BBC Radio Somerset discusses ‘Treasures From a Deep Mine’

Andrew Daunton-Fear was interviewed on Radio Somerset, on February 21, by presenter Charlie Taylor. Charlie first set the scene about the book being a collection of talks written by Andrew’s late mother, Alison Daunton-Fear, and how Andrew and his sister came about discovering these hand written pieces. Andrew explained how the exciting discovery was actually made 17 years after his mothers passing, while clearing out some old files. He said, “I came across a handwritten script of one of her talks and thought it was very good. I showed my sisters and my elder sister said, ‘are there any more where this came from?'” She searched among old family papers we had never looked at before and eventually discovered more than one hundred scripts dating from the 1930’s.

When asked about Alison’s background and the context of these talks, Andrew shared about the many women’s groups that Alison led over the years, where she would speak. Andrew added, “I felt very strongly that these deserved a wider audience.” He then explained that occasionally she had been able to reach those wider audiences, such as when she would speak over the radio for evening epilogues, after their family emigrated to Australia for a time.

Given that they might be for a wider audience, Charlie went on to ask about what topics the talks cover. Andrew firstly responded by saying that a few of the talks give a real sense of wartime life, with impending invasions and the fear of bombing. He then spoke about some of the broader topics such as, ‘friendship’, ‘living with monotonous work’, ‘building homes’ and ‘prayer’.

Charlie lastly picked up on the overarching theme of hope and asked if that could fit well with today’s difficult circumstances, to which Andrew agreed and began to speak about finding strength, hope and victory in turning to God, which was a theme reflected throughout the talks.