Quakers remembered
Catriona Troth was engaged by a dramatic commemoration
A unique piece of community theatre, Quakers in the first world war: A commemoration, was given two performances on Saturday 13 September at Jordans Meeting House in Buckinghamshire. The performances coincided with the one hundredth anniversary of the establishment of the Friends Ambulance Unit (FAU), whose first training camp was at nearby Jordans Farm.
The idea for the play came from Janet May-Bowles, a member of Slough and Windsor Meeting and one of the driving forces behind the Quakers in the World web portal. Janet did much of the research for the project, delving into contemporary diaries and letters to find first-hand accounts of Quaker experiences. The script was then developed by local theatre director Merry Rushton, who also directed the production. Many of those who took part, either as singers or narrators, were members of Jordans Local Meeting. Performers also came from other Chilterns Area Meetings and from Jordans village.
The benches in the 1688 Meeting room at Jordans were arranged for the performance around a small raised stage. The pianist and small choir were gathered in one corner. Many of the narrators sat round the edges of the room, their voices coming from all directions as the story passed from hand to hand.
The narrative began with a background to the Quaker Peace Testimony and then moved on to paint a picture of a largely prosperous, secure-seeming Britain in the early twentieth century. We even heard a song from a popular musical of the time entitled ‘The Quaker Girl’! Then came the outbreak of war, the call to arms and the transformation of ‘conchie’ – short for conscientious objector (CO)– into a term of abuse.
The play focused first on absolutist conscientious objectors – those who refused to cooperate in any way with the military authorities or to take part in alternative service. Part of the narrative here was drawn from the papers of Wilfred Littleboy, whose daughter and granddaughter, both members at Jordans, were present in the audience. It included shocking details of the brutality with which some COs were treated and the moving words in which some spoke of a sense of personal liberty that arose from knowing they were acting in accordance with their conscience.
The story then moved on to the founding of the FAU and the ‘idyllic summer’ the first volunteers spent, camped in the orchard at Jordans Farm, before facing the horrors of the trenches.
Nor was the role of Quaker women forgotten. We heard from nurses serving in frontline hospitals, and from the wives and fiancées left behind, sometimes ostracised by their neighbours despite the equal danger their men faced. There were memories, too, of campaigners such as Ruth Fry, who served as general secretary of the Friends War Victims Relief Service during the war and for six years afterwards, and of non-Quaker sympathisers, such as Emily Hobhouse and Vera Brittain.
The narrative elements were interspersed with music, both from the choir and from soloists. The solo rendition of ‘Pie Jesu’ from Gabriel Faurê’s Requiem was particularly beautiful, but it was the familiar, haunting words of ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’ that brought tears to almost every eye in the house.
‘Such a huge and terrible subject,’ Merry Rushton told me before the performance. ‘It was an enormous challenge to turn it into an entertainment. There was always a danger it would simply be didactic.’
The simple performance was poignant and revealing – and certainly never didactic. It was also a wonderful piece of outreach, attracting many non-Quakers. In a year when there has been much subtle pressure to take an uncritical look back at the first world war, this was a timely reminder of the men and women who, even from its earliest days, took a courageous stand against its horrors.
