Eye - 06 March 2015

From sprung spring to remarkable documents

Spring has sprung

Two baby lambs have arrived at Sibford School in Oxfordshire. The one-week-old ewe and two-week-old ram are the latest addition to the school’s animal husbandry initiative.

Ali Bromhall, the school’s community development officer, explained: ‘Each term the Quaker school welcomes different livestock in order to enable pupils to undertake agricultural studies.

‘When Sibford School was first established back in 1842, agriculture was a big part of the curriculum. The new initiative, launched in 2012, now sees the school welcoming calves in the autumn term, lambs in the spring term and pigs in the summer term.’

Sing a song of Quakers

May my confusion become simple words
As I wait here in the quiet.
Lead me from my darkness Lord
And hold me – in your light.

(extract from ‘A Quaker’s Song’)

Ukelele’s have been strummed, banjos have been plucked, melodies have emerged and lyrics have been sung… yes, a Quaker album has been completed.

Nearly a year ago, Eye’s curiosity was piqued by the musical mission of Bernard Eden Thomas, of Heswall Meeting (28 March 2014). The response from the Friend’s trusty readers was, as Bernard tells us, ‘fantastic, with ideas for songs, lyrics and recordings coming from far and wide, including several from overseas’.

Now Bernard, with the help of a group of Friends, has penned and performed a collection of modern Quaker songs, covering Quaker history and aspirations.

The tracks, such as ‘A Letter from Margaret’ and ‘William’s Dream’, celebrate ‘some intriguing Quakers and their lives: rebels of their time, world-changers, socialists, capitalists and patriarchs, peacemakers, reformers, scientists, writers and some who just muddle through, like most of us’.

He adds: ‘The project has a web link, http://bit.ly/NewQuakerSongs, from where all songs can be downloaded… or even streamed for free’. A number of free concerts are also being planned. The first took place on 27 February.

Making history real

A remarkable historical document from Nazi Germany was described to Eye recently by a colleague.

Prompted by recent letters relating to Holocaust Memorial Day, Trish Carn, sub-editor of the Friend, recalled the moving witness of a Quaker couple in Germany during the 1930s: Leonhard and Mary Friedrich.

In 1923 Leonhard Friedrich started a Quaker Meeting, of about forty people, in Nuremberg, Germany. He opposed the Nazi regime during the 1930s. He was arrested in 1942 and imprisoned in Buchenwald concentration camp for two and a half years. He survived.

Trish, who was involved in the layout of Quiet Helpers: Quaker Service in Postwar Germany, a book accompanying an exhibition of the same name, recalls an unsettling moment from her work:

‘During my work on the book, I was given the rather tattered red Gestapo arrest warrant for Leonhard Friedrich to scan for inclusion. It was chilling to see and hold the actual document and it made history real for me.’

The text was translated for the book and stated that ‘his conduct endangers the existence and security of the people and the state. This is occasioned by his politically negative attitude to the National Socialist state, evidenced by his pacifist and pro-Jewish attitudes, particularly in the context of his prominent role in the Society of Friends (Quakers). He exercises an undesirable influence on the neighbourhood and those around him and thereby undermines the unity of the German people which is of special importance in the time of war’.

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