Eye - 11 September 2015

From saddle-based celebrations to Quakerisation

Celebrating sixty in the saddle

Mally Gower, a Friend from the Isle of Mull, is celebrating six decades with sixty toilets… and a 1,500-mile cycle ride!

Mally’s tour will take in the furthest points north, south, east and west on mainland Britain, ‘with Land’s End and John O’Groats thrown in for good measure’. She will celebrate her sixtieth birthday en route.

Her goal is to raise the funds to twin sixty toilets in the UK with toilets in developing countries, via the charity Toilet Twinning. Mally, who lived in Derbyshire until recently, first heard about the charity at Bakewell Meeting, which had twinned its toilets.

Mally explained: ‘Having a toilet is such a basic need and we are just so lucky to have toilets when so many people in the world don’t.
‘We moan about public toilets in this country but they are still pretty good compared with what many people in the world have. I will need toilets on my route – and that’s going to be interesting – but it will at least keep me focused.’

The epic ride began on 27 August and Mally’s aim is to complete the route before the clocks turn back on 25 October.

Mally, writing on www.touringfortoilets.blogspot.co.uk, is well on her way, having visited Land’s End, Lizard Point, Come-to-Good Meeting, the Eden Project, Bodmin Moor, Exeter, Taunton and Aylesbury – totting up 425 miles so far.

Whilst on the road Mally told Eye about how her faith motivated her: ‘I believe people should be treated with equal dignity. Where’s the dignity in having to go to the toilet outside and having to use fields? It’s awful.’

She also spoke about how her experiences on the journey itself are building her faith: ‘People have been so kind. People who didn’t know me have put me up for the night and people I’ve met en route have given me help and guidance. It’s restored my faith in people: there are a lot of good people out there, even though we tend to hear about the few who aren’t.’

Confusing Quakers

A bemusing phone call raised a wry smile for some American Friends recently.

The Earlham School of Religion, a Christian seminary in the Quaker tradition in Indiana, shared the confused call via Facebook, with an apt Twitter hashtag:

‘“Hello, Earlham School of Religion.”

“Oh, I must have the wrong number”

“Were you trying to reach the Quaker Information Center?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“That’s us too. How can I help you?”

“Well, I live in Florida and I’m wondering why my grocery store doesn’t carry Puffed Rice anymore.”

“I’m sorry, this is the Quaker Information Center, as in the Quaker religion, not Quaker Oats.”

“Oh, well can you transfer me?”

‘#quakerconfusion’

Quakerisation

An unusual phrase caught the eye of Helen Porter, of Montgomery Meeting, whilst she was reading Victoria: A Life, by A N Wilson:

‘Although Salisbury was a man who was reluctant to intervene in any international affairs, and a natural pessimist hesitant to go to war, he nevertheless deplored Gladstone’s policy of making peaceful negotiation instead of war – he called it “the Quakerisation of Mankind.”’

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