By Hayley Fern At all of my first dozen meetings, someone new has asked me how I came to discover Quakers. My reply is always the same: I happened to read a book which talked about it with such agreeable descriptions that I became curious. The book was Notes from an Exhibition by Patrick Gale. …
From 10-12 June, Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre will host a Soulcraft weekend for men, led by Peter Fishpool and David Williams. Peter Fishpool has led groups and arts work in many contexts. He has written in The Friend about men’s rites of passage and on accompanying his wife, Jenny, to her death from brain tumours.…
By Jez Smith Imagine that your child is sick. You do everything that you can to care for him but it is not enough. You take your son to the local district hospital but he doesn’t respond well. Not to worry, someone says, you can take him to a larger hospital. Fine, you say. You’ll…
by John Cornes In the summer of 1947 when I was 20 years old and a medical student at King’s College in the Strand I discovered the Westminster Friends Meeting in St Martin’s Lane, and became a regular attender. The meeting house had been destroyed in the blitz and we met in the lobby. It…
…on a carpet of shimmering police epaulettes Ian Chamberlain writes about his experiences in London on Saturday 26/03/2011. I started the day with a group of people who practise anarchist principles everyday. We met at 11am in a plain old building just off the Strand in Westminster. As we drank our pre-march coffees with curdled…
In the UK we can take it more or less for granted that there are other Quakers, and a Meeting House, somewhere near our location. What is it like to live in a country where there are few or no other Quakers? On a recent trip to Ethiopia, I was surprised to meet someone who…