Yooung Friends 1965 Photo: Courtesy Adrian Smith
The memories endure
Lancashire and Cheshire Young Friends meet again
Over the weekend of the 23 to 24 October 1965 at Hunter Street Meeting House, Liverpool, forty-nine Young Friends (YFs) signed their Quarterly Meeting Attendance Book. It was the third highest YF attendance recorded in this book.
Forty-five years and one month later eight of those then present, together with a good number of Young Friends from that time and later, with their husbands, wives and partners, were able to meet again at The Piggery Pottery, near Caernarfon on the edge of Snowdonia. Some ‘Old’ Young Friends were prevented through illness or last minute difficulties. A number of greeting were received from others at home and abroad.
As new arrivals entered the large communal kitchen late on Friday afternoon the noise level grew with the excitement at friends greeting friends not seen for twenty, thirty or even forty years. So much to catch up on; marriages, children, jobs and occupations, partners, and for most of us, but not all, life in retirement. As everyone had been in contact with someone, our virtual attendance was probably twice the actual twenty-six present.
Just as years ago, the weekend soon assumed a recognizable pattern with the food-preparers supported by the washer-uppers, the serious walkers and the strollers forming their own groups and not too loud Beatles’ tracks as background sound in the large, comfortable sitting room where everyone could leaf through the pile of albums on the central table full of photos of themselves at Junior Yearly Meeting, Wigton Summer Schools, Quarterly Meetings, Weekends at Frandley and so many other YF occasions.
Joining Friends at Bangor Meeting on the Sunday gave a good number of us the opportunity to give silent thanks for the bonds of faith and practice that have sustained friendships over the decades. Bangor Friends were given a brief account of the Meetings in which we each grew up and from how far afield we had now come; and for this writer it was a reminder of the anticipation when the excited assembly at Children’s Quarterly Meeting was asked ‘is there anyone here from ??? Meeting?’ The hands would shoot up and there would be a forest for Manchester or Liverpool and a special clap for the brave loners from such as Sawley or Low Leighton.
It was a wonderful weekend and one Friend was sure that it had ended with each and everyone leaving with an outward contentment and an inner peace. Quarterly Meeting may been replaced or re-titled but the memories will endure.
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