Issue 21-10-2022
Featured story
Keeping counsel: Tony D’Souza’s Thought for the Week
I have spent forty years trying to do it but I have never been able to. That’s the truth. God knows I have tried. Tried to do what, you ask? Well, to understand the Sermon on the Mount – and, much harder, to live it.
Top stories
A great escape: Rebecca Hardy on a daring bid for freedom, and Friends met on the way
A year ago this month, two black abolitionists were honoured with one of the few blue plaques for people of colour in London. The site of Twenty-Six, Cambridge Grove, a redbrick mid-Victorian house in Hammersmith, was where the freedom fighters Ellen and William Craft settled and raised their family, using...
Quaker witness against Vanguard honours John Woolman
More than sixty Quakers gathered in the City of London this month, timed to coincide with the 250th anniversary of John Woolman’s death.
Walk of witness: Jane Tod remembers John Woolman
It was a quiet, sunny autumn afternoon when Friends from York Area Meeting assembled at the old Quaker burial ground on 7 October. We were there to remember John Woolman, the US Quaker who died 250 years ago on that day. Many had gathered earlier at Almery Garth, which, in 1772, was the...
Rocky mountain high: Alastair McIntosh climbs Ben Nevis with the BBC
Given how few Quakers there are in Britain, we get generous exposure in the media. And you don’t get more exposed than on Ben Nevis when the winter’s moving in.
O may the wealthy consider the poor
He knew the price of things: Rye about five shillings Oatmeal twelve per hundred pound. Mutton from three pence to five Bacon seven to nine. House rent for a poor man to be paid weekly. To be paid weekly. Wood for the fire scarce and dear. Many beasts slain to...
All articles
Quakers fight deportation of Zimbabwean Friend
Friends in Stockton-on-Tees have rallied around a fellow Quaker who fears for her life if returned to Zimbabwe as part of the UK government’s policies for asylum seekers.
Quaker play for UN anti-poverty day
Two Quaker theatre practitioners have collaborated with anti-poverty campaigners on a play, to mark the United Nations International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.
Quaker-run B&B wins Green Mark Award
The Dell House, run by Kevin and Elizabeth Rolph of Malvern Meeting, has been awarded the Malvern Hills Sustainable Tourism Green Mark for their commitment to environmental sustainability.
New Quaker witness for Faslane naval base
Scottish Friends have set up a new witness for peace to support worship taking place outside HM Naval Base Clyde (‘Faslane’). The base, which hosts four Trident submarines, has been the site of peace campaigns for forty years. A peace camp was set up close by on 12 June, 1982.
Conflict of interest: Richard Seebohm on a Malaysian example
It took an article by the controversial ex-diplomat Craig Murray to make me realise that we are being tempted to relish the slaughter of Soviet soldiers by the Ukrainians – using our weapons. We think of Vietnam. We think of Iraq, or of Afghanistan, or Syria, Yemen or conflict in Africa.
Letters - 21 October 2022
Antisemitism Thanks to Ol Rappaport (30 September) for a careful, focused analysis of the question ‘Is the Religious Society of Friends antisemitic?’ The answer is clearly, and sadly, ‘yes’. Antisemitism is racism, and an anti-racist church should work against it, as much as it should against racism targeting any other group....