OBITUARIES friends, Dave helping with construction work at Pishwanton Wood.
Margaret Colquhoun Margaret Colquhoun, born in 1947, was a Yorkshire lass; she and wee brother Xenophon were raised in a big old red brick house in Ripon on the banks of the River Ure. Margaret’s mother Marika was a justice of the peace and Eric, her father, taught maths and music at Ripon Grammar School.
Roger Halpern Our Friend Roger passed away on the last day of July this year. He would have been 83 this October!
Eric was a keen gardener and bee keeper so no doubt this was where Margaret first got an interest in our flora and fauna. Margaret came to Scotland in the mid-1960s, where she gained a doctorate in genetics at Edinburgh University. Her extra-curricular activities included an overland trip on the ‘hippy trail’ to Kabul in Afghanistan and mountaineering and rock climbing in the Highlands. Through climbing she met the Edinburgh mountaineer Dave Bathgate and they were married in 1970. They bought a house in the country and lived happily with a cat, a dog, Daisy the Jersey cow and a fine Welsh cob. Margaret trekked up to Everest base camp, where Dave was engaged in an attempt on the south west face. They divorced in 1977 but remained firm
in Harley Street, London and was accepted as a 13year old in the Camphill Schools, Aberdeen. In Newton Dee, a House full of boys, Roger was shown how to dig in the garden, when after having had a fit, he used to hit out! In 1949, when my wife Christiane joined Camphill, she got to know Roger, because she had him in her dormitory of several boys. With Christiane Roger learned gardening and observing the weather. It was a joy to work with him.
Much later, in 1979-80, when we were establishing the work at William Morris Roger was born in 1934 on the 30th October. House, a former Workhouse, we received a call to ask if a Roger Halpern could join us. His mother Barbara Strachie Halpern was Well, he soon did join! part of the Oxford Literary Circle. Rogers Father was a Swedish Naval Officer. Roger Roger was a tall, good looking gentleman, met neither his real father, nor the man his mother married later. Mr. Halpern was an Air with polite speech and a taste for classical Music, especially Opera and for holiday Pilot and died in an air crash during World travelling! His mother took him regularly to War Two. Opera cycles in London; Vienna, and Verona. Roger grew up in the cultured background of Roger loved the journeys, the hotels and Opera Houses. He always looked forward to his mother. Because he developed epileptic his next trip and holiday! fits early on; he was schooled in a private special school. He was seen by Dr. K. Koenig
www.camphill.org.uk
Margaret was a founder of the business Helios Fountain in Edinburgh’s Grassmarket and involved in the conception of Peter Potter Gallery in Haddington before starting up The Life Science Trust in 1992. She also studied zoology and genetics with agricultural science at Edinburgh University in the 1960s and worked there as a research associate in the 1970s on questions of population genetics and evolutionary biology. Later on, still carrying questions into the reality and relationship of taxonomy and evolution, she spent four years in the Carl Gustav Carus Institute in Oschelbronn in Germany and at the Natural Science Section in Dornach, Switzerland, learning to use the Goethean scientific methodology. Since then, she has both taught and researched extensively using Goethean science in Britain with a special interest in landscape, medicinal plants and animal evolution. She was also the director of the Pishwanton Project of the Life Science Trust, an educational charity working on environmental issues in East Lothian. After her Ph.D. at Edinburgh University, she underwent a four-year training (in Germany and Switzerland) in the scientific methodology developed by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Her special interest was in landscape, medicinal plants and animal evolution. This was a turning point in her life’s work, enabling her to develop a holistic way of practising science, which she carried, in collaboration with others, into many different spheres of work: science, agriculture, horticulture, medicine, landscape design, architecture, therapy, visual and performing arts and numerous crafts. In 1992 she founded the The Life Science Trust, a Scottish charity, whose aim was
the furtherance of this work. In 1996, the trust purchased Pishwanton Wood, at the foot of the Lammermuir hills near Gifford, which became the focus of Margaret Colquhoun’s work. Hundreds of people, both from the local area and all over the world, have come to Pishwanton to work and study there. The project still continues to develop, and on Margaret’s 70th birthday in May 2017 she opened the first residential chalet on-site. She herself described Pishwanton as: “A pioneer experiment in the sustainable and therapeutic integration of a variety of activities that might normally be seen as mutually exclusive, for example agriculture, horticulture, medicinal plant cultivation, ecological conservation and research, education, the arts, community living and business. The Pishwanton Project is thus an innovative, land-based project, which provides a pioneer focus for sustainability in the 21st century.” She was much loved by a large number of friends from all over the world and her wonderful collaborative work will continue for very many people to be a living inspiration. Margaret’s Obituary in The East Lothian Courier
Pishwanton
During the 1950’s and 60’s Roger lived for 18 years in the Camphill Botton Village in Yorkshire. He was one of the early pioneers! Then he moved around a bit to other Camphill places, as he had itchy feet and needed change. In the 1990’s Roger moved from William Morris house to the Orchard Leigh Community in the same village, where his mother had bought a cottage for him and others. He had become a knowledgeable Garden-Farmer and became a respected member of the community. On Sundays he always came to this Church to ring the bell for the service. In the last few years of his life Rogers’s strength declined, though he still worked in the Gardenshed. He had to use a stick to steady his walking. These years were accompanied by kind carers to help him along. His best years were in Botton Village; he knew everyone and was a loved member of the Village Community. Whilst we bury Roger’s body here today, we know of course that his spirit and soul is yonder with other
friends who went before him. All who know Roger will want to send their love and their prayers to him where he resides now. Michael Lauppe’s Tribute at Roger’s Funeral Gloucestershire August 2017
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