meeting of friends in wales · quaker faith & practice 10.14, cyfarfod dwyfor, 1994 special...

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17 November 2017 £1.90

Meeting ofFriends in Wales

2 the Friend, 17 November 2017

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Er mai Saesneg fu prif gyfrwng y Gymdeithas yn yr ynysoedd hyn trwy’r blynyddoedd, dylid cydnabod fod rhan o’i bywyd wedi ac yn

cael ei fynegi trwy ieithoedd eraill, ac yng Nghymru hefyd trwy’r Gymraeg. Darostyngir traddodiad ein Cymdeithas, ein hanes a’n

tystiolaeth os anwybyddir hynny. Yn ddiarwybod bu i rai siaradwyr Cymraeg gael y teimlad iddynt gael eu hymylu. Dylid sicrhau fod y Gymraeg yn cael ei phriod le yng ngwaith a gweithgareddau’r

Cyfarfod Blynyddol yng Nghymru.

Quaker faith & practice 10.14, Cyfarfod Dwyfor, 1994

Special edition

This issue of the Friend is devoted to reflections on the twenty-fifth anniversary of Meeting of Friends in Wales. Our thanks to Welsh Friends for their contributions. The letters this week are on pages 22 and 23.

3 Thought for the Week: Language and diversity Gethin Evans

4 News5-7 Voices from Wales Friends in Wales

8-9 Happy birthday Christine Trevett

10-11 Poem: ac ’roedd yno freuddwyd / …and there was a dream Dafydd Jones

12-13 Work and worship Deborah Rowlands

14 Poem: Song of the small birds Stevie Krayer

15 Friends on the inside Ruth Moore Williams

16-17 Finding hope A Friend

18-19 Photographic montage20-21 A Oes Heddwch? Jane Harries

22-23 Letters24 q-eye: a look at the Quaker world25 Friends & Meetings

3the Friend, 17 November 2017

Thought for the Week

Languageand diversity

Reading or hearing the story of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9) always depresses me: ‘There was a time when all the world spoke a single language and used the same words.’ These words represent a monotonic planet projecting

a colourless, tuneless and utterly lifeless existence, bound by a uniformity of sound. Diversity of language was proclaimed as punishment, not something to be celebrated.

Hopefully, we see the world as a kaleidoscope of ever-changing sounds, patterns and colour, enhancing both our spiritual and physical being. How utterly incomprehensible to us would be spiritual expression all in the same language. As Quakers in Britain we pride ourselves on our commitment to diversity, recognising that with it comes the challenge of tolerance. If we are diverse then we have to be tolerant of situations, views and statements that challenge or trouble us. This can be uncomfortable.

Comments on the status and future of the Welsh language have of late been painful. There has been controversy over the designation of a school as a Welsh language unit in Carmarthenshire, perceived bias by the BBC on the use of the language, and it’s not unusual to have news items about prejudicial attitudes to the language that, inevitably, some politicians find useful and opportune. It was ever thus, such that resistance is both necessary and justified.

For speakers of minority languages, who are passionate about their existence and longevity, comprehension of the existence of ‘linguistic and cultural genocide’ is a reality – and not a shadow that lurks.

One aspect of life in Wales is the existence of that second language, living but threatened. Sadly, Quakers have not always been sensitive to or appreciative of its existence. That has changed mightily, but more could be done. When Quakers move into Welsh-speaking communities do they always appreciate that their footstep might be damaging? The Welsh language is no more the language of heaven than any other, but that hubris has long sustained the Welsh speaker, probably because it’s a defence mechanism to be laughingly quoted.

Living in bilingual societies is never easy and solutions within them to defend the minority language cause much difficulty, frustration and anger: ‘Everyone can speak the principal language, so why bother with the other?’ Why indeed, unless, that is, you are committed to the challenge of diversity despite the problems that this might cause?

Reading paragraph 10.14 of Quaker faith & practice might serve as an opening to discussion and greater awareness of the history of linguistic genocide in these isles, but then perhaps that description is an exaggeration. That may not be the case if you are a Gaelic speaker, Scottish or Irish, conscious that ‘clearance’ and famine was a political tool that served the purpose of those in power, indifferent to diversity, so that the state could rule supreme.

We must see ourselves in our various garbs and shades, including language. It is only then that we can speak of equality in all things. Babel fell and diversity was promoted and God’s purpose was an unintended glorious consequence.

Gethin EvansAberystwyth Meeting


QuAKERS ATTENDED the uN Climate Change Conference (COP23) that took place from 6 to 17 November in Bonn, Germany.

The nations of the world gathered with the aim of moving forward on the ambitions of the 2015 Paris Agreement. Syria signed the Agreement during COP23, leaving the uS as the only country that has not signed.

Friends were represented by Lindsey Fielder Cook of the Quaker united Nations Office (QuNO) in Geneva, and Susanna Mattingly, the sustainability communications officer at the Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) World Office.

Wealthy countries, which have contributed most to climate change in the past, now need to make an extra effort to cut their own emissions and support developing countries to do the same, and to do so in a way that is fair.

To this end, Friends supported the launch of ‘Walk on Earth Gently’, the ‘Multi-Faith Sustainable Living Initiative’ organised by GreenFaith, a multi-faith environmental group helping people put belief into action. FWCC, Britain Yearly Meeting and other Quaker bodies are signatories to the statement, which calls on Friends and other people of faith to continue to make changes to reduce their carbon footprint, individually and collectively.

In an interview with the Friend, Susanna Mattingly said: ‘I came to COP23 to hear directly from those most affected by climate change and to make connections with other faith representatives working on sustainability.’

Speaking of ‘Walk on Earth Gently’, she said: ‘The statement represents a shared assertion by faith groups globally that widespread sustainable behaviour change is required if global temperature rise is to meet the targets set by the Paris Climate Agreement. It also marks the launch of a new international, multi-

faith sustainable lifestyles initiative where religious leaders and people of faith pledge to adopt sustainable behaviours and call on their communities and world leaders to do the same.

‘Given that the vast majority of the world’s population identifies with a religion, working with faith groups in this way to coordinate sustainable living commitments means, as individuals and as communities, we have the potential to have real, meaningful impact.’

Susanna Mattingly also spoke of the stories she heard from Pacific islanders about the devastating impact climate change is having on their lives: ‘We have heard desperate pleas that we cannot ignore, urging the world to take action.

‘urgent changes are needed, not just for future generations but for the sake of our common family around the world who are already living with the reality of climate change today.’

[email protected] reported by Harry Albright

PICKERING MEETING in Yorkshire recently hosted the fourth lecture since the Meeting and four other local churches were gifted a sum of money following the closure ten years ago of the town’s Good News Bookshop.

Pickering Friends decided to use their share to host a series of public lectures speaking to Quaker values of sustainability, equality and peace.

On 19 October ecologist Jonathon Porritt spoke on ‘A

Roadmap to a Sustainable World in the Twenty-first Century.’

He told an audience of around 300 people that reducing carbon emissions to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is possible – if the collective will is there.

Pickering Meeting hosts sustainability lecture

Quaker presence at climate conference in Bonn

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Friends at the launch of the ‘Walk on Earth Gently’ initiative. From left: Susanna Mattingly, FWCC; Sara Wolcott, a US Friend representing Quaker Earth Witness; and British Friends Rachel Berger and Laurie Michaelis.


Voices from WalesFriends in Wales

Welsh Friends reflect on Quakerism, identity and belonging

There was a place – a special place. Down the uneven, breakneck stone steps from the cottage, through the bottom gate,

there was a small paddock on the bank of the River Aeron, shaded by a vast old ash and an equally old Norwegian spruce. We put a wooden and wrought iron bench down there, which at once began to rot away and grow moss, making itself part of the landscape. When I walked down first thing in the morning and sat there, I too felt part of the landscape. I felt embraced.

At Meeting of Friends in Wales – curiously, in

spite of being an ‘incomer’ and even in spite of having felt all my life that I didn’t really belong anywhere – I had the same sense of being in a special place, and being embraced. I began to identify with Wales and particularly with Welsh Quakers.

Once, a Friend complained: ‘We’ve bent over backwards for these people!’ (The Friend meant Welsh-speakers.) The insult, too, seemed to embrace me. What chutzpah on my part!

Stevie KrayerAbergavenny/Y Fenni

I often feel like a bit of a fraud when it comes to calling myself a Quaker. I haven’t actually attended Meeting for Worship in years. I

don’t even have an exciting story to tell about how I became a Quaker; I just grew up as one. But when I think about it a bit deeper, I realise how silly I’m being. Of course I’m a Quaker, what else could I be?

Being a Quaker just makes sense to me. It influences every aspect of my life: from the everyday little things to the big things. It’s influenced why I’ve just trained to be a social worker, why I’m so interested in politics, why I don’t eat meat, why I wash my dishes with eco-friendly washing up liquid, why I go on protests, why I support certain charities… the list goes on and on.

Wondering whether or not I’m a Quaker is like wondering whether or not I have ginger hair and freckles. Wondering what compelled me to become a Quaker is like wondering what compelled me to have such long legs and stupidly big feet. I just do. It’s who I am. It’s me.

Angharad GeralltHolyhead/Caergybi

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the Friend, 17 November 20176

Friends in Wales

Curiosity first brought me to Friends – a notice in our local paper of a Meeting for Worship not far away. The following

Sunday a good friend and I turned up at the Bala Meeting in Frongoch, both familiar with the history of seventeenth century Quakers in the area. The Meeting that day, however, was something way outside our experience.

On the way home we discussed it. My friend had been impressed but had no wish to repeat the experience. He gave two reasons: ‘dim Cymraeg’ (no Welsh) and ‘dim diwinyddiaeth’ (no theology). I could sympathise on the first count, the second as far as I was concerned was neither here nor there. That happened fifty and more years ago. I turned up at the next Meeting and I have kept on doing so ever since.

I was once asked: ‘Why are you a Quaker?’ My reply was: ‘I need to be a Quaker.’ I was asked if there was a difference between Quakers in Wales and Quakers elsewhere. I’ve met and discussed Quakerism (and theology!) with Friends from all over the world. I do not feel that any serious difference exists between Quakers, wherever they are. But I think of myself as a Welsh Quaker. No, that does not say it either. I think of myself as a Crynwr Cymraeg.

‘The wind blows differently here in Wales,’ Joan Southern said many years ago. Think on it. That contains a depth of meaning.

Dafydd JonesPorthmadog

I am Wales-born but spent my early life in Chester. The old curfew bell is long silent and Welsh people are no longer excluded

after nine pm. Living in the Marches equips you to seek compromise and to respect different voices, languages and cultures. Family connections, love of landscape and history came with moving back to Wales – knowing where you belong. I worked in education, teaching young people from disadvantaged backgrounds who took longer to shine than more confident peers. Not attracted by city lights or working in the media, as the backbone of our society they contribute wonderful skills to rural communities. Working with them was a huge satisfaction and privilege. Retired, I ‘reinvented’ myself, researching place names which both conceal and reveal history and culture and show our landscape’s evolution. I enjoyed developing methodologies to unlock our past, sharing it through articles and television series.

I doubt I’d have become a Quaker without our Local Meeting conducting worship and business in Welsh – my lifelong language of worship. A handful of enquirers followed the ‘Becoming Friends’ course with a Welsh-speaking Quaker, some travelling long distances to her home. Two have become members and the others regular attenders at our small but vibrant Meeting. All our discussions were in Welsh and that experience is something I shall always cherish.

Rhian ParryPwllheli

In 2008 Meeting of Friends in Wales had reached the point, after much consideration, of employing a part time administrative assistant to support the clerks. In practical terms this meant that regular mailings, newsletter publications, resources, and notices could be circulated reliably.

I was very fortunate to get the job, all eight hours a week of it. I’ve found working within a Quaker organisation a total revolution in terms of incorporating a spiritual dimension into the workplace. I’ve learned to undo much of the anxiety that drives the notion of ‘work’, or at least notice how the mind employs guilt and fear as drivers, and believes it ought to be motivated thus. In turn I’ve practised turning my attention to seeking guidance, awaiting the quiet direction and allowing acceptance.

With trust comes peace. My greatest joy has been the experience of being part of Business Meetings that open with silence and finish with gratitude. Over the last ten years I’ve met many Quakers of Wales and am constantly humbled by their energy and commitment.

Jules MontgomeryMachynlleth


At Yearly Meeting Gathering I attended a lecture on ‘John Edward Southall: forgotten Quaker, adopted Welshman’.

Like John Southall, I am an ‘incomer’, born in Essex and growing up in Bristol, and, like him, a linguist, coming to Cardiff university to continue studying modern languages. Here I met my husband, who is from the Welsh valleys.

We started attending Cardiff Meeting twenty years ago and our children have been welcomed into it: Taliesin, Arianwen, Ceridwen and Efnysien – three names from the Mabinogion collection of Welsh folk tales and the other from a daughter of Brychan Brycheiniog, ancient Welsh king with many children, all saints. They are educated through the medium of Welsh. We attended Welsh classes together as soon as the first was born, made possible by the generosity of Quakers living nearby who agreed to babysit every week.

unfortunately, the children are not as keen as their parents on speaking Welsh, so we are not getting as much practice as we hoped! They are also not keen on coming to Meeting for Worship at the moment. Nevertheless, we hope that they will grow up appreciating Quaker values and their Welsh heritage.

Helen OldridgeCardiff/Caerdydd and

Vibrancy in Meetings development workerfor Wales and Southern Marches

Being brought up a Quaker in Wales meant Meeting for Worship in our house once a month. We read from the Bible after

supper and discussed it – each child listened to with respect, but each having to show where in the text our ideas came from. Ackworth School next: Meeting for Worship was the best bit of the day and of Sunday – the peace, mental solitude, rest from having to join in, and occasionally ministry which opened the mind and the soul.

Coming home to Wales after university in Iceland brought me back to my Welsh roots. Being head of a (Welsh speaking) comprehensive at a time of great educational change could be tough. My area has a strong memory of descent from those early Quakers who emigrated, so the expectations of me were high locally. It needed deep soul-searching to live with that.

Walking to Britain Yearly Meeting in York (2009) was inspired by local Quaker Dorothy Owen, a minister who died in 1793. She walked to Monthly, Quarterly and even Yearly Meeting in London.

For twenty-five years, Meeting of Friends in Wales has affirmed Quakerism for me as being greater than one nationality, one culture and one language. It embraces us all.

Catherine James

Porthmadog

I grew up among Quakers in Sweden, so I find it hard to distinguish between my personal values, my family’s values and Quaker values. My faith is important to me and I feel insulted when people tell me I’m not ‘deeply’ religious. (They mean well – in that I’m not a fundamentalist.)

Religion to me is about doing the will of God, at all times. I don’t always succeed, but I try. If I need to measure the success of my life that’s the measure I want to use. John Woolman said that we should ‘bring all our resources into the stream of all-encompassing love’. That’s what I try to do in my work supporting women who have experienced domestic abuse. It’s also what I try to do when I am involved in various community campaigns and as a twenty-something elder at Cardiff Meeting. It’s what I try to do with friends and family.

I know I often fall short, but, to me, my attempt is what being a Quaker is all about. Meeting for Worship is at the centre of this, helping me to discern whether what I’m doing really is what God wants me to do. Wales is my home now, and the place in which I do this.

Mia HollsingCardiff/Caerdydd


Happy birthday

It doesn’t rain cats and dogs in Welsh. It rains old wives and walking sticks (‘bwrw hen wragedd a ffyn’). It was doing just that on 21 October as

everything was being cleared away. Meeting of Friends in Wales (MFW) had met in Newtown/Y Drenewydd and there marked twenty-five years of its existence.

Storm Brian was to sweep across Wales from the west, and some west coast Friends had decided against the journey. Still, the attendance was good and it felt like a gathering in good heart.

It was bound to be different, of course. We don’t normally meet in a church rather than its hall, but then we needed the hall as well, for a shared lunch, and space to be together and take photographs.

A congratulatory minute from Meeting for Sufferings isn’t an everyday event, nor is a greetings card from the recording clerk, with both of these in Welsh as well as English. What a nice touch it was that the card featured the Money for Madagascar charity, one of many projects that owe their origins to Quakers based in Wales.

The Meeting heard words about its past from assistant clerk Catherine James. She is also a past clerk of Meeting of Friends in Wales and was among those pioneers who envisioned such a thing for Wales and worked towards its creation. This has not happened without opposition, including from within Wales itself. Some Friends feared a kind of nationalist agenda and thought it an unnecessary concession to have Welsh as a language Friends might use in worship and business, and in outreach.

A lot has changed since those days. There was no time for nostalgia, though – there was a good deal of business to be covered.

Future generations

There is a belief that: ‘Some things are done better in Wales under devolution.’ There was the matter of housing provision and the Welsh Assembly’s ending of ‘right to buy’, for example, which came to the fore after Mary Hammond of the Quaker Housing Trust spoke to us in the afternoon. Mary has moved into

Friends in Wales

Christine Trevett reports on a celebration of Friends

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Wales recently after some years in Cornwall. In both places, she said, rising prices and inadequate pay, second homes and holiday homes skew the market and create difficulty for locals. (The translator for the day, of whom more later, nodded approvingly).

Then there was the Assembly’s Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 – a ‘first’ for any government. Friends in Wales, it was suggested, should be giving full attention to the this.

Bilingual resources

Outreach and the provision of bilingual resources for outreach took centre stage as Gill Sewell of Quaker Life reminded us of the opening which the Hay Festival of Literature and the Arts offered. Around 250,000 visitors is some opportunity for staging a Quaker presence! Hay on Wye/Y Gelli is in Wales, of course – even if only by a whisker. So, following on from this year’s presence there, Hay must be added to our annual outreach and resources concerns, added to The National Eisteddfod and The Royal Welsh Show.

Among other initiatives, MFW is producing a new and updated map in various formats, so that all might see where Meetings in Wales and contact addresses are. This is ‘work in progress’ and some tweaking is still needed. Having the map of Wales imposed over a blue surround made it look as though Wales was an island and that Ludlow, Hereford and much of the rest of England were under water! From the clerk’s table, I could see the translator smiling.

Meetings of MFW have professional simultaneous translation so that Friends may speak in Welsh or English, as they feel led. For much of the Meeting’s life it has been fortunate in having a Friend, Bryn Jones, now retired, who was such a translator and gave his service to the Meeting. Today’s man was new to us and seemed very engaged throughout, afterwards asking questions about Quakers and about George Fox. Translation does make us conscious of ‘Quaker Speak’. It must be startling in any language to encounter ‘Sufferings’ for the first time and the ‘annual meeting’ / AGM is not quite the same to Quaker ears as Yearly Meeting. Translators very soon cotton on, though, and speaking of maps, another one came up in a different agenda item.

Why is Wales not shown as Wales, with its proper borders, within the Tabular statement documents? Indeed, why isn’t there Tabular statement data for Wales as a separate entity? ‘We send this Minute to the recording clerk…’

The loss of some of MFW’s archive had been reported at a previous meeting (was it related to the fire at the National Library of Wales, perhaps?). Now, though, the more upbeat news was that there has been good progress in reconstituting a record of our history and work back to the 1980s, before there existed Meeting for Friends in Wales in 1992, which after just a few years became Meeting of Friends in Wales.

Pans of soup for our shared lunch had been lovingly transported from farther west and next to the tables of contributions was a substantial celebration cake – fearfully transported from South Wales. It was decorated with a map of Wales and a superimposed MFW logo, among other things. Frank Brown, MFW’s clerk of trustees, led us in a toast in sparkling elderflower. Dafydd Jones, another pioneer of the Meeting and a former clerk, should have cut the cake, but was unable to attend. Fortunately, he still got some of it.

As they left, some Friends carved pieces of cake to take to such pioneers, and, with the strong sense of place that seems typical of people in Wales, they were cutting into the map by geography: ‘That bit’s somewhere near Wrecsam, we’ll have that’ and ‘Looks like all of the South and West has been eaten already.’

‘Penblwydd hapus/Happy birthday’, the recording clerk had written. Beyond the Racial Justice Network, the terms of reference for committees, the picturesque Hedd Wen peace garden and the related Teaching Peace pack for schools, and so much else that concerns us, we had considered thankfully where we had come from and what might come next.

Christine is a member of Bridgend / Pen y Bont ar Ogwr Meeting and South Wales Area Meeting.

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…ac ’roedd ynofreuddwyd

’Roedd yno freuddwyd, yn llechu

rhwng plygiadau tawelwch y cyrddau;

dyhead am gael adnabod Cyfeillion o

bedwar ban, dyhead am gael cyfrannu, fel Cyfeillion,

i fywyd ein darn tir. Am gael gwneud hynny

pe mynnem yn ein hiaith ein hunain. Am gael

adnabod ein gilydd mewn gwir adnabod.

Ac yna caed tynerwch awelon, diflannodd

yr anesmwythyd o blygiadau’r addoliad, cawsom

adnabod ein gilydd yn undod ein Cyfarfod, adnabod ein

gilydd fel Cyfeillion yng Nghymru.

Dafydd JonesNorth Wales Area Meeting

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…and there wasa dream

…there was a dream, hiding

between the folds of the silence in the meetings;

a yearning to know *

Friends from

North, South, East and West, a yearning to contribute, as Friends,

to the life of this small patch of land. And to do

all this in our own language if we so wished. To know

one another in true

knowing.

And then there came a soft, gentle breeze, the unease

disappeared from the folds

of our worship. We knew

one another in the unity of our Meeting, we knew one

another as Friends in

Wales.

Dafydd JonesNorth Wales Area Meeting

Poetry

* The Welsh verb ‘adnabod’ has far greater depth and nuance than ‘to know’ – so much gets lost in translation (DJ).

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Work and worship

I remember vividly the first Meeting of Friends in Wales held in 1992, in Llanwrtyd, just across the mountain from me. It was experimental, it was

new, but it had a clear role to play on behalf of Friends throughout Wales. I wanted to be involved! Ever since then I have found this body the most natural place to live out my faith. I have grown immeasurably by working alongside Friends who show commitment, faithfulness and energy in routine tasks, which keep the Meeting going, and in taking on new challenges.

A Committee for Quaker Work in Wales had been active since the early 1980s, translating material into Welsh and ensuring that Friends were represented on Welsh bodies when appropriate. Then, out of a General Meeting for Wales held in 1989, a strong sense emerged that Quaker work and witness in Wales would benefit from being held within a Gathered Meeting, which could test and promote the concerns of Friends.

So, Meeting for Sufferings set up an ad hoc group, including representatives of those Monthly Meetings that had Local Meetings in Wales, plus some from other Meetings. It would make recommendations about how such a body might be constituted – whether a General Meeting to replace the General Meetings which at that time included parts of Wales, or a new body which overlaid the existing structure.

Some Friends saw it as rather a messy solution, but Meeting for Friends in Wales started as an experimental body in 1992. It was reviewed in 1996, by which time, and with devolution around the corner, it had established its place in the structures and attracted a strong band of committed Friends. The Meeting adopted a slight change of name, which expressed the sense that this was ours, not done for us. It became, Meeting of Friends in Wales (MFW).

Thus, in 1997 MFW was ready to welcome residential Yearly Meeting to Aberystwyth, and produced its first

book, Mae’r Gân yn y Galon, Quakers in Wales Today, which painted a picture of what it meant to live as Friends in this part of Britain. It would not be its last book. In 2013 and 2014, with financial support from Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, we produced a DVD and YouTube video, in Welsh, subtitled in English, on Living the Quaker Way, Y Ffordd Dawel? and two books of contemporary writing by Friends in Wales, Tua’r Tarddiad, and Towards the Source. Still available to buy, they are outreach tools, which can also be an ‘in-reach’ resource among Friends.

‘A Vision for Wales’

Having a Welsh Quaker body that could relate clearly to churches in Wales had been one of the triggers for creating the new body. Through MFW, Quakers have played a full and active role within Cytûn (Churches Together in Wales) since its inception. Friends were active in securing funding for an ecumenical liaison officer, for the newly formed National Assembly of Wales in 1998.

We have worked closely with successive officers in promoting Quaker witness at the Assembly. We have a representative on the Cytûn committee of Church and Society policy officers, which has an eye to Assembly legislation and its effects. MFW’s Wales Focus Group helps to discern when and how to respond to public events. In 2015, a day long workshop called ‘A Vision for Wales’ helped to set some direction for our witness.

The Meeting has responsibility for outreach, taking account of two languages in Wales (Quaker faith & practice 5.04/5.05). Consequently, we need to ensure additional bilingual or Welsh language resources, and be a witness to cultural institutions in Wales. We regularly staffed a tent at the geographically shifting National Eisteddfod, first in our own right, but more

Friends in Wales

Deborah Rowlands tells the story of Meeting of Friends in Wales


recently working with other churches in the Cytûn space, to provide an ecumenical welcome, taking responsibility for a Quiet Corner and holding Meetings for Worship.

Two years ago MFW began providing an annual Quaker lecture at this week-long Welsh language event. Similar witness has extended to the Royal Welsh Show, which is held in Llanelwedd each July, with our awareness of the rural nature of much of Wales. The commitment to such work grows and will continue: this year we supported Quaker Life’s first venture into the Hay Festival of Literature and the Arts, with its potential to reach considerable numbers.

How welcoming were our own Meetings, though? In 2000 MFW adopted a concern about inclusion. Might the challenge of working in two languages illuminate our practices more broadly? The Prosiect Croeso Ysbrydol / Spiritual Hospitality Project, funded by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, drew together a small group, coordinated by Stevie Krayer, to examine these questions, not only within Wales but in other bilingual communities across Europe and beyond.

The ensuing report, entitled Opening the Door (2003) continues to resonate for Friends. Yearly Meeting Gathering this year showed us (Minute 38) that it is a shared concern, which has not gone away. As one Friend in Wales put it:

I remember reading this [report] about six months after it was first printed. And I remember feeling ashamed and embarrassed about our Quaker Meeting house. I was librarian then (still am!) and immediately had all the labels/notices made bilingual. We refreshed our leaflets, made welcome packs – did all sorts of other things because of Spiritual Hospitality. Not that we were unfriendly or uncaring before. It was just that Spiritual Hospitality made us all think beyond the norm where welcoming and being inclusive was concerned. I think Spiritual Hospitality is top of my list for changes that have come about through MFW.

In 2004, in response to a recommendation from the Spiritual Hospitality Project, the Meeting set up a group to examine the feasibility of employing a part-time administrator. Two years later a grant from Britain Yearly Meeting, which recognised the responsibilities MFW carried on its behalf, led to the appointment of Jules Montgomery, who has brought a flair for design, diligence in routine tasks and a Friendly enabling spirit to MFW ever since.

One of her earliest tasks was to create a website to enable an outward facing presence in both languages and communication amongst ourselves. This supplements the MFW newsletter, Calon (meaning

Heart in Welsh), which carries high quality articles, reports and information in both languages.

MFW meetings move around Wales, often using community halls and church premises. There are few Quaker Meeting houses. One former clerk described her time as ‘a blur of good venues, meeting lots of Friends, and making sure the business got done’. Sustainability, peace, advocacy, forced migration and sanctuary have featured regularly in the programme over the years, as well as our position within the wider Yearly Meeting in Britain, and the tasks we have been given.

As well as day meetings, residential meetings have been a treasured part of the calendar. Friends of all ages have got to know one another well through sailing together on Lake Bala and walks along the cliffs at Llangrannog, as well as through song, dancing and poetry.

Challenges

There have been challenges around borders too. In 2005, the RECAST report, which looked at structures throughout the Yearly Meeting, recommended that Monthly Meetings in Wales should have borders coterminous with the Welsh border, to align the structure more clearly with present-day political reality.

Some bold proposals were put forward. Might Meeting of Friends in Wales become the trustee body for the whole of Wales? Might Local Meetings gather in smaller clusters than current Area Meetings to ensure mutual support and care for membership matters? How might lines of communication between Local Meetings and MFW be made clearer? Quakers along the Welsh/English border joined in the conversation. Would there be change to neighbouring Area Meetings?

In the end the only tangible change was that out of Hereford & Mid-Wales Area Meeting, two new Area Meetings, Mid Wales and Southern Marches, were formed. However, the process helped to define respective roles more clearly, and regular get-togethers of clerks and clerks of trustees were set up to support one another in good practice, and enable a Wales-wide perspective.

Meeting of Friends in Wales continues to have plenty to do! All Friends who live or worship in Wales can count MFW as theirs, regardless of the border and with representation in Meeting for Sufferings, Quaker Life Representative Council and Quaker Committee for Christian and Interfaith Relations (QCCIR), it has been able to ensure that a distinctive Welsh voice can be heard. We need to reappraise regularly, of course, but MFW gives us a Spirit-led place to discern how to act together.

As one Friend has put it: ‘My greatest joy has been the experience of being part of business meetings that open with silence and finish with gratitude.’

Deborah is from South Wales Area Meeting.


Song ofthe small birds

Poetry

Splitting up the land came first,

then splitting the coal for the warmth it brings.

But splitting the blue air is the worst,

ripping the breath from living things.

And since there are no healing words

a song of pain is what I’ll sing

about my country’s little birds

that pass on swift and steely wings.

Stevie KrayerSouthern Marches Area Meeting

This is a translation from the original Welsh by the Quaker and poet Stevie Krayer of Cân yr Adar Mân, a poem by Mererid Hopwood. Drones are tested at Aberporth in Cardiganshire,

adding to concerns about the militarisation of Wales.

Pho

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Friends on the inside

It is Monday afternoon and here we are again, sitting in a circle of silence, waiting. Some of us find it easier to wait than others. It’s only twenty

minutes, but to some of us it’s like twenty years.X finds it easier because he’s sure to fall asleep after

five minutes. Y finds it hard: he’s coming off his long-term ‘meds’ and the inside of his eyelids are too close for comfort. B would find it easier if she wasn’t sitting by C, who has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and twitches to the sound of the maraca band in his head. Z is standing in the Light, so are E and K. D is trying to read one of those weird Quaker books. It’s not exactly an exciting read; the words are many and long. L is trying not to think about his family. Q is wondering how long he can last before he has to break this silence that he can’t hide in. The chaplain is wondering if she bought enough biscuits and that she shouldn’t be thinking at all, never mind wondering about anything but the wonder of silence.

Welcome to HMP Berwyn’s ‘Time Out’ session. We are a motley crew and we have a great time.

The men come to get some peace, for the coffee and biscuits, for the ‘crack/craic’ – both Quaker and prison varieties – and for the spiritual upholding. Friends come bringing humanity, normality and the Light into prison. We all sit down together, with our collective pasts of depression, abuse, drug-addiction, alcoholism, physical and mental pain, and enjoy some of the most profound silences the more long-term Friends have ever experienced. The silence is intense, the Light is bright and the Love between us is made manifest. Not every time, of course, but often enough.

I give thanks for the friends I am finding on the inside. The women and men who endure the prison system need help, not just in prison, but in the future when they leave. Many have nowhere to go but a hostel or the street. Many have little money. Many have no family, no friends.

But they have Friends. I would like them to still have Friends on their release. If someone comes to your Meeting and reveals they are an ex-offender (a horrible word) I would like you to welcome them.

They are refugees – refugees from a war with themselves and refugees in a society where a caring community no longer exists, or is very well-hidden, not just for them but for the poor, the old, the vulnerable, the refugees from around the world…

All over Britain, places are declaring themselves Places of Sanctuary for refugees. My own Local Meeting, Llangollen, is now a Sanctuary Meeting. I would like that to include refugees from prison. I would like that sanctuary to spread to all the groups in our interfaith communities.

I see HMP Berwyn as Elizabeth Fry’s vision of prison made real – the rehabilitation of people who have gone wrong and are looking for the Light. People in prison matter and they should matter to us, Friends. When they return home, we can help in their continued rehabilitation. Let us be open to hear the twenty-first century sufferings of prisoners and let us welcome these women and men in every Meeting for Worship.

In HMP Berwyn a prisoner is not a prisoner. He is a man. A cell is not a cell. It’s a room. A wing is not a wing. It’s a community. Words matter. Friends know this. While our faith has the sacredness of silence at its heart and soul, we Friends write thousands and thousands of words each year trying to engage with our Quakerism as an individual and as a religious Society.

A man came to Berwyn eight weeks ago. He has served many years in English prisons. His first language is Welsh. He has no family contact. until he came he hadn’t spoken his native tongue for a long, long time. He looks to a time when he will find a home in a Welsh-speaking community. Words matter.

Ruth is Quaker prison chaplain of HMP Berwyn.

Witness

A reflection by Quaker chaplain Ruth Moore Williams

HMP Berwyn is located on an industrial estate near Wrexham in North Wales. It is the first of the uK’s super prisons. When Berwyn is full it will house 2,106 men. The ethos of HMP Berwyn is rehabilitation. Every small interaction in Berwyn is one that leads to seeing everyone as a person. All who live and work in Berwyn are encouraged to speak to the good inside each other.


I have been in HMP Berwyn since 23 March 2017 and, to be honest, it’s been an emotional roller coaster for me to get to this frame of mind, and

to be able to be happy and content, while from the outside looking in you would think I was constantly carrying the world on my shoulders.

I’ve gone through a lot of trauma, both physically and mentally. I’ve had my mental health torn apart by predators, chancers, manipulators, liars and thieves.

It’s been a weird journey for me, as normally I would use drugs to numb my pain, to forget, eventually ending up with an addiction – then I would end up offending to get money to carry on my habit. So, inevitably, a vicious circle is born with me, in and out of prison, using drugs to cope out of prison and then using them inside prison to help me cope with the isolation.

I’m not blaming anybody but myself and I don’t do sympathy or pity, because when someone is nice to me or pays me a compliment, my radar switches on and I wonder what they are after. Paranoid? I don’t think I am, because most of the time I’m right. I’ve got pretty good at second guessing people’s motives, and, honestly, being in prison you realise that everyone has an agenda, which only concerns them mainly.

So, after too many years, it feels like my life had hit rock bottom emotionally. I had literally given up with others and nothing held my interest, apart from a few fictional books and maybe the news.

Witness

A prisoner, and Friend, in HMP Berwynwrites about encountering Quakerism

Findinghope

…normally I would use drugs to numb my pain, to forget

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Self-medicating on cocktails of all types of drugs did help me to cope rather than sit there day in and day out contemplating ending my life, which was totally unbearable.

Nothing is straightforward or black and white and everything has a story, with one wrong decision snowballing into another, one creating a worse scenario. Then the pressure increases and you feel that your hands are tied, backed into a corner – you get the message.

I wouldn’t be who I am today unless I had gone through all my mistakes, and even though I never learnt my first or second lesson I would say I’m finally over that hurdle, because after years of being an addict I have finally got clean and drug free for the second time in my life (I’m thirty-seven years old), not being forced but voluntarily through my own choice!

Since I’ve been off drugs and able to take in the environment around me with clarity, it was a bit scary at first and hard to deal with. The damage of seclusion and being stuck in a rut did take their toll on me and my personality was non-existent, as I didn’t know the real me, but finally I started to realise what I liked and what took my interests.

One day a mate asked me if I wanted to come to a Quaker group. I asked ‘What’s it about?’ and was told it’s relaxing and you get a cup of coffee and biscuits. I was sold there and then and attended. WOW! That session was out of this world for me and I’ll tell you why – because the impact, for me, is that it has changed my direction for life, pointed me in the right direction and given me faith in humanity.

It felt like I was connected to everyone else’s energy and was transported somewhere brighter than the dark hole I had been in for ages. I was excited in my mind. My thoughts were reorganised and didn’t feel like problems any more. I felt a closeness I had not felt before to the visitors and men in the room. My paranoia dissipated and I felt 100 per cent positivity for all in that room. There is so much more I can’t describe or put

into words, but I know that for the rest of my life I’m a Quaker and a Friend. Life isn’t about crime and drugs but doing better things and making a difference for the right reasons.

I can’t wait to go to Meetings outside of prison and have the privilege of sharing a circle with like-minded people. Knowing that there is a community of Friends who won’t judge me makes me feel welcome already. The whole way of life makes so much sense to me because the opposite of that way has always steered me off the track and into trouble and stress.

Finally, the people – the Friends –who have come into HMP Berwyn have been the most positive, influential people I could possibly imagine, as they are always in good spirits and bring a freshness into the Meetings that the staff don’t. To me they are shining examples of how I so long to be.

The outside Friends are role models and good influences for the group and I’m really, really grateful to have found my Friends and see a bright future for myself, as I know that, unlike my previous friends in my old circles, these new Friends will look out for me and guide me away from trouble and stop me making bad or wrong decisions.

It’s been a tough long journey to be the person I am today. Yes, I’ve caused destruction and left a trail of devastation longer than most, but I can’t change any of it. All I can do is flip it on its head and, finally, learn my lesson and don’t entertain my old lifestyle ever again. But if I hadn’t led that life then I wouldn’t have been in prison at this time to be introduced to my new family of Friends. So, really, I have to count my blessings and have more faith in myself.

My future has finally found the hope and direction I’ve always needed. I do have one regret, and that is not finding Quakers sooner. Thank you all for being a part of this.

This article is published with the permission of the governor of HMP Berwyn.

…after years of being an addict I have finally got clean and drug free

for the second time in my life (I’m thirty-seven years old)

It felt like I was connected to everyone else’s energy and was

transported somewhere brighter than the dark hole I had been in…


Friends in Wales


by Jules Montgomery and Elinor Smallman


A Oes Heddwch?

At the main literature awards ceremonies at the National Eisteddfod of Wales each year an interesting ritual takes place. The winning

author is led to the stage where he or she stands waiting for their name to be proclaimed. Two druids hold a sheathed sword above the winner’s head, partly unsheathe it and ask the audience: ‘A oes Heddwch?’ (‘Is there peace?’) ‘Heddwch!’ (‘Peace!’) the audience shouts in return. Only after this ritual has been performed three times can the author sit in the bardic chair. The sword is then sheathed and put away. So, is Wales a peace-loving nation? What does our history and heritage tell us, and how are people, including Quakers, working for peace today?

As in other parts of the uK, the centenary of the first world war brought a heightened awareness in Wales of the loss and waste of that conflict. This has proved an opportunity to question anew the ‘logic’ of war and to celebrate those who oppose it.

Wales for Peace, a Heritage Lottery-funded project based in the Welsh Centre for International Affairs (WCIA) in the Temple of Peace in Cardiff, is doing just that. The question at the heart of this project is: ‘In the 100 years since world war one, how has Wales contributed to the search for peace?’

Through engagement with community groups and schools, the project aims to answer this question by researching ‘hidden histories’ of individuals and groups, and sharing them in a variety of ways – through public exhibitions and talks, creative events and projects in schools, and online.

As the project has developed, various strands have emerged. They include conscientious objection then and now, the role of women, international solidarity, refugees and asylum seekers, and the voice of young people. Particularly in schools, project activities aim to support young people in thinking critically about the past, exploring its relevance to our situation today, and asking what we can do to bring about change.

One thing that has emerged is clear: Wales does have a peace heritage. In fact we can trace that heritage at least as far back as active involvement in the Society for the

Promotion of Permanent and universal Peace (founded in 1816), and to Henry Richard, MP for Merthyr Tydfil, known as ‘the Apostle of Peace’, who worked tirelessly to establish the principle of arbitration into international law.

There was a veritable spate of activity in the 1920s and 1930s, as people reacted to the devastation that the first world war had wrought on society. Influential figures at this time included David Davies, the first baron Davies of Llandinam. He was a philanthropist who became an MP at the age of twenty-six, founded the Department of International Politics in Aberystwyth and sponsored the building of the Temple of Peace and Health in Cardiff.

Lord Davies was also instrumental in the work of the Welsh League of Nations union. Having fought in the trenches in the first world war, he was passionately committed to the establishment of a strong international order to maintain peace.

His sisters, Gwendoline and Margaret, were influential in the founding of the Welsh Education Advisory Committee (1922–39), which aimed to ‘advance the teaching of peace and the principles of the League of Nations in schools throughout Wales’.

This sort of activity was not limited to the rich and powerful, however. In 1923-24 390,296 women across Wales (sixty per cent of the female population at the time) signed a petition addressed to the women of America, asking them to use their influence to persuade their government to become a full member of the League of Nations, thus safeguarding peace for future generations. In May 1926 2,000 women assembled in the village of Penygroes in Caernarfonshire and marched across North Wales to join a gathering of 10,000 women in London’s Hyde Park.

Earlier, in 1922, in Cwm Rhymney, Gwilym Davies, a Welsh Baptist minister and pacifist, sent the first ‘Message of Peace and Goodwill’ from the children of Wales to the children of the world. The Message has been sent every year since on 18 May, and is now broadcast through the media in Wales.

More recent examples of Wales’ peace heritage include the welcome given to Basque refugee children

Peace

Jane Harries describes the work for peace in Wales – yesterday and today


in Caerleon and North Wales during the Spanish civil war; the march of the Welsh group ‘Women for Life on Earth’ from Cardiff to Greenham Common in 1981 (a movement that initiated the Greenham peace camp); and Welsh participation in the anti-apartheid movement.

Where does the inspiration for all this activity come from? It is fair to say that – particularly in the early twentieth century – religion was a prime motivating factor. The influence of nonconformist chapels, with their strong pacifist tradition, was significant. This has been highlighted by Aled Eirug, who has recently completed his PhD on Welsh conscientious objectors (COs) in the first world war.

Many COs in Wales were motivated by religious conviction or their membership of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) and a belief in the brotherhood of man. This is perhaps not so much the case today, although Cymdeithas y Cymod (the Fellowship of Reconciliation in Wales), whose core members belong to churches and chapels, is still active.

Other factors may favour and motivate peace initiatives. Wales is a small country where people tend to know one another in their local areas, so activities are easier to coordinate and manage. There is a sense of community and an understanding of what it means to live alongside a more powerful neighbour, and to have and cherish a culture that is different and in jeopardy. At best, this can foster empathy for others who are underprivileged or displaced.

Generalisations are, however, dangerous. As Waldo Williams, the twentieth century Welsh poet and Quaker, said of his parents: ‘Cenedl dda a chenedl ddrwg, dysgent hwy mai rhith yw hyn.’ (‘They taught me that good and bad nations are a fantasy.’)

The peace movement in Wales today faces challenges similar to those confronting peace activists in the rest of the uK. A report produced in 2016 reminded us that eighty-five per cent of the total area of Wales is designated as a ‘Low Flying Area,’ and that in 2011-12 seventy-four per cent of state secondary schools in Wales were visited by the British army.

All Welsh local authorities have signed up to the uK government’s Armed Forces Covenant. Military training areas are dotted across Wales and a large area of the west coast is used to test unmanned drones for military purposes – an issue actively highlighted by Cymdeithas a Cymod, five of whose members were arrested in 2014 following a nonviolent protest.

There is, then, much to campaign about. At the same time the commemoration of the first world war has given the peace movement a real springboard from which to create a lasting legacy, particularly focusing on peace education.

Mid-Wales Quakers are already actively involved in delivering peace education activities in a number of primary schools. By the end of the Wales for Peace project, fourteen schools will have signed up to the Wales Peace Schools Scheme, and we aim to have a Young Peacemakers’ forum in place. We hope that another legacy will be the establishment of a Peace Institute in Wales, with a remit to produce high quality research and promote positive practice on issues relating to peace, human rights and wellbeing.

Yes, there is an ongoing need to be vigilant, but there are also grounds for optimism.

‘A oes Heddwch?’ ‘Heddwch!’

Jane is from Bridgend/Pen y Bont ar Ogwr Meeting and is learning coordinator for the Wales for Peace project.

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All views expressed are those of the writer and not necessarily those of the FriendLettersThe Bible SocietyQuakers were present at the inaugural meeting of the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1804 and continued to be associated with it throughout the nineteenth century. Josiah Forster, who was Yearly Meeting clerk for a time, served on its committee for forty-four years, some of these as its chairman, and Joseph Pease, the railway pioneer and first Quaker MP, was a vice-president. The Society’s Rule One of 1805 stated that ‘…the sole object shall be to encourage a wider circulation of the Holy Scriptures’. Slightly reworded, its only object is the same today. At home this means reminding British people of their disappearing heritage. Overseas the mission is to make the Bible available in local languages to those who want it, primarily to Christians but also to other enquirers. From the beginning the Society has offered only the text and not any particular interpretation of it.

In the Syrian situation it has been reported that some half million of the four or more million people who fled their homes are Christians who lost almost all they had, which for many included their Bibles. Given Syria’s recent history it should not be a surprise that some non-Christian refugees become interested in and receptive to the Christian message.

Christopher Thomas Cumberland Area Meeting

With regard to the Bible Society leaflet enclosed in the 6 October edition of the Friend, the background of our Religious Society includes statements such as ‘Learn of the Lord to make a right use of the Scriptures’ (Isaac Penington). George Fox and others point us to ‘the Spirit that gave forth the scriptures’. Our tradition is to put the Bible in proper perspective, which seems to be consistent with that of the Bible Society.

On their website the Bible Society’s strapline is: ‘All our efforts are driven by one conviction: we believe that when people engage with the Bible lives can change – for good.’ Is that a view with which our Society would disagree to such an extent that it should not be permitted to be associated with the Friend?

If we were to cut off contact with any group who might (in our view) sometimes proselytise, would we not have to dissociate ourselves not just from all the churches but also from all of Islam, not to mention some or all ideological and political groups?

The Bible Society may indeed pray ‘that more people will encounter Christ through our ministries’, but in my view most of what Quakers in Britain do and say now is based on our seventeenth century heritage where such ideas were expanded, with reinterpretation for sure, but not contracted or eliminated.

Stuart DonnanSouthampton Meeting, Hampshire

Follow the moneyI agree with Ruth Tod (20 October). Follow the money to discover ‘how [it] can be used for the benefit of all’.

Three per cent of the money in the uK economy (the cash) is created by the Bank of England (BoE), out of nothing, and sold on to the banks, one pound for one pound (seigniorage). Ninety-seven per cent (the electronic proportion) is created out of nothing by private, profit-seeking banks when they make loans, and costs the banks nothing.

The three per cent goes into the hole in the wall, accessible with plastic cards. The ninety-seven per cent goes into our bank accounts, when borrowed.

Seignorage on the three per cent benefits everyone – an income for the government, reducing our tax. The ninety-seven per cent, created when banks make loans, benefits us by circulating in the economy. In the long term, it doesn’t benefit those who borrow it. The debt has to be repayed, with interest, which can’t be created out of nothing, only by human sweat and often tears.

By far the biggest beneficiary of this system of money creation is the banking sector, which has the sole privilege of making a profit out of a product banks haven’t had to pay for. It would be illegal for anyone else to spend self-created money, let alone make a profit on it. We should, first, campaign for BoE-created money to circulate as quantative easing (QE) for the people. Second, argue the banks are brought back into line with normal business practice and make them pay for the product they profit from lending.

Sue HoldenWensleydale & Swaledale Area Meeting

The Bank of England has decided to raise interest rates from 0.25 per cent to 0.5 per cent. Wages are not keeping pace with the cost of living. Many people have not had a pay rise for a decade. Many employees working in the public sector are thousands of pounds worse off. A rise in interest rates means that many people will face higher mortgage payments and credit card bills. We have the biggest consumer debt burden in history. Even a small interest rate rise may push many families into the ‘not managing at all’ group.

With an interest rate rise there needs to come a pay rise. As Ruth Tod wrote: ‘If we are to create a country where everyone is able to flourish, we desperately need reform of both taxation and banking.’

Friends, if you have an interest in this important issue, please get in touch with the Quaker North London New Economy Reading Group, and join us in working towards a new economy in which our Quaker testimonies can flourish.

Sue NewsomNorth London Area [email protected]


Charitable statusI do not understand why anybody should think that Quakers have ‘sold’ their freedom of action to the government (20 October). Certainly, we should be grateful to Christian Aid and Oxfam for very clearly bringing political action within the ambit of charitable work. It is only direct party political action that the Charity Commission would frown upon.

Nor should Gift Aid be described as a ‘tax benefit’ (3 November). The effect of Pay As You Earn (PAYE) in some circumstances is to take more tax from us than is legally required at the end of the tax year. Gift Aid is part of that excess. It is our money, not the government’s tax income.

Nor can I find any logic in paying more tax than is legally required of us (also 3 November). It would just ‘disappear’ into the Treasury coffers and as likely find its way to the Ministry of Defence if their pleas to the chancellor are the loudest.

Christians, members of other faiths and humanists should be using their surplus funds to support non-governmental organisations working for change in society and seeking to help ‘people in desperate need’.

Gerald Drewett [email protected]

Yet another letter in the Friend complains that by being a registered charity we have lost our freedom of action. As with other similar letters, your correspondent doesn’t give any examples of what actions we might want to take, but we are not able to do as a Society.

Once again the term ‘tax avoidance’ has been thrown into the argument (20 December). This argument doesn’t hold, friends. In tax avoidance the individual makes a financial gain, but when I make a charitable donation I don’t make any financial gain!

Eric WalkerIpswich Meeting, Suffolk

Kendal Quaker TapestryMy husband and I recently returned from a wonderful week volunteering at the Quaker Tapestry in Kendal, which we both thoroughly enjoyed. It was our first time there. Having seen the tapestries a few times over the years (twice at Ely Cathedral) it was quite another extraordinary experience to live with them for the five days of volunteering. They just glowed.

Another joy was meeting the visitors and hearing their very positive responses to the exhibition. Some were visibly moved by the whole experience and others came out amazed at the quality of the needlework, the creativity in the design, and the numbers and countries involved in the making of the tapestries.

They all wanted to talk about their experience of [the tapestry] – a wonderful permanent window of

Quakerism throughout the centuries, up to the present day. We recommend the experience of being a volunteer to Friends. The staff were very welcoming and supportive throughout our time at Kendal. The flat is cosy and well equipped and the café serves good coffee and food. Another great benefit was enjoying Meetings for Worship at Kendal Meeting House and meeting Kendal Friends. It was a very Friendly and friendly experience all round.

Jo FisherSt Neots Meeting, Cambridgeshire

Quaker schoolsOh dear. Here we go again on Quaker schools being for the ‘privileged’ people who can afford to send their children to them (27 October). Seven generations of my family struggled to send their children to Quaker schools.

I joined the Society in 1947, after seven years at Sidcot School, and have been on the staff of Walden and Wigton schools, as well as three local authorities.

The thing that really does upset me is the fact that for the last thirty years I have been much better off living on the state on pensions than I ever was while I was teaching and sending my own children to Quaker schools. I regard that as extremely unQuakerly.

It cannot be right that my children and grandchildren are going to have to work until they are in their seventies because I have been able to retire at sixty with pensions from the state. Some of us are living well past our sell by date, and are lucky to do so, but it’s not fair to the next generations.

Alison Johnson London West Area Meeting

[email protected]

The Friend welcomes your views.

Do keep letters short (maximum 250 words).

Please include your full postal address, even when sending emails, and specify whether you wish for your postal or email address or Meeting name to be used with your name.

Letters are published at the editor’s discretion and may be edited.

In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty,

in all things charity.


[email protected] look at the Quaker world

THE OLDEST Meeting house in Wales in continuous use turned 300 this year and, after months of planning, Friends gathered for a week of activities to celebrate this momentous anniversary.

During a week in September a varied programme of events saw people travel from near and far to find out more about The Pales.

One of the events saw paint brushes being brandished as The Pales hosted an Art Day. Bridget Cherry, of Ludlow Meeting, described how ‘around a dozen artists quickly scattered over the grounds, keen to make the best of the uncertain weather, but there was also the chance to gather indoors in the warmer setting of the schoolroom’.

She added: ‘There was a fascinating variety of approaches, in materials used, in style of painting and in the range of colours explored to depict the surrounding landscape.

‘Trying to capture the essence of a place requires a special kind of looking which can be quite strenuous, but is intensely rewarding… the setting of The Pales is a deeply inspiring subject with endless possibilities.’

Other events included a talk by a local geologist about the land surrounding the Meeting house, which inspired his forty-one listeners to go fossil hunting.

The ways in which the testimonies are reflected at The Pales itself were explored by a group of eight Friends: simplicity and sustainability were considered in the Williams Wood, truth in the view from the campsite, equality in the burial ground, and peace around the meditation pond.

Twenty-three braved a cold and wet morning to walk to Penybont Common, which may have been a site where George Fox preached.

A programme of speakers delved into the past with their audience of

forty at the History Day. The Pales Peace Choir rounded off the week by performing a concert.

The Pales Management Group told Eye: ‘We were delighted to see so many people and thank all who offered suggestions about what they would like to see happening in 2018.’

In praise of The Pales

SKIPTON FRIENDS made a joyful outing during the town’s Puppet Festival Parade this year.

A giant Quaker octopus was crafted by the Meeting, inspired by the parade’s theme ‘Dreams of the Sea’, and took to the streets on Sunday 1 October.

Local Friend Kevin Hogan told Eye that their creation was part of the Skipton Quakers’ outreach activities for Quaker Week.

‘Our aim was to have fun and give a lively, affirmative view of Quakers. We wanted to subvert the image of them as sober and joyless and so wore Quaker Oats style hats decorated with sea related items.’

Joyful puppetry

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the Friend, 17 November 2017 25

Friends&Meetings

Diary

Deaths

MUSICIANS FOR PEACE ANDDISARMAMENT (MPD) Concertfor Peace Friday 24 November,7.30pm at St James’s ChurchPiccadilly, London W1.MPD Chamber Orchestra,Conductor Jane Glover. Bach, Handel,Mozart. www.mpdconcerts.org

SEEK UNITY; UPHOLD DIFFER-ENCE; FIND WHOLENESS:Exploring decision-making throughQuaker Business Method and othermodels. Tuesday 5 December 2017,at Friends House, Euston. 9am -9:15am MFW, 5pm Close. Find outmore at https://qandb.org/qbc17

TwelveQuakers and

DeathThis new book is one of themost deeply felt that QuakerQuest has produced. Hereare accounts of living withthe prospect of imminentdeath, of sitting with lovedones as they die, anddiscovering the ecstasy ofa near death experience.

All the writers haveattempted to show howQuakerism has shaped theirattitudes and their faith.

Available at £2.50 pluspostage from:Quaker Centre BookshopFriends House173 Euston Road,London NW1 2BJ.www.quaker.org.uk/shopTel. 020 7663 1030.

Other titles include‘Twelve Quakers and...God, Worship, Pacifism, Evil,Simplicity, Jesus, Equality,Faith, Truth, and Prayer.’

Rosalind CASHMORE 25 Octoberin Weston hospital. Widow of Tony,mother of Lindsay. Attender atSidcot Meeting. Aged 95. Funeral3pm Monday 20 November atWeston-Super-Mare crematorium.Enquiries: CV Gower, FuneralDirector 01934 842945.

Diana GALVIN 25 October.Peacefully at home. Mother of Liam.Member of Westminster Meeting.Aged 90. Cremation 3pmWednesday 22 November at SouthLondon Crematorium, RowanStreet, London SW16 5JG.

John GRAVELY 6 November,peacefully at The Oaks, NewEarswick. Husband of Margaret,father of Chris and Alison. Memberof Friargate Meeting York. Aged 85.Memorial Meeting at Friargate FMHon Saturday 2 December at 2pm.Further information from Margareton 01904 700884 or [email protected]

Sheila SAVILL 28 October.Member of Hampstead Meeting.Aged 79. Funeral 1.45pm Thursday16 November at MintlynCrematorium, Kings Lynn.Memorial Meeting at Hampstead tofollow. Details Plum Savill: 07776237324. Donations: NationalAssociation of Deafened People.

John SCHMID 6 November inBulawayo. Attender at Harpendenand Bulawayo Meetings, organiserof Zimbabwe Food Relief Action.Aged 91. A meeting to give thanksfor John’s life will be arranged.Enquiries Gillian Robertson:[email protected]

For details of how to place a notice on this page please see the informationbox at the bottom of page 18 or email [email protected]

Marjorie WARDMAN 3 November.Peacefully in Kirkwood ResidentialHome, Ilkley. Wife of the lateFrederick, mother or Arthur. Memberof Ilkley Meeting. Aged 103. Funeral2.10pm Monday 20 November atSkipton Crematorium.

William (Bill) CUNNINGHAMA Memorial Meeting to give thanksfor the grace of God in Bill's life willbe held at 2pm on Saturday25 November at Newcastle uponTyne Quaker Meeting House,Gosforth NE3 4ES.

Memorial meetings

NoticesQUAKER ACTION ON ALCOHOLAND DRUGS New Director AlisonMather. Please contact Alison withany questions about our work orcontributions to QAADRANT:0117 924 6981 or [email protected]

EXPLORING COMMUNITYJoin us at Bamford to explore howour Quaker Community works, andwhat community means for you.1–3 December, 16–18 February.£50-80 fully catered. 01433 [email protected]

QUAKER AFRICA INTERESTGROUP Saturday 3 February 2018.Priory Rooms, QMH, 40 Bull Street,Birmingham. 9.30 for 10am to 4pm.Refreshments/lunch bookable. Allwelcome, to network and learn aboutQuaker witness in Africa. Contact:[email protected]

17 Nov 13/11/17 17:59 Page 7


Classified advertisementswhere to stay

GUESTHOUSES, HOTELS, B&BS

COTTAGES & SELF-CATERING

jobs Classified adsStandard linage 59p a word, semi-display 89p a word. Rates incl. vat.Min. 12 words. Seriesdiscounts: 10% on 5 insertions,15% on 10 or more. Chequespayable to The Friend.

The Friend, 54a Main Street,Cononley, Keighley BD20 8LLTel. 01535 630230Email: [email protected]

appeals

BULAWAYO AND HARAREQUAKER MEETING HOUSES

ZIMBABWE

Funds urgently needed to extendthe Meeting Room for the growing

Meeting in Bulawayo, and forwater sustainability at Harare Meeting.

Please help.Further information:

[email protected] 321166

George Penaluna, Advertisement Manager, 54a Main Street, Cononley, Keighley BD20 8LL Tel: 01535 630230 E: [email protected]

to let

Subscribe to the Friend today!Please contact Penny Dunn:

020 7663 [email protected]

COTSWOLDS. Spacious barn conversionin Charlbury near Woodstock. Sleeps 2+.Woodburner. Lovely walking. 01608811558. [email protected]

DEVIZES, WILTSHIRE. 2 bedroom, 1stfloor flat adjoining Devizes QuakerMeeting House. Quiet location with offstreet parking. £550pcm. Please contactthe Premises Committee: 01380 722560,email [email protected] orpost: Quaker Meeting House, SussexWharf, Bath Road, Devizes SN10 2AE.

Do you ever feel the needfor time out from yourhectic life?

Time out to be quiet, toreflect, to listen, to just BE?

The Elizabeth Brown Fund,a project of Golders GreenMeeting, was donated by herchildren in honour of hermemory and life. One ofElizabeth’s many qualitieswas that she fully appreciatedthe value of just being insilence. A main objective ofthe Fund is to encourageothers to discover the valueof just being.

There are many opportunitiesat Quaker Centres andMeeting Houses around theUK to experience a time ofquiet contemplation, aretreat or a course to introduceyourself to one of the manyways of finding stillness andclearness within.

The Elizabeth Brown Fundcan offer financial help tothose who want to attendsuch courses. We aim tosupport those who are try-ing this for the first time.

For details please emailelizabethbrownfund@

gmail.com

Listen tothe Silence

B&B AT WOODBROOKE, BIRMINGHAM.Explore Birmingham and the Midlandsor relax in 10 acres of gardens andwoodland. Close to Bournville and publictransport. Wonderful library, deliciousmeals, Friendly welcome. Great value.Book at www.woodbrooke.org.uk or call0121 472 5171.

EAST DEVON THATCHED COTTAGEIdeal for winter breaks. Beautiful, peaceful,Grade II Listed, 4-bedrooms. Quiet villageclose to sea. From £180 long w/e, £300week. Details: [email protected] or 01608 643967.

THE DELL HOUSE, MALVERN.For residential retreats, social weekends,celebrations, business meetings andgatherings of up to twenty people. Variouscatering options. www.thedellhouse.co.uk01684 564448.

VENUES

CARER NEEDED, 4-5 hours per day.London SW7. DBS required. Professionalqualification preferred. Light housework/companion. Please telephone 07739430509.

Friends & MeetingsPersonal entries (births, marriages,deaths, anniversaries, changes ofaddress, etc.) charged at £30 incl.vat for up to 35 words and includesa copy of the magazine. Meetingand charity notices, (Changes ofclerk, new wardens, changes tomeeting, new Members, Diary, etc.)£25 zero rated for vat. Max. 35words. Three entries £60 (£50 if zerorated); six entries £97.50 (£81.25 ifzero rated).Entries accepted at the editor’sdiscretion in a standard house style.A gentle discipline will be exerted tomaintain a simplicity of style andwording that excludes terms ofendearment and words of tribute.Guidelines on request.The Friend, 54a Main Street,Cononley, Keighley BD20 8LLTel. 01535 630230Email: [email protected]

25th Anniversaryof Meeting ofFriends in WalesBuy extra copiesof this special issueto share.Just £1 a copy for 5 or morecopies sent to one UKaddress, post free.

Send your name and addresswith a cheque payable toThe Friend to:Penny Dunn, The Friend,173 Euston Rd, London NW12BJ or call 020 7663 1178

17 Nov 13/11/17 17:59 Page 8

the Friend, 17 November 2017 27

Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) BritainDEVELOPMENT OFFICERAVP Britain is a small charity, working across the country to deliver workshopswhich support participants to deal with conflict without resorting to violence.Trustees are looking for a Development Officer to take the organisation forward bystrengthening our governance, improving our communication and working with us to plan for our future sustainability.

This is an exciting 6-month opportunity, available on a part or full time basis. Candidates may be based in the AVPoffice in London, but could equally well work from home. Salary £28,500 per annum pro rata.

Interviews will be held mid-December 2017, so that the successful candidate can start in January 2018.Deadline for applications – 27 November 2017.

For further information and an application pack email: [email protected] or phone 07720 087132.

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At York Friargate Meeting House and Bournemouth Meeting House£10 per day payable on the door. Saturdays, 10.30am - 4.30pm. Open to all. No booking required.

YORK: Saturday 13 January - Opening to New Light with Ann Banks & Val BoneFurther workshops in the series on Saturday 10 February, 10 March and 28 April

BOURNEMOUTH: Sat. 20 January - Living Adventurously with David & Rosemary BrownFurther workshops in the series on Saturday 17 February and 17 March

Enquiries email: [email protected] or see http://thekindlers.webs.com

Spring 2018 Day Workshops

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meeting of friends in wales · quaker faith & practice 10.14, cyfarfod dwyfor, 1994 special...

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