Kathleen Keleny, Quaker and lifelong vegetarian celebrated her 90 th birthday on June 24 th in Oxford. Her father James Henry Cook opened England's first health food shop in Birmingham about hundred years ago. Kathleen Keleny ran the vegetarian guest-house 'Coombe Lodge' for many years and is still doing the garden and growing all her vegetables organically. The guest-house is now run by her son Chris and daughter-in-law. She also has a daughter and three great-grandchildren. Two years ago, in 1996, Kathleen wrote a book where she tells the very interesting story of her life, the beginning of food reform and of the first vegetarian restaurant and hotel in Britain, which was run by her father James Henry Cook. In the following there are some quotes from Kathleen's book: 'The First Century of Health Foods', either seen through the eyes of her father or through her own ones. Sigrid de Leo	Kathleen Keleny
A hundred Years of Health Foods Kathleen's father talking: Early Beginnings My daughter is 88. When she was born I wanted her to have continuous good health, the energy and endurance to make work and play enjoyable, good digestion, clear eyesight and mental and physical vigour. These attributes would help her to withstand all the stresses and strains she might encounter throughout life. To help build her strength I fixed a Swedish Bar to the top of her bed-room door-frame which could be altered and put in the centre of the door-way on which she could swing. Later her school friends loved to come and perform on it.	James Henry Cook
Instinct told me that nature creates a body ideally in balance and (when it has been knowingly or unknowingly interfered with) illnesses come to restore the balance. I believed that illness is generally a sign that we have wandered off the road that nature laid down for us. Consequently I was determined to give her vitality from fresh organically grown food, fresh air and optimistic thoughts and omit injections and vaccinations from her life. Since those early days many people she has met through her lecturing, cookery demonstrations and Vegetar ian Guest House, have turned to Vegetarian ways. Although I am not physically near her, I have influenced her to write about herself in order to help others and show that this way of life works. Conversion I was born on the Isle of Wight in 1869 and came to Wolverhampton in 1885 where I was lucky enough to meet a keen elderly Vegetarian, Mr George Snape, who lived mainly on wholemeal biscuits and raisins and every weekend walked long distances with the energy of youth. In 1890 I went to Birmingham and took part in debates in favour of Temperance and Votes for Women but it was not until 1895 that I went to a meeting of the Vegetarian Federal Union when the President, Arnold Hills, a well known business man and Managing Director of Thames Iron Works, spoke for an hour on Vegetarianism and its benefits. Long before he bad finished I knew that I would never eat animals again but would try to live on the fruits of the earth. Before I altered my diet I was physically very delicate, and refused by three insurance companies. A few weeks later, enjoying the life-giving powers of dietary reform, I was accepted as a first class life risk. The First Vegetarian Restaurant And Hotel Mr Hills was an inspiring speaker and the next time he visited Birmingham called together a group of business men and said: "I would like to see a first-class vegetarian Restaurant in Birmingham and if you will start it I will subscribe ten per cent of the cost" In 1896, it so happened that a new building was being erected in Corporation Street, Birmingham. After much deliberation, the consortium of business men rented the whole of the basement and ground floor to use as a Vegetarian restaurant. As I was very keen on the whole idea, I was appointed manager. Then the landlord asked us if we would take the whole of the seven storey building and convert the upper five storeys into an hotel. In the summer of 1898 the first Vegetarian hotel in England, called 'The Pitman Vegetarian Hotel', was opened and I was made manager of that too. The hotel was named after Sir Isaac Pitman, inventor of Pitman Short-hand, who had been a Vegetarian for 60 years, and at the time was the best known vegetarian in England. The First Health Food Store Vegetarian meals were an immediate success hundreds of people lunched with us daily, and many of the hotel visitors became Vegetarians. The customers started asking for food which they could take home with them (a precedent of the modern take-away?). This was how the title 'Health Food Store' was coined by customers asking for foods for health. I produced simple and appetising foods from nuts, cereals, fruits and vegetables to take the place of meat, lard, butter, cheese and jelly made from animals. We were trying to provide a curative diet which would help people to know what to eat for health and long life, and at the same time give freedom to animals. Health Foods There was a famous Vegetarian in Torquay, Dr George Black, who suggested that as white flour is not a whole-food and is detrimental to health, because it has the wheatgerm and bran removed, so the Pitman Health Food Company should sell wholemeal biscuits; wholemeal macaroni; brown undressed rice, brown barley instead of white and pearl barley. Dr Black was a great personal friend and helper and knew about the benefit of paddling in cold water long before Father Kneipp discovered the healing properties at Bad Wörishofen. It appears that the marvellous horse Red Rum knew this instinctively because he enjoyed running through shallow sea water which strengthened his fetlocks. Of the many foods produced by the Pitman Health Food company, Nuto Cream Soup and Nut Cream were the most popular and valuable. They contained no cows milk so were easily digested and needed only the addition of water. Dr Black, through whose suggestion and guidance Nuto Cream Soup and Nut Cream were originally invented, instigated their scientific research. The Nut Cream proved suitable for babies of six months and upwards and the Nuto Cream Soups, some flavoured with vegetables, made the perfect protein for any savoury meal. Knowing the detrimental effects of tea and coffee on people's health, Pitman Dandelion Coffee, made from dried roasted roots was introduced. At about the same time various fruit and nut cakes were sold. One of the first men in our time to walk from Land's End to John's o' Groats was George Allen and on the walk the only food he ate was Pitman fruit and nut cakes for energy. This brought us good publicity and for much of the way I cycled with him. Kathleen's Upbringing My daughter was brought up on Nuto Cream Soup and organically grown fruit, nuts and vegetables. When she was about five years old she suddenly found that nice people, people she loved, ate animals and this absolutely horrified her. She thought that she could not possibly love people who did that and I had quite a difficult time explaining to her that we love everyone whether we agree with them or not. We love and accept people as they are, not as we would wish them to be. When we seek it out we ultimately find that there is a spark of truth in everyone, from which we can learn. This was an early step to her becoming a Quaker and member of the Society of Friends. Much later, on leaving King Edward High School in New Street, Birmingham she came to work in the office of the factory in Aston which employed about 70 people. At this time she joined the Birmingham Athletic Club which she attended one night a week. Each year she participated in the club's demonstration at the Central Hall, which we proud parents watched with great enjoyment. She also played hockey during and after her school years. Kathleen had music lessons from the age of 8 to 15 and then from 18 (when she typed for a composer in exchange for piano and singing lessons). As we lived near Birmingham she was able to attend most of the big Symphony concerts conducted by Adrian Boult in Birmingham Town Hall. She had free entrance because she was a programme seller. She heard Paderewski, Horowitz and Yehudi Menuhin, a Vegetarian who said that his violin teacher was his Yoga teacher because he taught him how to relax. Much later when Kathleen was President of the Bath Vegetarian Society in her fifties, Yehudi Menuhin played at one of the Bath Festival events. He agreed to meet three Committee members after the concert and told Kathleen how very important his Vegetarian diet was to him and the work he did. At this time my wife and I were members of the Unitarian church, believing in the unity of, and having reverence for, all life. Later I remember walking with Kathleen every Sunday morning to attend Quaker Meeting in Sutton Coldfield where she learned that there is 'That of God in everyone'. My wife Grace Marian Cook was a well known Singer, she was one of the first cookery demonstrators of vegetarian dishes in the Midlands, and she experimented with making very many of the new lines for the Pitman Health Food Co. Famous Customers Maria Corolli, the romantic novelist who wrote 28 best-sellers and was a concert pianist, was one of my early customers her first order was dated 1903. Dr T.R. Allison, who founded the well known bread-making firm, and Albert Broadbent bought health food from me. When Mahatma Gandhi came to England, on a lecture tour the organisers asked me to provide vegetarian food for him. This was when I first heard the word 'Ahimsa' which gave a name to what I had believed since my teens. The word means 'non-hurting', whether it be a person or animal by word, thought or deed. Wartime During the first world war many poor people were starving in Digbeth and daily urns of Nuto Cream soup were sent there from the factory to help feed them. At Christmas we made Vegetarian Christmas puddings in various sizes, and hundreds of small ones were distributed free to the crowds of children who queued out-side the gates of the factory. Long before Lady Dowding's 'Beauty Without Cruelty' crusade, which started in Tonbridge Wells after the second world war, we sold non-animal soap and many thousands of pairs of very warm gloves made from synthetic material instead of fur. Kathleen talking: Wonderful Vegetarian Parents My two wonderful Vegetarian parents brought me up as a Vegan whose diet included nut butters, Nuto Cream soup and organically grown fruit and vegetables. We never ate animals or animal products or received any injections or inoculations. This was quite difficult because all babes born in 1908 had to have smallpox vaccinations unless a solicitor would sign a paper to prove that the father objected. My cousin was vaccinated two years before I was born and the vaccine infected her whole system very badly which led to her having an eye removed. Later, when travelling abroad, I belonged to the Anti-Vaccination League and always had exemption from vaccination. At the house where I was born in Edgbaston my father had an old garden, created by the previous owners, with lots of different fruit trees and a medlar tree. The garden was adjacent to Birmingham Botanical Gardens where we had season tickets, so frequently visited. This started my great interest in horticulture. I think my father really wanted me to be a world famous athlete to prove that health and stamina could be obtained from a Vegetarian diet, so in the garden he made me various swings and bars and a high jump stand on which to exercise. We owned a cottage at Springvale in the Isle of Wight where every year from the age of 5 to 18 I spent Easter and August school holidays swimming daily in the sea. [...] The Bircher Benner Clinic In Zurich Frank (Kathleen's first husband) bought a large book on healing herbs and said that he would learn all about herbs so that he could give talks bringing in the Vegetarian angle. I said I would like a week at the Bircher Benner clinic in Zurich so that I could learn the correct way to cater for people's health. I had heard Dr Bircher Benner lecture and learned about his first introducing Muesli which he claimed was a perfect food for convalescence an easily digested raw food which retained all the vitamins. Many convalescents came to the clinic to stay after their operations in order to recuperate and derive benefit from raw food which gave them vitality, healing and energy. So Frank studied herbs and looked after the children while I went to Zurich and learnt so much about diets which can benefit both ill and well people. Every morning at the clinic we had a large bowl of Muesli consisting of raw oatmeal (preferably jumbo eats) soaked over night with either cow's milk or Soya milk; two raw grated apples for each person: and one dessert-spoonful of lemon juice and one of honey. A cup of herb tea was served with breakfast. Before breakfast we were taken a short walk into the forest and every-one quietly chose a tree and pressed their palms against the bark for a few minutes feeling the healing power and energy from the trunk coming through their palms into their whole body and mind. The sense of uplift from this exercise gave us all a good start for the day. After breakfast there were several water treatments for everyone. Lunch consisted of: Three raw fruits such as pear, apple and orange or tomato, peach and apricot. Salad made up of a blend of raw roots, fruits and shoots. (An old Yoga idea). Roots grown in the earth, such as grated carrots, turnips or beetroot, are for our physical development. Shoots grown on the ground such as lettuce celery or onions, are for our mental development. Fruits from above the earth, such as red pepper, almonds or hazelnuts, are for our spiritual development. Dr Bircher Benner cured many patients by giving them entirely raw diets. He believed that all vitality comes from the sun so by having raw salad and fruits on which the sun has shone we were taking in vitality. He had been to Mexico to investigate an Indian tribe's diet and found that they existed on fruits, nuts, vegetables, honey and grains, all of which they grew themselves organically. They were all healthy and strong and never developed cancer or other debilitating illnesses. At the early evening meal everyone had Muesli, the same as at breakfast. This was his curative diet for every-one, then when people were quite better, cooked organic vegetables could be added to the diet with some whole-meal bread. Sweden After the first few years of living in Gloucestershire, I realised that my son, Christopher might never meet a Vegetarian girl. He was still at a Boy's Public School so in the school holidays, encouraged by Grace and Terence Lane, who appointed me to represent the Friends Vegetarian Society, I decided to take him to the International Vegetarian Congress which was being held in Sweden in 1952. We went by ship where I knew all the other English Vegetarians. [...] Life-long Principles On my 80th Birthday the local press printed the following ,,What We Eat Is what We Are" reported by Diane Cook: "Yoga enthusiast, Vegetarian, herbalist and Quaker Kathleen Keleny-Williarns at 80 years of age is a living proof of that 'You are what you eat and what you think'. She says: "Food on which the sun has shone gives you vitality and by having organically grown food we take in that vitality". Being a lifelong Vegetarian fitted in with another of Kathleen's beliefs live without killing any creature. With her wide experience and knowledge of herbs Kathleen has never had a major operation or been hospitalised. Total fitness of mind and body has been achieved by diet and her devotion to Yoga for the last 30 years'. Healthy old age At eighty-eight, after a life-time of Vegetarianism, Food Reform, Herbalism, Yoga and Quaker belief I am happy to say that I am still physically and mentally active. I gave up driving when I was eighty, but have many local friends through my Yoga classes and garden that there is always someone offering to take me to the various meetings I like to attend, and to concerts and plays. [...] I have now written this little book, partly as autobiography, but also that people will know that this is possible, by following healthy, time-hon-oured principles, to live without injections, inoculations, pills or tablets and have good health without killing animals. It is specially written for mothers because in my lectures to school children, I have found that nowadays many young people want to be Vegetarian, but their mothers dare not let them for fear that children will not be strong without meat, or because mothers do not know how to start providing a balanced vegetarian diet. [...] There have been Vegetarians in the world since prehistory. Some from the standpoint of taste, some from religious belief, some from the health standpoint and some from compassion for animals. In the late nineteenth century my father was part of the early days of the Food Reform Movement in the British Isles. He had been a meat-eating, weak and ill child who gained health immediately he turned to Vegetarianism as a young man. His ardently held beliefs in health, exercise and compassion were passed on to me, and I am proud that he pioneered the Health Food Stores which are so common today.
Quoted from: The First Century of Health Foods Kathleen Keleny Nuhelth Books 26 Church Street Stroud Glos. Gl5 1JL