The Friend

Time for change?

In Manchester Quaker Meeting House, which was the venue recently for Meeting for Sufferings, there is a striking image: a tapestry panel that depicts a major event in the history of nineteenth century Quakerism. The panel celebrates the Manchester Conference held in 1895 when some thousand Friends gathered in the city.

Our Society, at that time, faced the challenges of falling membership, changing demographics and generational divide. It was middle class through and through.

Interview: Sally Nicholls

‘Kids love death and killing! They like the edges,’ says Sally Nicholls, the award-winning children’s author who is now based in Oxford. Born into a Quaker family in Stockton-on-Tees, she has been a lifelong storyteller. Her life connects the wider world with Quakerism: after Great Ayton School she attended a state sixth form college before spending six months working with the Japanese Red Cross. She then studied Literature and Philosophy at Warwick University before taking an MA in Writing for Young People at Bath Spa University. The potentially precarious writer’s life was not entered into lightly: ‘I took the decision to a Quaker Meeting.’

Images of Christ: Strength in weakness

Elisabeth Frink never employed any help modelling her characteristically vigorous sculptures of men, dogs, birds and horses. When asked why she rarely worked with the female form, she replied: ‘I have focused on the male because to me he is a subtle combination of sensuality and strength with vulnerability.’

Alternative Remembrance Day events held in the UK

An Alternative Remembrance Sunday ceremony, organised by the Peace Pledge Union, was held in Tavistock Square in London.

Speakers at the ceremony included Sam Walton, the Quaker activist who was recently found not guilty of criminal damage after attempting to disarm warplanes bound for Saudi use in Yemen. He criticised Theresa May for laying a wreath at the Cenotaph to remember the war dead while pursuing policies that are fuelling war, and pointed out that civilians in Yemen could be killed with British-made weapons at the same time as UK politicians talk of mourning victims of war. He also brought a message from people affected by war in Yemen, thanking those present for remembering them and campaigning against arms sales.

Coventry peace trail launched

Two Coventry Quakers, Carol Rank and Andrew Rigby, have written a booklet to guide visitors on the Coventry ‘peace trail’ and on 11 November they took twenty visitors on the first peace trail walk.