The Language of Flowers

Yesterday, we said our final goodbyes to Godfrey, Professor Brown. It was a beautiful day for such a sad occasion. Betley Court’s bluebells, stalled by this year’s chilly spring, were belatedly coaxed out by the weekend’s warm weather. Touchingly, my brother-in-law and his wife made a little posy of handpicked bluebells to place on his coffin for his final journal.

In common with everyone else in this country (including the Royal family, who laid Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh to rest this weekend), we were governed by Covid restrictions, and limited to just 30 mourners, made up of close family, friends and carers. The wider family joined us via the wonders of an internet link, and the knowledge that loved ones were united with us in mourning was enormously comforting.

Betley Court Bluebells

As luck would have it, Nigel found his father’s poem Bluebells, tucked away in the depths of an external hard drive (not quite the romance of finding something in a treasure chest or secret cupboard). It seems fitting to share it at this time.

Bluebells

Bluebells are a cerulean choir

Who sing of hope and summer

Their notes ring true in shade and sun

And cluster close to one another

 

Bluebells are a cerulean choir

Who sing an anthem to the skies

Their notes hang in the air and misty blue

That slowly fade and never dies

 

Bluebells are a cerulean choir

Who sing of life and love

Their notes rebound from tree to tree

As muted echoes of true love

 

One day maybe I’ll join the choir

And join their singing too

And then I’ll know the peace of soul

Of tranquil bluebell blue

Godfrey N Brown, 2007

The poem was written when Godfrey was in his eighties, and can be read simply as an ode to a much-treasured flower, that happens to grow magnificently at Betley Court. In another way can be read as the poet acknowledging their own fleetingness, and envisaging a time beyond their lifespan. Whatever he meant by it, Godfrey has left a lovely message, and many good memories.

Godfrey enjoyed using flowers as symbols. He commissioned stained glass windows for the birth of each of the grandchildren, and one for his beloved Freda, after her death. Alas, the windows were lost in the disastrous fire of 2019, but we do have photos – somewhere! He liked to use flower and plant imagery to denote countries (daffodil for Wales, for example), for names, particularly girls’ names that are derived from plants, and to symbolise other notions, like ‘peace’.

The Victorians had a name for this – floriography – or ‘flower writing’. In times before mobile phones and sliding into an intended’s DMs (direct messages for those of you not the social media platform Instagram), texting, or indeed sexting, Victorians said it with flowers. Many, many, many armfuls of flowers seem to have been sacrificed in the pursuit of love, friendship or expressing sorrow. What the repressed Victorians couldn’t articulate overtly, could be conveyed covertly through a sophisticated code of flowers.

A book popularising florriography

 Although there are many references to floral symbolism throughout the Bible, the specific passion for floriography in the Victorian era seems to stem from the period of tulipomania that hit Europe in the 1800s, that started in Ottoman Turkey and the court of Constantinople. Authors popularised the obsession by publishing books on the subject, and I can guess that improved transportation, and the emerging horticultural technological breakthrough of the heated greenhouse all feed the craze.

The wreath

So, to the modern day, and Godfrey’s wreath. The florist started with a tricolour base, based on the colours chosen by several African nations, red, green and yellow, denoting Godfrey’s time working in the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, and his scholarly writings on history and educational theory in Africa written during his time there. Of these flowers, red/orange tulips symbolised friendship, green hydrangea; gratitude and sunflowers; joy (the bouquet for his last birthday featured these sunny blooms).

Godfrey on his birthday, July last year

Tulips are also a flower of peace, and featured heavily in the Peace Garden at Betley Court, which Godfrey created in 1995. Other plants included ferns for sincerity, yellow roses for friendship and devotion, and sea holly - a type of thistle – denoting family links to Scotland. And, of course, bluebells that symbolise humility and constancy in floriography, but in our minds, will always reminds us of Godfrey, his beloved wife Freda and Betley Court too.

All best wishes

Ladybird Su