Eye - 23 November 2012

From a butcher's tale to Homeland

The butcher’s tale

The team were tickled by the story of a butcher from a baker. Margaret Baker, of Welwyn Garden City Meeting, set to agitating our funny bones: ‘The arrival of this week’s Friend (16 November) has reminded me of a time, many years ago, when one of our then small daughters had a letter printed in The Vegetarian. The story she wrote (not her own invention) was this:

A man on holiday arrives at a village. There seems to be nobody about. Finally he sees a solitary figure leaning on a gate.

“Why is the village so deserted?” he asks.

“Everyone is in church. The village butcher has died and they are all at his funeral.”

“What beautiful music is that, coming from the church?”

The villager replies, “Sheep May Safely Graze.”’

Inspired by Sidwell

Fans of the hugely successful America drama Homeland – starring the heartthrob Damian Lewis as a US Marine platoon sergeant, Nicholas Brody, rescued by Delta Force after being held by Al-Qaeda as a prisoner of war for eight years – will be intrigued to hear of a Quaker connection.

In the spy drama Brody has two children, Chris Brody (Jackson Pace) and Dana Brody (Morgan Saylor).

They attend a school based on Sidwell Friends School in Washington, DC, USA.

Sidwell, which counts president Obama’s daughters Malia and Sasha as pupils, has also had as pupils: the children of former president Bill Clinton, former vice president Al Gore and former president Theodore Roosevelt. Vice president Joe Biden’s grandchildren also attend.

Now Sidcot School, a Quaker school in England, is aiming to establish links with Sidwell. Head teacher Iain Kilpatrick will visit the American school next year.

Iain said: ‘Sidwell and Sidcot schools believe that diverse perspectives and meaningful enquiry fuel academic excellence and promote growth.

‘We share the Quaker belief in nurturing the “inner light” in every child and both offer a broad, balanced curriculum that challenges students to step out of their comfort zone and see uncertainty as a source of excitement and promise.’

Quakers in a carcase

Quakers are cropping up in ever more unexpected places. Eagle-eyed Sheila Bayes-Clayton, from Beccles Meeting, spotted an apparently random mention of Friends in Dorothy L Sayers’ book Have His Carcase.

At this point in the story, a body has been discovered on the beach near Daley, on the South Coast: ‘The death of Paul Alexis was a local event of an importance that almost swamped last Saturday’s cricket match, and the revolutionary proposal to turn the disused Quaker Meeting House into a cinema…’ Sheila wonders ‘what made her pick on a Quaker Meeting House?’

A tree of hope

Friends in Cambridge extended branches of hope during Quaker Week at Cambridge Regional College.

Students, staff and visitors were invited to write down their hopes for the future and pin them on to a paper tree set up in the college.

Pat Wyman, a Cambridge Friend and part of the college’s multi-faith chaplaincy, said: ‘This year we focused on hope, asking people to tell us what they hoped for, both for themselves and their families and for the wider world.’ The huge majority of people said they hoped for peace.

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