Issue 19-03-2021
Featured story
Thought for the week: Bob Ward is in good nick
An unexpected not-so-funny-turn pitched me into a hospital A&E department recently. For four nights I was parked in a bed with none of my usual baggage: no books, PC, newspapers or TV. Visitors were not permitted on account of the pandemic. Everything appeared set up for intense boredom,...
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A pilgrim’s tale: Harvey Gillman embraces ‘liberation, exile, and confinement all at once’
When I came back from a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela some years ago, I attached a shell, the symbol of that journey, onto a rucksack to remind me that everyday was a pilgrimage. One day, I lost the shell at a supermarket. I had to remember that symbols were...
Waldo’s commitment to peace: Stevie Krayer reports from Meeting of Friends in Wales.
This was a well-prepared, well-organised and smoothly-clerked Meeting, full of interest – and very long! The simultaneous translation service, given by Steffan Wiliam, deserves special mention. It was impeccable, an astonishing feat given the complexity of much of the content and the hours of concentration required.
Timmon Wallis heads up QCEA
Former Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) employee Timmon Wallis is the new director of Quaker Council for European Affairs (QCEA). A Quaker activist, with a PhD in Peace Studies, Timmon Wallis was the peace and disarmament manager at BYM from 2014-2017. He will start the new position in May, after current...
Dancing around the problem: Tracey Martin moves forward
Until the pandemic, my life had always been moving. Moving countries and jobs, travelling for work. I was rarely in the same place for more than a few weeks – then off on the next work trip or to visit friends. Most of my sitting down was done on trains and...
Parliament of fowls
Inaudible as force, a blackbird descends – she’s charred sky-chaff, (I want to say) incombustible. Winter’s bonfire’s out for this blank bird,
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BYM speaks again on racism allegations
Paul Parker, recording clerk of Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM), has outlined how BYM is working to build an anti-racist workplace culture.
QSA shines spotlight on homelessness
Quaker Social Action (QSA) has said that it plans to resume the mobile library run by Quaker Homeless Action (QHA) this year, when it is safe to do so.
QCEA work on gender and diversity
Quaker Council for European Affairs (QCEA) brought together more than fifty people to discuss the importance of gender equality for peace and security last month.
Friends scale back Edinburgh Festival plans
The Edinburgh Meeting House will not be operating as a venue for live performances at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2021. The building’s usual transformation into Fringe Venue 40 every August will not be happening this year due to ‘ongoing uncertainty about Covid-19 restrictions’.
General Meeting for Scotland: Jane Mitchell attends via Zoom
This was a well-attended meeting with over eighty Friends on about seventy-five devices. I’ll just mention some of the main items.
The Assault on Truth, by Peter Oborne
When the Truth and Integrity in Public Affairs committee was laid down by Meeting for Sufferings in 2004, it seemed the right decision. Broadly speaking, public affairs were conducted correctly by a civil service dedicated to ‘integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality’, and by politicians who, if they lied to parliament, resigned....
No Visible Injuries, by Sylvia Clare
The longer I live, the less I consider ‘growing up’ limited to childhood. This memoir by Sylvia Clare, of Isle of Wight Meeting, reminds me that the ‘growing up’ of our consciousness continues throughout life. This can happen in unexpected awakenings, when long-buried childhood shock bursts out, or in fond...
Patterns of Russia: History, culture and spaces, by Robin Milner-Gulland
This is another of those ‘personality and place’ books which are now becoming common. In this book, the place is Russia. The country is well known as a place of three cities – Kiev, Moscow and St Petersburg – but its extent is better conveyed by three ports: Archangel, Odessa, and Astrakhan...
Letters - 19 March 2021
Covid remembrance The pandemic is self-evidently the big event of the moment. It has caused untold hurt and stress beyond measure to hundreds of thousands: the bereaved, the carers, the medical staff. And yet the nation has not paused for a moment to reflect collectively on what has happened. ...