Eye - 24 April 2015

From dustmen to sticky situations

Discussions with the dustmen

A day out left Jill Allum, of Beccles Meeting, pondering some unexpected opportunities.

‘I stood with my four-year-old grandson, watching the dustcart pick up the green bins. “Work hard at school,” said a young smiling dustman, “then you won’t have to be a dustman.” “So you didn’t work hard?” I said to him. “Didn’t have much chance,” he replied, “I grew up in Tottenham.”

‘Later that day, we were waiting to cross the car ferry at Reedham, Norfolk. Again, I was holding Alex’s hand, watching the chains pull the ferry in and dock onto the slipway. My son drove on and Alex and I walked. “Come and drive the ferry,” said the ferryman to Alex and led him to the cab. “Jump up and pull the lever!” So he sat on the shelf and pulled hard. Wow! Driver of a car ferry at four!

‘[Later] a man seemed to be loitering outside our Quaker premises, so I said, “Are you waiting for somebody?” “Yes,” he replied, “what are those flowers?” I said, “We call them snowflakes,” and began a long conversation about his garden and its likeness to our half-wild Quaker garden.

‘Do we always use opportunities to talk to the most unlikely people?’

Hard working people

Falmouth Friend Drew Howgill, with newly formed band ‘Drew and The Devotees’, is launching the band’s debut single this week.

Drew, a member of Falmouth Meeting and a former music student from Falmouth University, composed and recorded the song, called ‘Hard working people’, to highlight the issue of poverty in the UK ahead of the general election. He spoke to Eye about what motivated him: ‘Speaking truth to power is very important to me, I feel the song does this – it’s trying to get the message across in a very direct and assertive way that we cannot allow people to live on poverty wages and have to use food banks.

‘I was inspired through reading Caroline Lucas’s book Honourable Friends where she talks about the soundbites used by mainstream politicians who seem to be always targeting “hard working people” when, in fact, in our society we have disabled people, carers, volunteers, students, full time parents and others who do make an incredible contribution but are often forgotten about or marginalised. Other Quaker values – working for a fairer and more just society, helping the more vulnerable members of society – these principles have informed my writing.’

The song will be available on iTunes, Amazon and other online stores for 99p. Friends can also listen to a preview and find links to where to buy it at www.soundcloud.com/the-devotees.

All proceeds are being donated to charity. Drew hopes to ‘raise as much money as possible for child poverty support groups in the UK, under the auspices of Child Poverty Action Group. Ideally, it would sell enough (over 150,000) to chart in the Top 100 and get publicity for the cause I’m raising funds for’.

Adhering principles

A Friend in Herefordshire has devised a way of dealing with a sticky situation.

Maggie Taylor-Sanders, of Almeley Wootton Meeting, explained: ‘As convenor of our Area Meeting’s Sustainability and Economic Justice group, and feeling powerless to get the issue of climate change discussed as part of the election coverage, I designed and had printed 500 blocks of small sticky notes…’

The sticker, which features a photo of the Earth, reads: ‘This gets my vote. Will it get yours?’

It continues: ‘Use these stickers and your voice to raise awareness that we need to live in a way that is healthy for the whole planet. Available from maggie.t-s@hotmail.co.uk. Spread some sanity everywhere you go.’

Maggie told Eye that ‘the idea is that we stick them up everywhere… the back of train seats, shop windows, mirrors and hand driers in public toilets, supermarket shelves’.

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