The Hexham Debates
Following the second of this year’s Hexham Debates, Caroline Westgate reflects on how the project has evolved over the past four years
On a Saturday morning in January 2007, some Quakers arranged a public meeting to be addressed by Bruce Kent. Parliament was about to debate the renewal of Britain’s nuclear-armed submarines, so the topic was ‘What Price Trident?’ The setting was a church hall in a small market town near Hadrian’s Wall (another piece of obsolete militarism). Feeling optimistic, the Friends put out fifty chairs, unaware that 250 people were making their way to the hall, and that a long-term project was about to begin.
As the audience dispersed that day, Bruce Kent encouraged us to keep going, and ‘The Hexham Debates’ became our response. As predicted, the Trident vote went against us, so we decided to run a series of talks under the heading ‘War, Peace and Democracy’, intending to exploit the vein of radicalism we seemed to have stumbled upon. Our title is derived from the seventeenth century Putney Debates. The format is not one of opposing speakers arguing for and against a motion. Instead, the speaker has the floor for forty-five minutes followed by an equal amount of time for questions and discussion. Our Saturday-morning audiences have consistently been between 100 and 150.
Initially, getting nationally known figures to travel to a dot on the map called Hexham relied on exploiting personal contacts, and we remain grateful to those early speakers who trusted us enough to make the journey, because their names have since encouraged others to come.
Each talk was recorded. Those from the first series were transcribed and published as a book, and subsequent talks have been reproduced as CDs and CD ROMs. They are still available by contacting: Northumbrians_for_Peace@hotmail.co.uk
We have just begun series five. As before, we approached people who could develop topics covered in previous talks: social inequality at home and development issues abroad; climate change, energy policies and sustainability; militarism, armed drones and conflict resolution.
Where does the money come from? A generous Friend underwrote the expenses of the initial meeting and publishing the book, after which Hexham Meeting sponsored the project. We don’t charge admission but take a retiring collection, which has more than covered costs.
From its start, The Hexham Debates forged links with other groups campaigning for peace and justice. We have enjoyed the company of local Greenpeace, Campaign Against Arms Trade and Amnesty groups and have been glad to welcome a Fairtrade stall as well. After the meetings there is time for informal contact to be made over coffee and homemade biscuits. Facilitated by Hexham Meeting, we have also built contacts with local churches.
We are capitalising on these links to arrange an Inter-faith Service for Justice and Peace to take place in Hexham Abbey on 10 January. Alan McDonald, reverend and former moderator of the Church of Scotland, has agreed to preach the sermon for us.
To adapt the words of Rufus Jones, we go forward with this project trusting that in other small circles and through quiet processes like ours, further vital and transforming events are taking place.
