Josie Adler and The Sached Tortoise

When Turret College was set up, late 60’s, Anne liked Dave’s suggestion of a tortoise for the logo.  Dave’s reasoning: the tortoise knows when to stick its neck out. 

When Turret College was set up, late 60’s, Anne liked Dave’s suggestion of a tortoise for the logo.  Dave’s reasoning: the tortoise knows when to stick its neck out. Theo Derkx took up co-director with Dave on Anne’s departure to the UK.  

During Theo’s first visit to Misereor in Aachen he visited Aachen Cathedral where restoration was still going on after the bombing in WWII. One of the oldest cathedrals in Europe, it is an adjunct to Charlemagne’s chapel. Beyond the altar is the Gothic choir or Capella vitrea (glass chapel) of 1414, a spectacular sight… Walls filled with 13 colourful windows that rise 100 feet high. The original windows were badly damaged by fires and finished off by the bombing raids of World War II; the present glass dates from the 1950s. 

Theo, a Dominican priest at the time, spent some time with the stained-glass glaziers involved in the restoration work. He was told that some but not all the original glass could be refitted.  He enquired whether the glazier would be willing to make a smallish plate for him, using some of the pieces, and the man agreed.  However, when Theo said he wanted a tortoise in the centre, the man told him that he had never seen a tortoise.  So, Theo went to Aachen Station and procured a postcard with a tortoise pic. The gift he brought to Dave hung where light shone through the glass in our Johannesburg homes, and now in our apartment in Hamilton, Ontario. 

I don’t apologise for my enjoyment of stories en route in life.  You will likely predict that a few of us laughed wryly when Dave and Clive were banned in 1978. Decades ahead to today, as we look back on the long, productive endeavour that the SACHED project was, maybe I can allude to the long survival of some 600-years old stained glass from the cathedral, inspiring in different form and shape, different time, different place, and still alive with beauty and inspiring energy, I find happiness in that!