet, is interviewing Rosie, who has now come to writing fables for adults and children, having in the past written articles and collaborated on a textbook about complementary medicine.

Rosie told us a bit about her books Songs of the Trees and The Lost Key and we also talked about the meaning and purpose of fables and legends. Songs of the Trees is the first fable she has published. It is beautifully illustrated by Paul Jackson, who really understands her intention. She has based it around six lyrical pieces, the story actually came later. Like her later books, it is based on a real place, Staverton Thicks, and refers to local stories and customs. The character of Aelfwynn, retreats into woodland as a place of healing, and subsequently finds herself walking a labyrinth, which has its own metaphor and symbolism. Paul’s illustrations are delightfully detailed and complex and sometimes contain hidden features. They certainly repay looking at closely.

The Lost Keys is Rosie’s second fable. It has strong roots in East Anglia’s Anglo Saxon heritage and is set in the Saints, a strange and interesting area north of Halesworth with many beautiful churches. It is a little darker than the first. The central character goes on a journey and has to solve various riddles in order to find his true self. Rosie has with permission, used translations for two of the riddles from Anglo-Saxon, The Exeter Book, and one translation from Latin from Saint Aldhelm’s Riddles. The Key within the story contains the symbol of the snake, a metaphor for change and transformation. The Green Man features a great deal, a well known local figure in mythology, often appearing on carvings in East Anglian churches. Both fables contain much analogy.

Fables traditionally have a moral to them. In the 16^th and 17^th centuries they were largely written for adults. It was only with the advent of Grimm and Andersen that they became part of children’s reading. Indeed in the 17^th century they were often written by women and dealt with topics such as feminism and women’s rights, in a suitably coded way.

Rosie and Lizzi suggested that fables and folk tales may represent a response to dark times. We may use them as a way to deal with topics that are too hard to hear otherwise. They might be a way to deal with our fears and make sense of difficult things in a safe way. Do we need new fables for today’s issues? Indeed, Andrew Simms has written a book of modern fairy tales dealing with issues like climate change: Knock Twice – 25 modern folk tales for troubling times. They do seem to play a vital part in our understanding of real life as we grow up. To quote Einstein: “If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales”.

 In wider discussion, we talked about: the use of fairy stories and legends in treating mental illness; the archetypes that occur again and again in legends and fables from very different cultures; Aborigine song lines; the way the Bible deals in fables; cave paintings; and using writing and other creativity, for working with prisoners. Rosie is currently planning a third fable. It will deal with the theme of grief and loss and is set a little further north of the county where villages have disappeared.

Eva Loeffler gave a fascinating talk about her involvement with the Paralympic movement and in particular the 2012 event which brought the games to a huge audience on TV. Daughter of Sir Ludwig Guttmann, founder of the Paralympic movement, Eva was one of the first Directors of the British Paralympic Association. She had the honour of being Mayor of the Paralympic Village in London 2012.

Eva explained that the Paralympic games have had enormous consequences for people with disabilities across the world. In China, for example, before the 2008 games disabled people did not leave their homes; it was only because China was determined to have the highest medal count that they searched out and trained their disabled athletes.  This led to a much greater acceptance of all people with disabilities.

Eva’s involvement with the Paralympic movement carried on from the work of her father Ludwig Guttmann, a brilliant neurologist and neurosurgeon who had had to flee Germany in 1939 because he was Jewish. Eva described how the Guttmann family managed to get to England in March 1939, leaving behind close family members who they never saw again. They arrived in England penniless. Eva and her brother were immediately sent to school where they had to learn English quickly.

Eva talked about how her father developed the spinal injuries unit at Stoke Mandeville Hospital and how this eventually led to the first Paralymic games. She said that at that time – it was 1944 – people with injuries to the spinal cord were not expected to survive very long. Under her father’s direction the centre developed a new scheme of physical and mental rehabilitation; this demonstrated that competitive physical activities were an enormous aid to recovery for young disabled ex-servicemen.

The Stoke Mandeville wheelchair games became international in 1952 but it was after the Rome Olympics in 1960 that 400 wheelchair athletes from many countries took part in the games for the first time. In 1966 Ludwig Guttmann, already a Fellow of the Royal Society, received a knighthood from the Queen. He died in 1980 having done an enormous amount to enable people with disabilities to take part in wider society.

Eva’s involvement with the Paralympic games began when she was asked to become one of the first directors of the British Paralympic Association. Her talk at WISE stressed the importance of the Paralympic games for children with disabilities, allowing them to take part in a wide variety of sports. Eva showed a slide of her carrying an Olympic torch in the procession at the 2012 games and of a bike race past Buckingham Palace. It was especially poignant when another WISE member talked about her own father, who had come back from the Second World War for treatment at Stoke Mandeville, and how his time there was vital to his recovery.

Eva’s talk underlined how a step forward in one area of life – better treatment for people with spinal injuries – spread to a worldwide movement which has changed attitudes and enabled people with disabilities to play a much wider part in society.