Editorial.

Joy Quennell.

News of Members.

A Swim I shall Never Forget.

A Dry Spell.

Thoughts on a Favourite Poem.

Mind Bender

This is not an easy editorial to write because, since last I wrote one we have lost Joy Quennell. An appreciation of her life and service, especially to the Otters is included later but it would seem wrong not to note her passing here.

While I am being serious might I ask for more volunteer helpers so that the load may be spread more evenly? Those we have do an admirable job but at holiday times such as August we cannot meet our commitments. If you can help or know someone else who is willing to assist us, please contact one of the existing helpers.

We could also do with more members, please put the orange leaflets, which you should be able to obtain from Monica, in surgeries or shops, pubs, church halls, chippies and other places that come to mind. If you know of neighbours, friends, members of clubs or churches to which you belong don’t hesitate to invite them. The rest of us can make sure that everyone has a warm welcome.

On a much lighter note I would like to thank everyone who made our Garden Party so successful. It was one of the most enjoyable that I can remember.

We now look forward to our Christmas Party and I would like to ask volunteer helpers to speak to Vicki Longland and/or Sue Weller. I understand that the need is not so much for food but for practical help especially with the washing up and clearing away tables. We are all good at enjoying ourselves, less good at what has to be done afterwards - as my wife will tell you! The date of the Party is 15^th December, the venue Fordwater School. The time when you have dried and dressed from swimming - we are a modest group of people! Anyone who will not be swimming should aim at 6.15 p.m. for 6.30. We usually have quiz a raffle or games which require little movement. Ideas and assistance with these will be appreciated especially prizes. I trust it will be as happy an evening as it always is.

A new item in this newsletter is inclusion of news about members. If you have anything to celebrate or share with us, or you know of something that the rest of us might be told about, please give me a written note. There are friends who tell me about these but I rely completely on you to let me know and to suggest actions which I might take - such as sending flowers to people in hospital. You are my eyes and ears - and my brain perhaps, as again my wife might say - so do please speak to me, or one of the committee. We are only able to pass on or act upon the information we receive.

Thank you,

(25^th February 1936 - 7^th July 2001)

Joy was born Dorothy Joyce Dines and brought up in Lavant. She was her mother Dorothy’s long awaited child and when somebody said, "That baby is Dorothy’s Joy", the name stuck.

Time passed by and she went to work in Geary’s shop in Chichester. When there was a need to find a space in town to leave the shop girls bicycles, they went to the Cycle Shop at the corner of Crane Street where Gordon Quennell worked. He and Joy married in 1961. Their first home together was a flat at the top of a house in Hambrook where it was necessary to carry water up two flights of stairs. Later the moved to Broadsole Cottages in East Ashling and, finally, to Haresfoot Close in Funtington. Children, Kevin and Patricia, came on the scene.

For many years Joy worked in the school canteen, first in the Dell and later at the new school. This was a job that changed over the years but she enjoyed being there with the children.

Joy was one of those cheery souls remaining so even through the discomfort of her illness, (at least publicly). She was not a complainer but a ‘getter on and doer’, and a contributor. She was involved in helping the Area Youth Swimming Club from 1977 and the Sussex Otters from 1980. She was also a loyal Christian Aid collector. Joy loved West Stoke Church and week after week, helped Gordon to clean it and prepare it for the services; with true dedication. She was there just two days before her death, duster in hand, struggling with the task.

A highlight of her life was attending the Queen’s Garden Party at Buckingham Palace last year.

The huge turn out at her funeral was a witness to the number of lives she touched for good and with gentle kindness. She was well named and was a joy to so many. She is sadly missed,

‘Mrs. Quennell was a very special lady, who with her husband gave every Monday night for about twenty years to keep the Club going. She was always helpful and kind, with a special smile of encouragement for the children. She will be greatly missed by all of us and indeed we shall not be able easily to find anyone to take her place with such dedication, tact, care, and love’.

We hope to include items of interest about our families regularly but this does depend on you letting the Editor know, preferably through Monica, Approval for inclusion of the item should be obtained from the person who is its subject. (The editor accepts no responsibility for factual honesty. If someone tells me they are fifty for the tenth time I will believe them!)

Peter is a keen bowler. A recent achievement gained a mention in the local newspaper. He scored a hot shot, which I understand is a rarely achieved maximum score.

Congratulations Peter.

We congratulate them on 65 years of married life, an amazing milestone. Other events taking place round about the time was the Olympic Games in Germany where Jesse Owens shattered Hitler’s Aryan dream, Britain was facing the Abdication Crisis, the Jarrow March was still fresh in people’s minds. How many of us were old enough to remember these things? Congratulations!

½ lb. Flour ½ lb. Raisins

½ lb. Soft brown sugar 2 tablespoons brandy, and one for the cook

½ lb. Butter 5 eggs(beaten)

2oz. Ground almonds ½ teaspoonful, cinnamon

¼ lb. Candid peel (finely chopped) ½ teaspoonful, mixed spice

½ lb. Glace cherries (cut in pieces) ½ teaspoonful, salt

½ lb. currants 4 tablespoon black treacle

½ lb. Sultanas

Prepare the fruit. The fruit should be prepared 2 days before you want to bake the cake. Soak the currants, sultanas, raisins, cherries and peel in an airtight container with the brandy, shaking from time to time. (The tin, not you, unless you imbibed too much brandy!)

Before you start mixing turn the oven to 150C or gas mark 4.

Prepare a deep cake tin with two or three layers of grease proof paper.

This is because of the cooking time, the cake may burn.

Cream butter and sugar.

Add beaten eggs, flour cinnamon, mixed fruit, salt almonds, soaked fruit, including any brandy left in the container, (you should be so lucky), and treacle, and give it a good mix.

Turn mixture into well-lined cake tin.

Cook for one hour at 150C or gas mark 2, then turn down to 140C, or gas mark 1 for approximately 2 hours, test to make sure the cake is cooked. Cool in tin before turning out.

I always make my cake in the October half term holiday, storing it in an airtight container until ready to add almond paste and icing a bit nearer Christmas. During storage I take it out of the tine a couple of times, poke I with a knitting needle and add a bit more brandy (no comment!), but this is not necessary. (Any spirit could be used instead of brandy) - or as well as?

(with helpful additional editorial comment).

I know it’s there, skulking in the shed,

I open the door, and approach it with dread.

In its corner, coiled, ready to spring

As I reach out to grab it alarm bells ring.

Suddenly it’s uncurled

And writhing across the floor,

We fight silently,

I wrestle it on the floor.

It’s all over the place,

And maliciously wets on my skirt,

I hold it firmly by the throat,

It gives me another squirt.

We stagger into the kitchen,

It lashes out at the flower bed

Its first victory,

Four of my petunias are dead.

I go back into the garden,

No water coming out at all

I return to the kitchen,

Find water on the floor and up the wall.

On the lawn it shudders

And gives a deathly sort of cough,

The back end of it comes alive

And knocks two lupins off.

I drag it round the veg patch,

It resists me all the way,

You really couldn’t call this

‘The end of a perfect day’!

I try to get it under control,

To put it back in the shed

It’s heavy and dirty,

By now I’m sweating and red.

It gurgles and splutters,

I’m sure it’s saying "I hate you"

I know the feeling’s mutual,

As it waters my left shoe.

Disgruntled and bedraggled

I drag and heave my revolting hose,

With one last defiant gesture

It snaps off my favourite rose.

At last I get the better of it,

It’s in its corner again,

I just about get back indoors

When down it pours with rain!

There’s a whisper down the field where the year has shot her yield

And the ricks stand grey to the sun,

Singing, "Over then, come over, for the bee has quit the clover

And your English summer’s done."

You have heard the beat of the

off-shore wind

And the thresh of the deep-sea rain.

As we sit in the Meeting House, through the open window a sultry summer evening relaxes us into writing mode and the click of ball on willow from the park reminds us that summer is still here and that we live for the moment.

Think on for the moment as winter prods with a cold finger.

"The days are sick and cold and the skies are grey and old…

And the twice-breathed airs blow damp….."

He’s to sell his tired soul for the bucking beam-sea roll of a black Bilbao tramp…

A vision to carry us through the threatened winter months ahead

‘Ha’ done with the tents of Shem dear lass,

We’ve seen the seasons through…’

As he carries us out on The Long Trail, the trail that is always new…

Call to Adventure. The poet takes the words, leaving little for the essayist to write. But what a call to adventure, but folk change. Children of today, I fear will not know who Kipling was or indeed is. In 1897 Smokes of Spring go up to clear the brain…The Red gods make their medicine again!"

A matter of interest, I must try that upon one of the younger children of today. I fear the reaction will be a blank, a very blankness of the soul….but who am I to preach to persons unlikely to listen…? Enough of my endeavours to convert the heathen.

"The Lord knows what we may find, dear lass

And the deuce knows what we may do - but we’re back once more on the old trail, the out trail,

We’re down hull-down on the long trail - the trail that is always new!"

He must go-go-away from here! On the other side of the world he’s due….

"Send the road is clear before you when the old spring fret comes o’er you

And the Red gods call for you…"

We may not rest our case…there is more, much more, we fly, random…

"Take ‘im away!

E’s gorn where the best men go,

Take ‘im away! An’ the gun wheels turnin’ slow.."

At a visit to Bateman’s, (the Sussex home of Rudyard Kipling), I looked up from the garden. A face looked down at me from his study…

(Kipling has long been neglected and may be due for a come back. This piece may persuade members to dust down their old volumes and read them, or go to the library - or to Bateman’s, there is still time before it closes for the winter. Editor).