Issue 20-11-2015
Featured story
Thought for the Week: The other
David Bleakley’s father worked in the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast and once put rivets into the hull of the Titanic. His son followed in his footsteps and did an apprenticeship in the ‘yard’. Their family home was a small terrace house in working class East Belfast. Then,...
Top stories
Positive money
We were at a Quaker conference on economic justice, sitting in home groups and discussing the world’s economic problems, when my neighbour turned to me and whispered in my ear: ‘You realise that the problems we are discussing result from the fact that ninety-seven per cent of all our...
From the archive: …in a broken world
Towards the end of 1915 news began to filter through to Britain of terrible massacres in Armenia. The Friend recorded a disturbing statistic on 15 October: In the House of Lords, in course of a short debate on the Armenian massacres, Lord Bryce expressed his opinion that the report that 800,000 persons had...
A living wage
At a meeting held in London on 2 November Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, announced the new London rate for the Citizens UK Living Wage. It is £9.40 an hour – up from £9.15. Outside London it is £8.25 an hour. It was previously £7.85 an hour. This is voluntary and independently calculated by the...
Friends in Wales
We set off early for Welshpool: it is a two-hour drive from Bethesda, and we needed to be there in good time. Wales is a beautiful country and the journey is an important part of the day. It took us through the mountains of Snowdonia, past ravishing autumnal trees and...
Surrendering to the Light
It is sometimes hard to imagine that eighteen years ago we were making our way from Canada to the UK looking for a more peaceful, meaningful way of life and ended up being wardens at a Quaker Meeting house. Now, here we were going to a Quaker retreat at Shallowford...
All articles
Medact conference highlights peace issues
Medical staff, arms control experts, peacebuilders and front-line humanitarian workers were among participants at Medact’s ‘Health Through Peace’ conference held at Friends House on 13 and 14 November. Several hundred people heard the opening lecture from Paul Rogers, of the Bradford School of Peace Studies and the Oxford Research Group. He...
Living wage campaign
Members of Lancaster Meeting’s Living Wage Project Group met their member of parliament on 13 November. Ann Morgan and Caro Kelly spent an hour with Cat Smith, the Labour MP for Lancaster and Fleetwood, and shadow minister for women and equalities. They spoke to her about the Quaker national Living...
Quaker photos on show at V&A
The Library at Friends House has lent four photographs to the Victoria & Albert Museum of Childhood.
Pilgrims set off for Paris
Nearly fifty pilgrims left London on 13 November to walk 200 miles to Paris to witness for action on climate change. When they reach Paris, the pilgrims will call on world leaders to agree a fair, ambitious and binding climate deal at the United Nations Climate Change Conference taking place from 30 November...
Inter Faith Week 2015
‘Living Well Together’ is one of the key themes for Inter Faith Week 2015, which takes place from 15 to 21 November. The chairs and co-chairs of the organisers, the Inter Faith Network, released a statement following the attacks in Paris on 13 November.
Young Friends highlight refugee crisis
Young Friends from Penrith Meeting will walk from Penrith to Carlisle to raise money for relief in refugee camps. The twenty-three-mile-long walk takes place on 22 November. Participants will raise money for the Carlisle One World Centre which, through an initiative called Calais Action Carlisle, will support refugees over the coming...
Fuel poverty training launched
Northfield Ecocentre, a Central England Area Meeting project, has announced a new half-day training course on fuel poverty.
Broadcast postponed
BBC Radio 4 has postponed its Sunday Worship Prisons Week broadcast, recorded at HMP Long Lartin.
Pendle Hill on network radio
Woodbrooke tutor Ben Pink Dandelion will discuss Pendle Hill on a forthcoming edition of BBC Radio 4’s Open Country.
White poppy sales increase
One hundred thousand white poppies were sold in 2015, reflecting an upward trend in sales.
Arms fair action
Campaigners gathered in London on 16 November to show solidary with activists who are resisting an arms fair in Wellington, New Zealand.
Eye - 20 November 2015
Vintage vitriol Some Friends’ teetotal tendencies have not always won favour, particularly not with those who have a discerning taste in tipples. Rosalind Kaye, of Colchester Meeting, spotted evidence of this in My Dear Hugh: Letters from Richard Cobb to Hugh Trevor-Roper and others, edited by Tim Heald.
Letters - 20 November 2015
Health through peace While an audience of over 700 in ‘the Light’ at Friends House last Friday, 13 November, were learning about the depth of greed and corruption behind the international arms trade, hundreds were being maimed and killed, in Paris and elsewhere, by the products of that trade. Fear, global deprivation,...