'The episode will include filming at Swarthmoor Hall in Ulverston, Cumbria to mark ‘George Fox 400’, the Quaker co-founder’s 400th anniversary.' Photo: Swarthmoor Hall
Songs of Praise at Swarthmoor
‘We would like as many Friends to be filmed as possible, so please do come along if you are free!’
Quakers are to appear on BBC Songs of Praise next week, on the theme of equality.
The episode will include filming at Swarthmoor Hall in Ulverston, Cumbria to mark ‘George Fox 400’, the Quaker co-founder’s 400th anniversary.
Siobhán Haire, deputy recording clerk for Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM), will speak in the morning of 25 June, and, in the afternoon, the TV crew will be recording Friends. This will include group shots and possibly more interviews. Quakers in Yorkshire said: ‘We would like as many Friends to be filmed as possible, so please do come along if you are free!’
Siobhán Haire told the Friend that she was ‘so pleased’ to be sharing Quaker history. ‘As it’s being filmed at Swarthmoor Hall I’ll be talking about Margaret Fell and how we continue to live her testimony to women’s and other equality in the world today.’
Friends last featured on the show nearly three years ago when Pendle Hill Quakers spoke about George Fox’s vision on the hill, and of how that grew into an international movement. Ben Pink Dandelion, of Clitheroe Meeting, told the Friend that the programme included ‘a segment visiting the new plaques on Pendle Hill about the start of the Quaker movement and talking about George Fox’s experience there’.
Wendy Hampton, BYM local development worker, who took part in the filming, said that her involvement came from the Pendle Radicals Project. The initiative includes a ‘Radical Trail’ across Pendle Hill and resulted in a film about George Fox, featuring Tracy Chevalier.
