Issue 11-06-2021
Featured story
Thought for the week: John Lampen’s moving tale
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...
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Seven Small Experiments with Language and Faith
For Brian Ashley of Shetland Meeting, who calls for a generosity of spirit to embrace diverse ways of expressing our experience (Letters, 28 May). 1. Omega and Alpha sit squat on Skull Hill. As Christ dies, the dark night of language splits like a fig. Faith, like dawn’s yolk gutters gold...
Mission critical: Geoffrey Durham tells of a new outreach project for all Friends
In 1680, we’re told, there were some 60,000 Quakers in Britain, around one person in a hundred. It’s a startling figure, but it needs to be put into context: it followed thirty-odd years in which Quakers in this country were active – wildly, passionately active – in their proselytising and their outreach.
Let it ride? Tony D’Souza avoids an argument but addresses a question
‘Where to guvnor?’ said the taxi driver, leaning out of his cab. ‘Camden Town, please.’ There is something comforting about a London taxi cab, I thought, as I climbed into the back. They arrive out of nowhere in the teeming city and rescue you like a St Bernard dog might...
Object lesson: Anne Watson on education post-Covid
Last month I contributed to a Quaker Values in Education webinar on the recovery of the education system post-Covid. I have written in these pages before about how our particular view of truth – something we seek together rather than something we accept, finished and polished, from others – is our contribution...
Body building: Jackie Carpenter on community living
Friendship Cohousing, a Quaker Recognised Body, has purchased a property in Cornwall and community members are moving in. We intend to create a centre that will enable and encourage people to set up more cohousing communities. We also want to help with aspects of climate change, including climate justice, self-sufficiency,...
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Call for investigation into UK-made tear gas in Oman
Friends have been supporting a call from Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) for an investigation into the use of UK-made tear gas in Oman. The push follows the publication of what CAAT describes as ‘damning’ images by journalist Phil Miller of Declassified, which show the use of tear gas canisters...
Quakers lobby against controversial bill
Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) has submitted evidence to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill Committee on a controversial bill that is now passing through parliament. Working with the group Unlock Democracy, Quakers called for part 3 (public order) and part 4 (unauthorised encampments) to be scrapped ‘at the very least’.
Rare manuscript of Quakers’ US exodus
A rare manuscript has offered insight into the Welsh Quaker exodus into the US in the seventeenth century.
Clergy make stand against Exxon
Two members of the Anglican clergy have glued themselves to furniture in the reception of Church House in London in protest at the Church of England continuing to invest in Exxon Mobil despite their extraction of fossil fuels. Sue Parffit from Bristol was arrested but Tim Hewes, a retired vicar...
Quakers send postcards for COP26
Friends have been taking part in a ‘Make COP Count’ initiative, which involves sending Boris Johnson a postcard supporting the twenty-sixth United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26).
PPU accuses education secretary of ‘misrepresentation’
Peace campaigners have accused education secretary Gavin Williamson of ‘bending the truth’ over cadet forces in schools. According to the Peace Pledge Union (PPU), which includes Quaker members, the cabinet member has misrepresented research from the University of Northampton, claiming that it justifies the UK government’s decision to spend...
The Truth About Modern Slavery, by Emily Kenway
In this lucid book, Emily Kenway argues that the idea of ‘modern slavery’, as framed by some politicians and campaigners, is a misleading concept. It not only misrepresents the nature of the problem, she says, but actively acts against the kinds of policies and practices that would actually help with...
Asperger’s Children: The origins of autism in Nazi Vienna, by Edith Sheffer
This is one of the most harrowing books I have ever read. Edith Sheffer is a historian in the USA. Her son Eric, aged thirteen, is among the one-in-sixty children being diagnosed on the autism spectrum there. She dedicated this book to Eric.
Letters - 11 June 2021
Priorities I have received information from Médecins Sans Frontières about the desperate situation in the Yemen: children, women and men, without shelter, dying of starvation and diseases, including cholera. We now know that the government is to reduce the UK’s money for foreign aid which will...