‘I am no longer the same person.’ Photo: courtesy of John Lampen
Thought for the week: John Lampen’s moving tale
‘I do not hide my past, but I would not want it to discount whatever I have done since.’
I am glad that Friends have been looking at their history through new lenses and realising that some of our best-loved stories, such as the campaign to abolish slavery, have a shadow side. Charles Carter, reviewing Roger Wilson’s Quaker Relief 1940-1948 in the Friend in 1952, wrote: ‘Many of us have been discovering… that much of the service we thought so unique and so valuable was being done on a larger scale by others, more quietly, more efficiently, as part of their simple duty. It may be that Quakerism will not regain its effectiveness until we have learned to be ashamed of the proud myth of our uniqueness – and have learned to do our duty quietly and well, unsustained by thoughts of our own great significance.’
