A memory fron the Chocolate Box

When I dipped into the chocolate box, it led me to Trendle Ellwood's enchanting Lemurian Garden, where I became lost in this special creation - it awakened a memory of a wonderful summer spent in the Channel Isles when I was 12.


Our first stop was Guernsey, the most beautiful and perfect little island in 1958. It was so small that I could ride round it on my bicycle, and I spent most of my time there exploring, with my dog running at my heels. The very small population then meant it was still quite unspoiled - St Peter Port was the biggest town, a very busy place, with winding streets and a fascinating mix of French and English shops, selling delicious pastries and the knitted `guernseys' that fishermen wore.
The older people spoke an incomprehensible patois, but it had a musical lilt to it, and outside the town there were tiny fishing hamlets, ancient farmhouses and little secret coves filled with shells.
Being a pony mad little girl, I was delighted to see ponies and horses everywhere, in the fields, and being ridden down winding lanes. The people were friendly and always stopped to say hello to a little girl idling along with her dog and bike.
And the wildflowers! Violets, primroses, banks of wild daffodils, swathes of bluebells - the beauty of it filled my eyes at every turn. I felt as if I were in fairyland - or perhaps it was just my first glimpse of Lemuria, of what could be.
I rode out to the fairy ring, an extraordinary circle of stones from neolithic times, where legend says the fairies come out and dance within the circle of stones. I spent a lot of time climbing all over Cornet Castle and wandering through the labyrinth of the German underground hospital - there was so muchto see and do that the days flew past.
But one day I discovered something so enchanted, so magical, that all I could do was stand and stare at it. Guernsey was so full of magic that I was becoming used to it, but even so, I couldn't believe what I was seeing was real.
It was a church, a tiny church, covered in the shells and bits of seawashed glass and china that I loved to pick up along the shore. Each piece had been laid in an intricate mosaic that covered the walls of the church.
Later I found out about the Little Church, as it is called - it was built as a labour of love by a Brother Deodat in 1914 - when he was forced to return to France because of ill health, the work was completed by Brother Cephas, who continued working on it until 1965. Today it is taken care of by the girls and staff of Blancheland College.
But back then, in 1958, Brother Cephas was still working on making the interior as beautiful as the exterior, although I didn't know it at the time. To me it was something enchanted, something the fairies had made, something that existed simply to make God smile - and maybe I wasn't so wrong, at that.