Living history?
Jill Allum tells the story of an imaginative outreach project in Beccles
Beccles Meeting Friday midday worship is followed by a picnic and forty-five minutes of discussion. We average seventeen, mainly new attenders. Outreach was our sense of ‘God’s will’ when we evolved into this pattern. We have stumbled upon an idea that is having far-reaching effects. We are all writing a ‘play reading’. The facts behind the story are: Scene 1 George Fox, a medical doctor and Quaker (how could you have a better name!) comes to Beccles in 1898, aged twenty-eight, to join the practice of William Crowfoot, aged sixtyish. Scene 2 Beccles Meeting closed in 1817, so George goes to Pakefield Meeting, evangelical, with four mission halls with adult schools. Scene 3 With Pakefield Meeting’s help, George starts a Friends’ adult school in Beccles. It flourishes. The Meeting house is too small, so Quaker Hall is built and an upstairs room. Scene 4 At the start of the first world war George joins the Friends Ambulance Unit (FAU). Scene 5 George is in Ypres over Christmas 1914, when the German and English troops sing ‘Silent Night’.
You need to login to read subscriber-only content and/or comment on articles.