Eye - 11 November 2022

An invitation and ‘greatest hits’

An invitation

These ‘greatest hits’ are here to give you a flavour of what Eye has been (see 4 November), and to inspire you, our lovely readers, to reach out with stories and pictures you’d like to share in future editions. Let’s get to know each other in the things that are light-hearted!

A memorable path

A seaweed labyrinth made an impression at a recent gathering.

Scarborough Meeting House hosted the Quarterly Meeting of Quakers in Yorkshire on 18 July [2015].

Ruth Corry, of York Friargate Meeting, told Eye of ‘a rich and varied morning session with, among other items, input from Suzanne Ismail, economic issues programme manager for Quaker Peace & Social Witness’.

She went on to describe a memorable afternoon: ‘Friends could choose among several enticing outings in the area. Some of us chose a trip to the beach, where local youngsters from Scarborough Meeting – Iain, James and Will – helped us draw lines for a classical labyrinth, which we lined with seaweed and then walked the walk to the centre.

‘The tide was down, but soon returned with speed, so our labyrinth got washed away before midnight, but has left an indelible mark in our memories (and cameras).’

(first published 14 August 2015)

Committe-inspired sing-song

Friends attending Ireland Yearly Meeting in July [2013] were treated to a rousing performance of ‘The Quaker Committee Song’.

Gretchen Castle and her husband, David Botwinik, sang and strummed guitar strings to an enthusiastic audience, inspiring Friends to join in and clap along.

The chorus kicks off with the modest job title: ‘alternate liaison to the nominating subcommittee overseeing planning of the annual preliminary meeting of the board that will appoint the secretary who’s in charge of making policy concerning the selection… of the snacks’.

With such a delicious morsel, Eye couldn’t rest until the story behind the song was unearthed! 

When quizzed, Gretchen said: ‘The Committee Song was written by Gretta Stone, a member of Doylestown Friends Meeting in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (USA). The song was performed and recorded by the band Faith & Practice, which David and I were members of before moving to London when I took on the post of general secretary of Friends World Committee for Consultation – World Office.

‘The band’s tag line is “when good Quakers go bad” and the band’s logo is a rendition of Foxy George donning a Hawaiian shirt and sun glasses, playing a banjo. The Committee Song would be in keeping with this humorous irreverence.’

But the lines were not plucked out of thin air… ‘the lyrics were taken directly from minutes of Quaker organisations. The song has resonated with Friends around the world, and we are happy to have performed it in Ireland to the delight of Friends on this side of the pond!’

Anyone with a hankering to hear the full performance can find it here: http://bit.ly/QCSong

(first published 16 August 2013)

Dancing in the waves

A passing encounter filled Jill Allum and her husband Phil, of Beccles Meeting, with unexpected joy.

‘Phil and I were at Lowestoft walking along the beach. We sat on the stones near the rumbling waves. I looked up and a little distance away was a young girl, about nine, dancing in the waves.

‘I was transfixed by the beauty of her dance. All alone, oblivious of passers by, she created her own steps… She ran into the sea, as near the crashing breakers as she dared and raised her arms, as if in worship. She bent and dipped her hands into the water and appeared to offer it back as a sort of gift of thanks. She twirled, ran a few steps back and in again, kicking her feet in time with her hands. It gave me a magical feeling.

‘After half an hour, we got up and moved towards her. She was trying to get a reluctant adult to join her dance, giving me an opportunity to talk. “I’m her foster mother,” said the woman, “she came from Romania nine months ago. She couldn’t speak any English. She had never seen the sea or been in a caravan.”

‘“Hello,” the child said to me.

‘“I love your dance,” I replied, but I don’t think she understood.

‘We walked on along the shore. In about an hour we returned, and there she was, still dancing in the waves!’

(first published 31 July 2015)

The code-breaking Quaker poet

On 7 July [2020] the United States Coast Guard announced that their eleventh Legend-Class National Security Cutter will be named ‘Friedman’, in honour of Elizebeth Smith Friedman. This code-breaking poet founded the Coast Guard’s Cryptanalytic Unit in 1931, and was a Quaker.

In the official announcement the Coast Guard said: ‘Friedman was a pioneering code-breaker for the Coast Guard during the Prohibition Era and World War II… She has been dubbed “America’s first female cryptanalyst”…

‘Between 1927 and 1930, she is estimated to have solved over 12,000 smuggling messages in hundreds of different code systems, all by hand, with just pencil and paper. During World War II, she was part of the team that broke the codes generated by the formidable Enigma machine used by the Germans. She exposed a ring of German spies in South America, effectively denying them a foothold in the Western Hemisphere.’

This extraordinary career stemmed from unconventional roots. Born into a family of Quaker farmers in 1892, she was one of two siblings out of ten that went to college, and she studied English literature, poetry and languages rather than mathematics. She first became a school teacher, and then joined a research group looking into hidden codes in Shakespeare’s plays. It was when this group were recruited by the US government in 1917 that she got her start in international secrets.

Jason Fagone, who researched Elizebeth’s life and brought many of her achievements to light in his book The Woman Who Smashed Codes, spoke with Forbes magazine in 2018. When asked about her politics he said: ‘She had a lot of views we’d consider progressive today. She admired FDR. Didn’t like Joe McCarthy. Believed in peace and international cooperation. She led a League of Women Voters chapter that met in her house. I think she was deeply influenced by growing up in a family of Quakers. She never felt very connected to her parents or most of her siblings, but she did absorb the Quaker belief in peace, and it stayed with her all her life. There’s a story about how, during the 30s, when she was getting on the witness stand at these dramatic trials and testifying against killers, the government assigned two Secret Service men to guard her… These guys stayed at the Friedmans’ house in Washington. They were like part of the family for a while. She cooked dinner for them. Yet Elizebeth refused to let the agents bring their guns into the house. This story… has been passed down over the years to her grandkids, and the explanation they’ve always heard is: “Granny was a Quaker”.’

(first published 31 July 2020)

Limerick

A very young Quaker from Neath
Lost a number of early milk teeth.
A lisp then he bore
Like a stoic, and wore
A badge saying ‘Quakerth for Peath.’

Roy Payne
(first published 11 January 2013)

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