In 1912 he wrote an article on 'Education from a Universal Standpoint' for 'Freewoman.' He then seems to have founded a (progressive) school at Headley Down in Hampshire known as 'the Morshin School.' From here he published 'non cranky' books on diet and well-being such as ' Simple Rules of Health'. For some reason this is still mentioned on the net as '3d. net. Post free from the author, Morshin School, Headley, Hants' as if you could still send (or Paypal) 3d (about 6 cents) to him. He was instrumental in bringing Rutland Boughton's music festival to Glastonbury from Letchworth. This flourished from 1914 to 1926.
Oyler nexts turns up in the 1940s near Sarlat in the Dordogne where he buys a farm and discovers a vanished pastoral world and becomes something of an advocate for the soil, for an acre of land for every countryman and other Utopian ideas. His books 'The Generous Earth and 'Son of the Generous Earth' are about his experiences there. He was a neighbour of Delius whom he saw often and his last recorded writing is a piece on the great composer published in 1972. He is mentioned, even in 2007, in holiday brochures and estate agents sites about this still wonderful area. He is unknown to the DNB and Wikipedia.
Than all we say is all of that we feel.
The past is Now, Now is eternity.
of the family in the event of her mother’s death – something she eventually had to do until 1972.
Back in Sweden, I had an unexpected phone call. It was from Soldanella Oyler. Eric had written her a letter. She spoke with an English accent, and a very old-fashioned one at that. One of Soldanella’s ancestors had been a friend of Beethoven and Haydn; his name was Pehr Frigel, and to my astonishment, he had been born in Kalmar, the town where I myself was born. Frigel had reorganized the Royal Swedish Academy of Music for King Gustaf III in the late 1700s. Soldanella and I, from that day on, talked a couple of times every week, sometimes for hours. Later she became the godmother of my youngest daughter. Often when we talked about her time in Grez, she said: “It’s like a dream I just dreamt.” We talked many times about her teas with Delius, walks with Jelka, of whom she was very fond, and a horrible performance of Delius’s music in his house, and how often she heard him shouting: “Carry me away!”(a call that was particularly embarassing when he grew bored with new guests).
Soldanella and my family saw each other quite often. She lived about six hours’drive away from us.The first time my wife and I went to see her we were amazed – it was like entering another world and time. Some of her furniture was from the sixteenth century and the house was full of paintings by her mother. Philip Oyler couldn’t stand his wife’s painting and burned some of them in their garden. They divorced in the late 1930s. Soldanella was a close friend of August Strindberg’s last fiancée, Fanny Falkner (Strindberg and she had become engaged about a year before his death).