23 January 2015 £1.

80

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discover the contemporary quaker way

Cathars and
Quakers
 the Friend Independent Quaker Journalism Since 1843

Contents VOL 173 NO 4

3 Thought for the Week:

Keep the memory alive Quaker election website
Ian Kirk-Smith goes live
4-5 News The new Quaker election website,
6 Mosques and swords ‘Quaker Vote’, was launched on Tuesday
20 January. It was developed by Britain
Martin Pennock Yearly Meeting’s advocacy and public
7 Charity and restraint relations team to help Friends engage
with the election and influence debate.
Christopher Bagley The site complements the Quaker
8-9 Letters election guide, a twenty-eight-page
booklet which will be in all Meetings
10-11 Cathars and Quakers by the end of January. Over twenty
different concerns are included, each with
Kris Misselbrook suggested questions to ask parliamentary
12-13 From the archive: candidates. Quaker Peace & Social
Witness programme managers and listed
Enlistment: a case for disownment? informal groups helped with the content.
Compiled by Janet Scott ‘We hope that Meetings and individuals
will use it to speak out about the issues
14 Child of our time which matter most to them. New
Malcolm Elliott information will be added to the website
(www.quaker.org.uk/quakervote) as
15 See you soon Caroline! the election approaches and a blog will
David Birmingham update readers on upcoming events,’ Jane
Dawson, head of the advocacy and public
16 q-eye: a look at the Quaker world relations team, told the Friend.
17 Friends & Meetings

Cover image:
The Château de Puilaurens, one of the Cathar castles of the Languedoc region.
Photo: Andy Hay / flickr CC.
See pages 10-11.

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2 the Friend, 23 January 2015

 Thought for the Week

Keep the
memory alive

T
he 27 January is the seventieth anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-
Birkenau concentration camp. Holocaust Memorial Day, held annually on this
day, will be commemorated in homes, schools and communities both nationally
and internationally. This year the theme is ‘Keep the memory alive’.
Holocaust Memorial Day is a day when people can pause to remember the millions
who have been murdered or whose lives were changed beyond recognition during
the Holocaust/Shoah. The Day is also dedicated to the memory of those killed in
subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur. 2015 is the twentieth
anniversary of the massacre in Srebrenica.
In its immediate aftermath, the Holocaust went largely unacknowledged. Perpetrators
and bystanders preferred to forget. A painful reality for European Christians is the
complicity of many Christians and churches in the Nazis’ attempt to exterminate the
Jewish people - a shameful chapter in a long history of Christian anti-Semitism.
The Holocaust is a sad reminder of what people are capable of. Commemoration
gradually began in Israel, where many survivors had gathered. The industrial slaughter
of European Jews, however, was viewed by some of those building a new country as an
image of passivity. Today, times have changed.
Holocaust Memorial Day reminds us of a statistic: six million dead. Every one
had a name and a story. At the heart of the event this year are human stories. One is
highlighted in the news pages of the Friend this week. There is a review, in the books
pages, of a novel based on the lives of real people who assisted Jews escape from the
Nazis. A central character was involved in the Quaker response to the crisis faced by the
Jewish people in the 1930s. Friends were there when it mattered.
The Day also challenges us to honour the survivors by learning lessons from the
past. Discrimination and persecution, sadly, still haunt our society. Fear of the ‘other’
is part of the human condition. Stereotypes, and the hatred that often goes with them,
continue. They simplify, distort and demean. Quakers have a clear position. There is
‘that of God’ in every individual and this belief compels us to action. It is morally wrong
to apply stereotypes to any group who share a common identity and sense of belonging.
They are made up of individuals. Faith groups, who are particularly vulnerable to being
defined as ‘the other’, need support, love and understanding at this time, as Christopher
Bagley reminds us in his opinion piece.
There have been very disturbing incidents of anti-Semitism across Europe, including
Britain, in the wake of the recent murders in Paris. They are of grave concern.
The lessons of the past mean nothing if non-Jewish people today care more about the
historical tragedy of dead Jews than the plight of living ones.

Ian Kirk-Smith
Editor of the Friend

the Friend, 23 January 2015 3

 News
QHA dishes up 1,000 meals
Volunteers at the Quaker Volunteers making crumble
Homeless Action (QHA) Christmas
Shelter served 1,103 hot meals
over the festive season. The shelter,
held annually in the Union Chapel
in Islington, North London, was
open from 3pm on 23 December to

Photo courtesy of QHA.

10am on 30 December. Volunteers
spent 22 December setting it up.
Almost 250 people stayed in the
shelter. Thirty-four individuals
spent at least one night there,
compared with thirty-five the
previous Christmas. The first
two nights were relatively mild
and some rough sleepers chose
to stay on the streets. Conditions
for begging on those nights were
better than normal, QHA executive
director Kate Mellor explained to
the Friend. A change in the weather
brought more people inside.
‘Thankfully, some of the guys
who we have seen as regulars (for
years) have moved on and in some
cases we know that is because they
now have good accommodation.
Other people were new to the street
because of benefit sanctions, which
is heartbreaking,’ Kate said.
‘We had two young women
brought to the shelter because they
were victims of domestic violence
and the police did not have a
refuge to take them to.’
Of the 1,103 hot meals served,
731 were dinners and 372
breakfasts. This was fewer than in
2013, when volunteers served 1,198
hot meals. While fewer meals were
served, there was an increase in
the number of food parcels handed
out. Seventy-five parcels were
distributed, up from fifty in 2013.
QHA launched the food bank
in 2013, explained Kate. ‘We had
families coming to us who could
not feed their children, but we could
not allow the children to come into
the shelter. In 2013 we got a grant to
purchase fifty food parcels of food
for three days and gave them all
away during the shelter. This year,
we got a larger grant.’
More than ninety trained
volunteers helped with the 2014
shelter.

Friends House vigil DramaQuest 2015 theme announced

continues
A vigil has been held outside
Friends House for the third
consecutive Monday.
The vigils are in support of
former staff whose jobs were
lost following Friends House
Hospitality’s decision to end zero-
hours contracts. Organisers have
called on supporters to write to
Britain Yearly Meeting recording
clerk Paul Parker, asking him to
reinstate the three workers.
(A background article on this
story and a contribution from the
trustees of Britain Yearly Meeting
will be published in the 30 January
edition of the Friend).
The Leaveners have announced the theme for the next DramaQuest.
This year’s annual summer residential event will focus on ‘Child Heroes’,
looking at the stories of children who have made their mark.
‘Child Heroes’ was chosen because it is highly relevant, ‘since society
still faces discrimination, inequality, injustice, violence and war’, said the
Quaker performing arts organisation.
‘Sometimes it can seem as if only adults affect the course of history,
or that children have only ever been victims of decisions by adults.
Many brave, young children prove that the opposite is true. Through
their stories we learn about how they used their courage, honesty and
dedication to address topics like peace, slavery and racism,’ programme
leader Jorine Beck said.
‘DramaQuest has a long tradition of engaging children with history.
Through drama exercises and performance, children have explored topics
like “Quakers and civil war”, the second world war and local Quaker
history. Historical figures such as George Fox have been brought to life
through role-play,’ Jorine told the Friend.
The date and location are yet to be confirmed.

4 the Friend, 23 January 2015

reported by Tara Craig news@thefriend.org

Friends mark Auschwitz anniversary

Quakers are among those marking Holocaust to Auschwitz. Axel
Memorial Day, and the seventieth anniversary of the became a Quaker by
liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, on 27 January. convincement and

Photo courtesy of Axel Landmann.

The theme of Holocaust Memorial Day 2015 continues to speak of his
is ‘Keep the Memory Alive’. A key feature of the experiences in a bid ‘to
commemoration will be the telling of personal stories. make war outdated’.
Quaker Axel Landmann of Northampton Meeting Quakers elsewhere
will be doing just this when he speaks on Radio in the UK are involved
Northampton’s Breakfast Show, between 6am and in Holocaust Memorial
9am, on Tuesday 27 January. Day activities. Susan
His journey to Northampton – and Quakerism Stein will perform
– began in 1938. The family shop, in Finow, north ‘Etty’, a play based on
of Berlin, was ransacked during Kristallnacht. This the diaries and letters
prompted Axel’s parents to accept an offer of a place of Etty Hillesum, at
for him on the Kindertransport. Amersham Meeting
He arrived in Britain in 1938, initially settling with House. Etty wrote of life as a Jewish woman
a Northampton Quaker family, the Rundles. Letters during the German occupation of her home city,
between Axel and his parents, facilitated by the Red Amsterdam.
Cross, stopped in 1940. He had no further news
until after the war, when, as he told the Friend, he Have you or your Meeting been involved in a
discovered that they had committed suicide upon Holocaust Memorial Day event? Please tell us about it.
being informed that they were to be transported Email: news@thefriend.org

Australian Quakers divest funds

Australian Friends are to
move their investments from funds
that damage the earth.
More than 200 Australian
Quakers, gathering in Melbourne
for Yearly Meeting, agreed to
remove their corporate funds from
the country’s ‘big four’ banks. They
also called on individual members
and Meetings to do the same.
‘We have a problem with the
investment policies of the larger
banks in Australia, where our
money is being used for financing
some of these companies [alcohol,
tobacco, military weapons,
uranium and other mining
and similar concerns]. We are
particularly worried about carbon-
intensive industries and some
others which do not have the
ethical standards that we would
like,’ said presiding clerk Julian
Robertson.
‘To be true to our principles, we
have to look at all aspects of our
lives,’ he added. ‘Where we invest
our money, even in our normal
day-to-day banking, is part of that
process.’
A group of individual Quakers at
the Yearly Meeting also took part in
a short demonstration to show that
they have moved their accounts, or
are planning to, on the first Global
Divestment Day, 13-14 February.
Photo: Lloyd Godman.

the Friend, 23 January 2015 5

 Opinion
Mosques
and swords
Martin Pennock comments on the recent events in Paris
I
n 1969 I was a student in Paris, disillusioned with
organised religion and excited and alarmed by the
revolutionary fervour of post-1968 France. One
day, on a wander through the fifth arrondissement,
I chanced upon the main Paris Mosque. I remember
my amazement at the beauty of the mosaic tiling and
a conversation that I had with an Imam, or perhaps he
was merely a local Muslim, and the revelation during
that conversation that there is great beauty and power
in not revealing the nature of God or his prophets
pictorially. Perhaps this set me on a track towards
Quakers.
Every week, at that time, I would buy or borrow
a copy of Le Canard Enchaîné, the French satirical
magazine. I became acquainted with the work of
Georges Wolinski, who was murdered in the attack on
the Charlie Hebdo offices. I would enjoy wry smiles as
he poked fun at the French establishment. He would
often fuel fervent discussions with French friends on
politics and religion and the brave new world that
we could not agree about, but was surely around the
corner. Then Charlie Hebdo came along a year or so
later.
Today, the fact that it emerged from the ashes of a
scabrous banned journal called Hara-Kiri feels bitterly
ironic. I must confess that I rarely managed to read
more than a page or two. Nor did I laugh or smile
much, even at Wolinski. I would feel angry at the
magazine’s confrontational tone and its desire to show
disrespect to all.
So, when the murderous, suicidal assassins struck in
France, venting their anger at journalists, policemen
and women, Jewish shoppers and children, I felt, along
with my shock and sorrow, extreme discomfort. I was
painfully aware that I shared some of the anger about
6 the Friend, 23 January 2015
Charlie Hebdo’s insistence on provoking all Muslims.
The day after the attacks I was at Jordans Meeting
house. There I made my first visit to the graves of
Isaac Penington and William Penn. Driving home to
Suffolk, I found that both helped me.
As I listened to the radio I heard of the young
Muslim worker at the Jewish supermarket and Isaac
Penington’s phrase ‘helping one another up with a
tender hand’ came to mind. Amidst the extremity
and the horror the young man had done just that. A
picture came to my mind, too, of the furious, angry
young William Penn rushing to defend his new found
Quakers with his sword – the sword that he put
down when he was ready and found a way to create
community without it.
As we witness angry, vengeful youths wielding
Kalashnikov rifles and, indeed, angry vengeful police
and soldiers bent upon killing the evil ones, we need,
more than ever, to hear and understand the injunction
in Isaiah to beat swords into ploughshares (Isaiah 2:4).
We all need a sense of humour, Quakers no less than
anyone. All the more so when we are gently chided,
as in the cartoons of Gerard Hoffnung or some of UA
Fanthorpe’s poetry. We can warm, too, to the glorious
spiritual chortles of Desmond Tutu or the Dalai Lama.
My feelings are mixed, again, on seeing the cover of
the latest edition of Charlie Hebdo: sorrow at the loss
of the journalists and the need to provoke, but hope
in the words used that ‘All is forgiven’. Nobody should
have the last word, but William Penn helps me again
when he said: ‘We are too ready to retaliate, rather
than forgive, or gain by love and information.’
Martin is a member of Bury St Edmunds Meeting.
 Opinion

Charity
and restraint

Christopher Bagley believes scatological satire of the

prophet Muhammad is wrong

T
hose who claim journalistic privilege in seeking the right to satirise religion,
and religious figures, may have never viewed the original cartoons that
enraged some Muslims to the point of murderous madness. During the Paris
massacre I was in Europe and viewed with horror and sadness certain cartoons
that some journals had seen fit to reproduce in the wake of the mass fugue that
‘We are all Charlie now’.
Consider one such cartoon: the blessed prophet Muhammad is kneeling in
prayer. His robe is uplifted revealing his naked backside. Out of this backside
emanates a speech bubble making a statement which sneers at Allah, implying that
Muhammad is a self-serving hypocrite.
Cartoons such as this are vile, obscene and cruel. The vicarious insult expressed
against religion that they offer cannot be justified by any events in recent history.
Muslims are hated by many Europeans and this kind of cartoon, I believe, serves
the same purpose as Nazi propaganda cartoons that depicted Jews as rat-like
money grubbers, seeking to take over the world in the name of their god, which
was lucre.
The reason that most Britons have not viewed cartoons such as these is because
of a sensible and balanced piece of legislation: the Racial and Religious Hatred Act
2006, which prescribes severe penalties for the press and others who use speech
and mass communication devices to publish messages (including cartoons) that
are likely to stir hatred, and hateful acts, against religious and racial minorities. No
other European country, I believe, has legislation of quite this kind.
At Didsbury Mosque in Manchester this week an Imam gave an inspired sermon,
comparing Muhammad and Jesus. Both men suffered numerous insults and
scourges, but always restrained their followers from any violent retribution. We
were enjoined to do likewise, returning good to the malefactor, not punishing or
killing them. This, of course, is a message for Quakers as well as for all Christians,
Jews and Muslims.
We do not seek the freedom to cruelly criticise the theologies, Gods, preachers
and prophets of other religions. We seek instead understanding, love, and interfaith
understanding, knowing that sometimes we may be wrong.

Christopher is a Muslim-Quaker and attends Didsbury Mosque, Manchester and

Wilmslow Meetings.

the Friend, 23 January 2015 7

 Letters All views expressed are those of the writer and not necessarily those of the Friend
Silence
Gwen Jones (9 January) asks what I meant by ‘quiet
undistracted worship’ (5 December 2014). I used the
word ‘quiet’ not silent because I have rarely, if ever,
attended a Meeting for Worship that is absolutely
silent.
Quietness, for me, betokens a state of inner
receptivity, an openness to what is and to being
challenged by what is – the sounds of other
worshippers, the noises from the world around, the
promptings of the Spirit, the voice from within – the
voice of life itself. These are part of worship; they
enrich it and do not impede it. By ‘undistracted’
I mean the attempt to get away from the noisy
demands of the ego and those things which cut us off
from ‘the other’.
At its best the architecture of Meeting houses, with
its visual quietness, facilitates this process. I think
that Gwen and I are saying the same thing.
Harvey Gillman
Brighton Meeting, East Sussex
Assisted dying
Further to the report of Quaker Life Central
Committee to Meeting for Sufferings (12 December
2014), I suspect that if you are not at or near the front
line on this issue, it is rather easy to detach yourself
with a statement like ‘a leading by God has not shone
through’.
I suffer from severe chronic heart failure and have
a sixteen-year-old kidney transplant, now failing, plus
half a dozen lesser ailments. I am seventy-five. Earlier
this year I went into decompensated heart failure, not
for the first time. I was housebound for over three
months, barely able to move in bed, in considerable
pain for some time and on morphine for three weeks.
Eventually, they had to prescribe a drug for me that
further damaged my kidney transplant. Nobody
presented the choice formally – but did I wish to die
of heart failure or kidney failure?
I was on the terminally ill list for some months.
Eventually, with a change of drug doses, everything
levelled out and my kidney function improved
somewhat, to my surprise and, indeed, that of my
GP – but I am still left hobbling around with a stick. I
never reached the stage where I wanted assisted dying
but (at the worst) I should have liked the possibility
to be there if things had worsened.
The Religious Society of Friends has already
discussed this issue at length over many years; for
example, through the Quaker Concern Around Dying
and Death and the Leeds Area Meeting End of Life
Care Working Party. It seems likely that legislation
will go through parliament after the next election – in
the wake of overwhelming public support. One might
8 the Friend, 23 January 2015
have hoped for a more constructive contribution
from the Society of Friends as a whole.
Michael Woolliscroft
Sheringham Meeting, Norfolk
Season’s greetings
I was sad to see an objection in this week’s Friend (16
January) to an article in the Christmas edition, which
I had found inspiring.
While living in London for many years before
moving out to Essex, I heard an older Friend,
a doughty Quaker whom I admired for his
forthrightness, tell my Meeting every December that
we should not forget that Christmas celebrated the
return of the Light. I make a point of reminding those
I speak to at this time of year of this assertion by an
older Friend. I became a Christian in my teens and
still remember with gratitude my baptism at nineteen
in the Baptist church near to where I now worship. I
still think of myself as a follower of Jesus of Nazareth
and hope that not too many of my fellow worshippers
feel offended by John Lampen’s article (19 & 26
December 2014).
Jacky Hall
Colchester Meeting, Essex
Christ in khaki
Alfred Salter tried to imagine ‘Christ in khaki…
the Son of God with a machine gun’ and found that
picture ‘an impossible one’ (2 January). According
to Ian Hislop, in a Channel 4 documentary about
conscientious objectors, a Methodist minister made
the same analogy to a member of his congregation
who refused to register as a conscientious objector
in world war one. The man replied: ‘No. But I can
imagine Jesus as a stretcher bearer going into No
Man’s Land under fire to save wounded soldiers of
either side.’
I faced a similar dilemma when I was called up
for National Service in 1958. I was an evangelical at
the time and my church friends urged me to register
as a conscientious objector. My conscience wouldn’t
allow me to and I volunteered to serve as a nursing
attendant in the RAF. I spent most of my two years’
service at an RAF hospital, which treated the local
civilian population as well as service personnel. If
I had known about the Friends Ambulance Unit
(FAU) I might well have asked to serve with them,
but I was called up in October 1958 and the FAU
was disbanded in 1959, so I probably wouldn’t
have qualified anyway. Absolutists, alternativists,
noncombatants, as well as those who fought, were all
obeying their conscience: Matthew 7:1.
Laurie Andrews
Mid-Essex Area Meeting

Paris
Watching the huge and dignified demonstration in
Paris on 11 January, it was hard not to feel that some
seismic shift had taken place.
Where once terrorism was an eradicable
phenomenon on the fringes of society, it had now
become deeply embedded. To see both Benjamin
Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas in the front line was
a source of hope and a source of despair.
No doubt we will all do what we can at individual
and Local Meeting level, but is some kind of national
Quaker response also required?
We have a Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW)
Conciliation Group for international work. Might
we, as part of the Long Term Framework, consider
setting up a similar body at domestic level? We have
expertise and experience in this field. Our lack of
absolutist dogma makes it easier for us to deal with
the various key parties.
The challenge is enormous and the contribution
we can make perhaps small, but I do hope that this
is something that Meeting for Sufferings or QPSW
Central Committee will take up.
As Rumi said in the thirteenth century: ‘Darkness
is your candle.’
Jan Arriens
Southern Marches Area Meeting
Honours
The Friend of 9 January included a substantial report
about a Friend accepting an OBE. It is up to an
individual to decide whether to accept an ‘honour’ or
not, but it seems strange for a Quaker publication to
cover this.
It used to be – peerages apart, where one might
influence policy – that Friends did not accept
honours. They did this for many reasons: to do so
does not sit comfortably with our testimonies to
simplicity and equality. It is a variation on the titles
that we have always rejected. Accepting one is a
public declaration of buying-in to a structure with the
monarch at its head, acknowledging that hierarchy,
saying it is legitimate. There is no British Empire, so
how, in truth, can anyone accept an honour referring
to this?
The system is neither transparent nor
straightforward. Many posts get an honour as part
of pay and rations, just for doing the job – civil
servants, the military and public bodies. At one time,
when I worked within a major corporation, I had
to recommend recipients. ‘Soundings’ are taken, to
ensure the offer is welcomed. The system does not
want public rejections.
On the basis that we ‘rejoice with those that rejoice’
I will always write to Friends who take an honour
the Friend, 23 January 2015
editorial@thefriend.org
and say ‘you must be pleased’. Clearly, if they weren’t,
they wouldn’t have accepted. And I repeat, it is for the
individual to decide.
But, as Friends, should we publicise those who do
in a way that suggests Quakerly endorsement?
Kath Worrall
Cumberland Area Meeting
Vision for our future
The members of our Local Meeting have been
considering the questions sent to us by the Long
Term Framework Working Group. This has been a
very interesting exercise, which has shown us that
we are involved in many local projects, many in
cooperation with those of other faiths or none. Our
own contributions to this work include our skills, our
time, our money, spending our legacies wisely and
holding the work in the Light.
Friends in George Fox’s lifetime bought the plot
of land on which our Meeting house stands. On
Saturdays we open it to vulnerable and homeless
people for companionship, a simple meal including
hot food, the chance of a shower and donated clothes
and bedding. The local community are most generous
in making contributions to this.
I do not understand why Roger Seal, in his
otherwise clear and helpful article (5 December 2014),
writes ‘every Friend participating in Quaker work
– and that encompasses many of us…’ Why only
‘many’ of us? Surely, as members, attenders and other
volunteers we all do Quaker work. Last Saturday a
Roman Catholic friend walked out of the Meeting
house after a shift making sandwiches and said: ‘The
kingdom of God is buttering bread.’
Jill K Bruford Clarke
clarfam58@aol.com
In essentials unity,
in non-essentials liberty,
in all things charity.
The Friend welcomes your views. Please keep letters
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173 Euston Road, London NW1 2BJ or email
editorial@thefriend.org
Remember if you are online that you can also
comment on all articles at www.thefriend.org
9
 Spirituality
Cathars and
Quakers
Kris Misselbrook considers the similarities between two dissenting
religious societies
C
athars and Quakers both grew from a strong
desire to find a personal spiritual reality. This,
in many ways, reflected that of the earliest
Christians and was not found in the orthodox church.
Both met with persecution. It is more a product of
their different historical times that the Cathars were
ruthlessly eradicated in the twelfth century while the
Quakers survived persecution in the seventeenth and
continue today.
The Cathar ‘church’ is now a popular study, even if
not an ongoing organisation, and its ideals are finding
new resonance in the wider religious consciousness of
our times. Quakers talk of ‘a light that is shining from
within’. This echoes the Cathar evocation of weaving a
garment of light, of being re-clothed (révetu) in spirit.
Both movements are mystical, Gnostic,
nonconforming, nonhierarchical, nonpatriarchal,
pacifist, believers in personal salvation or enlightenment
without need of priests or altars. They have an open
tolerance of others’ beliefs and inspirations. Both also
share a firm commitment to living your spiritual values
in community more than preaching them: people of
faith, vision and service.
The grassroots
What was to become known as Catharism grew strongly
at a grassroots level in a time of remarkable freedom
and cultural development in the twelfth and thirteenth
10 the Friend, 23 January 2015
The Château de Puilaurens, one of the Cathar castles of
the Languedoc region. Photo: Jan Hazevoet / flickr CC.
centuries, especially in the former county of Toulouse,
which stretched from Germany to Spain and was
greater than the king of France’s domain to the north
(although in theory its subject). Rich in trade for many
hundreds of years since the Roman ‘civilisation’, it was
also an exceptionally rich and tolerant mix of learning
and religion – a predecessor to the Italian renaissance
in its ideals.
Some regions, such as Carcassonne and Foix, were
more beholden to the king of Aragon than to Toulouse
and practiced a great independence. Tolerance of Jews
and of Judaic and Islamic teachings was widespread.
The Cathar ‘heresy’, which sprang partly from east
European Bogomil beliefs, found open minds at this
time, alongside the movement of chivalry and its poems
of courtly love, the legends of the Grail, reverence of the
Magdalene and the sacred feminine, the esotericism
of the Templars and the music of the Troubadours.
This sophisticated flowering of culture and tolerance,
moving out of the feudal into the democratic, was
too fragmented and independent to resist the heavily
organized crusade against it. This crusade crushed
a whole society, along with its religious heresy, for
political more than religious motives.
Brutal extermination
The Cathars and their sympathisers were brutally
exterminated by an armed crusade that began in 1209.
Its leaders were subjected to tortures and burning at the
stake, until a famous ‘last stand’ at Montségur. By then
the Catholic Inquisition – a religious and bloodthirsty
fanaticism with parallels still in our times – had moved
to destroy all webs of trust in this close-knit society
where threat of arms alone could not bring back
obedience to the church of Rome.
The Cathars, though supported by a clear majority
of the populace of all classes and kinds, were informal,
barely even an organized church, and without buildings
– albeit with a certain hierarchy of bishops. Very little
remains of written witness to its practices. It was
a respected and quietly evangelic movement whose
committed members, the parfaits, were called locally
Les Bonshommes or Les Bonnesfemmes (the Good Men
or Women) and called Cathars (from either the Greek
for ‘pure’, or the German for ‘heretic’) by their enemies.
The early Quakers
The early Quakers were also persecuted and imprisoned.
They were viewed as a danger to the established
church and state. They frequently lost possessions and
livelihoods, but not so often their lives. They also grew
from preaching and example, and were likewise named
by their enemies.
In both ‘churches’ men and women were seen as
equals. Each person was seen as an equal receiver of
God’s love and wisdom, no hierarchy being necessary in
worship, and this was guaranteed to upset contemporary
rulers, religious and secular. A parfait was not to travel
alone – great store was set in mutual support in the faith
and ongoing teaching in practice. Like early Quakers,
the Cathar parfaits were often itinerant – agents of
transformation in society and well aware of that role.
Cathars, like Quakers, refused to swear, contrary to
the legal usage of their days, placing great store on the
simple truth of their word.
Purification
A practicing Cathar was a ‘parfait’ or a ‘révetu’: one
that had re-clothed himself in a work of purification,
often taking ordination after a more social life as in the
Brahmin tradition. They were expected to abstain from
sex, meat-eating and worldly possessions, and to be of
spiritual service to the community. Although men at
arms were sometimes defensively employed in those
more dangerous times, the principles of peace and
nonviolence were basic to their beliefs.
Like the Quakers, the accent seems always to have
been on an open consciousness rather than overriding
rules. The Bible, especially the gospel of John, was
much revered and Cathars may well have had access to
other Gnostic texts such as the gospel of Thomas, which
the Friend, 23 January 2015
is only now becoming rediscovered and reinstated to its
proper place among our present day ‘scriptures of spirit’.
The Cathars use of repeated prayers, such as the
‘Our Father’, and sacraments such as their Consolatum
has no echo in the Quaker silent worship, nor would a
regular monthly or weekly Meeting have its counterpart
for them – but the gathering of a humble congregation
to renew their spiritual conscious connection and
commitment unites these two movements.
It is not a coincidence that the eventual dissident
group at Congenies in France, the Conflaires or inspirés,
who connected in 1785 with the Quaker movement in
England, grew in the clandestine spiritual heritage of
the Languedoc, proclaiming themselves ‘ni Calvinist, ni
Lutheran, ni papist’. Some family names link these two
groups, suggesting the long survival of Cathar refugees.
A belief in reincarnation
An interesting part of the Cathar beliefs not upheld
in most Quaker communities is that of reincarnation.
It was seen as a pattern of the soul’s repeated story
of its fall, learning and growing towards its eventual
redemption and freedom from rebirth in this earth
plane. Weaving was one of their common trades and
the shuttle was used as an image of the souls repeated
journey between spirit and matter. It’s something
Quakers could explore today.
Our attitude to sin and evil, also, is subtly and
importantly different from that of medieval times. The
devil was much more real in those days, not just as an
autocratic metaphor or threat of damnation, but as
part of a more polarized view of matter and spirit. The
Cathars have been labeled dualists – seeing the earth as
the realm of Satan. The acceptance shown by the parfaits
on several famous occasions to walk willingly into
the fires of their martyrdom shows the transcendent
strength of their belief in the better world of the spirit.
The hereafter was seen as the goal of the fallen present.
But the Roman Catholic Church’s claim that the Cathars
proclaimed the physical world as totally the work of
the devil is belied by their ministering actions in the
community and their engagement in the generous spirit
of their times.
The Quaker commitment to ecological concerns and
the recognition of the divine as incarnate within the
world, would not, I think, sit totally at odds with our
Cathar forbears – those conscious weavers of the future
soul. Indeed, ‘that of God in everyone’ is a vision shared
by Cathars and Quakers alike: the Light within which
illumines our soul’s path in and through this world.
Kris is a member of Toulouse Meeting and organiser of
the Association Les Bonhommes.
11
 From the archive
Enlistment:
a case for disownment?
Janet Scott highlights a fierce debate
F
rom early in the first world war there was
discussion amongst Friends about the attitude to
be taken to members of the Religious Society of
Friends who enlisted in the armed forces. By 1915 the
debate was becoming fierce and it eventually reached
the Yearly Meeting. The essential question, which
should still concern us today, was how to weigh the
freedom of the individual to follow the Light as he or
she saw it against the religious Truth encapsulated in
the teaching and tradition of the Society.
In December 1914 Warwickshire North Monthly
Meeting received and discussed a report which included:
‘We think it will be the wish of the Monthly Meeting
to act towards the enlisters in a spirit of tenderness
and sympathy, and to avoid any semblance of harsh
judgment. In the absence of specific inquiry, we can
only speak from common report as to the question of
motive. This probably varies much in different cases.
We shall be on the safe side, however, if we take it for
granted that most of those who have enlisted did so
from a real sense of duty, and we may believe that their
obedience to what they conceived to be a call to self-
surrender will be the means of their advancement and
enlightenment in the things of God. And we remember
that their response is a step which implies a willingness
to part with life itself, at an age when life is attractive
and full, and it cannot therefore be without an element
of true goodness.
‘Yet we cannot but recognise that their action has
gravely compromised the witness of the Society of
Friends, more especially that part of it which relates to
the essentially peaceable character of the Kingdom of
Christ. Any man entering the Army or Navy, whether
the fighting department or the R.A.M.C. [Royal Army
Medical Corps], by taking the enlistment oath hands
over his conscience without reserve to the keeping of
another, and may not decline action ordered by his
12 the Friend, 23 January 2015
superior officer, although his whole moral sense may
recoil therefrom. This surrender of that which is one
of God’s most precious gifts is, we think, disastrous,
and is a negation of the fundamental principle for
which Friends are called to stand. Added to this is
the fact, obvious though perhaps not always realised,
that he who enlists in the fighting line enlists to kill,
a purpose utterly out of harmony with allegiance to
the commands of Christ and with Friends’ idea of
the nature of human personality. For these reasons it
appears to us that military service in any form, whether
in the regular Army or Navy or Territorial Forces, is
incompatible with true membership of the Society
of Friends. In justice to those members who have
maintained their testimony, and to those outside the
Society who are looking anxiously to us for a lead, we
think the Monthly Meeting should make it clear that
we cannot permanently retain as members those who
demonstrate by their action that they differ from us in
a matter so vital.’
The Friend, 18 December 1914
The Friend commented in the same issue:
‘Our readers will be aware that this subject of the
relation of the Society to members who have enlisted
has deeply exercised various Monthly Meetings – the
disciplinary bodies primarily concerned – and we
have received many letters and communications on
the subject. We thankfully acknowledge that with
few exceptions the matter has been considered in
a constraining and restraining spirit, and with that
“tender and watchful care” which we should all desire
to cultivate. We think Friends generally will feel that the
document quoted above is a witness to the moderation,
gravity and patience, the sympathy and regard, the
sense of inward guidance, which should characterise
the attitude of the Society and all of us as individuals to
this difficult question.’
The varied views of Friends can be seen from these
extracts from the correspondence:
‘I hope that no absolute rule will be followed in
separating them all from the Society, either now or later.
There will be cases where the membership is merely
nominal and may be dropped without loss; but I plead
against an invariable rule. I know that I have but little
to urge, and that the plain, logical and straight-forward
course would be loss of membership by a soldier. It is an
instinct rather than a logical process which leads me to
wish to save these young men for the Society.’
John W Graham
The Friend, 1 January 1915
‘It is of far more importance that the testimony against
all war should be maintained distinctly and untarnished,
especially in time of war, like the present, than that the
individual love and sympathy for young Friend recruits
should lead to a lowering of the flag. Clearly, if there
were no soldiers, there would be no war.’
Robert Alsop Milner
The Friend, 1 January 1915
‘Wrong and hideous as war is, there must be many
members of the Society who do not hold that “Peace
at any price” is a more “vital” doctrine than that of the
“Inward Light”; who think that once in a thousand years
(perhaps oftener) the price may be too high, and that
such a case has arisen now. If the young men who enlist
are to be disowned for obeying their consciences, does
it not follow that those of us who think that they are
acting rightly should be disowned also?’
Juliet M Godlee
The Friend, 1 January 1915
‘It may be worthwhile to consider what we actually
do in disowning a member. Beside severing a formal
connection, to my mind we first and foremost confess
our own failure in the object of our institution. That is
the cardinal fact in every such act. We have had – in
these cases – our young men from youth up and have
failed adequately to impress them with the basis of
our belief in a moral and spiritual foundation to the
world. We who are older should feel that these things
are largely our fault, and act accordingly. Our actions
must therefore be based upon love, sympathy and with
the weakness of human understanding, and the sense of
our own responsibility.’
Alfred Rawlings
The Friend, 8 January 1915
the Friend, 23 January 2015
‘May I be allowed to express the views of one who
recently joined the Society from convincement?
‘The Society appealed to me as a refuge from the
false standards of our time, and from the formalism of
the churches. I looked to it as the witness of the great
principle which I believe is to regenerate our national
and social life…
‘The desire of John W. Graham to save for the Society
the young men who have enlisted, and his concern for
the meetings of thirty years hence, are quite natural
and laudable. But what shall it profit if, in saving the
young men, we lose the Society? It is not reasonable to
expect that the Society will be strengthened by means of
the forces that have made a weakening of its principles
necessary.’
John Moyle
The Friend, 8 January 1915
‘Let me say that I have no wish whatever to disown any
young Friend who, in a moment of patriotic fervour
and enthusiasm, has enlisted. It may be that he will
return a far more able advocate for Peace than those of
us who have remained at home.
‘The men whom I would disown are those who
have used their position as members of our Society
to encourage their younger brethren to join the army,
and in other ways have lent their support to militarism.
This is a form of disloyalty which we have no right to
condone.’
E Vipont Brown
The Friend, 22 January 1915
‘My son is one of the “sinners” in the eyes of some, but
there are very many Friends who don’t put their views
into writing, who quietly approve of the action of those
who are helping in the war, even by actual service. Not
a single Friend of my acquaintance, and I include those
whom we call “good Friends”, has said, “I am sorry
to see your son has enlisted.” They one and all have
expressed approval…
‘It is little use saying, “Wait until the war is over
and we will give them a talking to.” Friends had better
be content with their protest and leave well alone.
They will be up against a much bigger question than
voluntary enlistment before very long.’
J George Brockbank
The Friend, 22 January 1915
13
 Books
Child of our time
Malcolm Elliott reviews a powerful personal narrative
I
t is hard to explain anti-Semitism. The Christian
church once held the Jews responsible for the death
of Jesus, despite the fact that his execution was
carried out by Roman authority. Antipathy toward the
Jewish race has persisted throughout European history,
denying citizenship and restricting Jews to ghettos
where they had no chance of making a living except
by money-lending – a trade forbidden to Christians
by the church’s fatuous refusal to allow the charging of
interest. Jews were thus obliged to live apart from the
rest of society, envied for their wealth and blamed for
all manner of crimes that they almost certainly didn’t
commit.
Simon de Montfort was one of the first to court
popular favour by banning all Jews from Leicester in
1231 – a move copied by Edward I, sixty years later, for
the whole country. Jews were eventually allowed back
into England and anti-Semitism has not been among
our more prominent national failings. So, it is difficult
for most of us to appreciate how prevalent persecution
of Jews was in many other countries. In France,
Russia and Poland periodic Jew-baiting was endemic.
Germany and Austria were notably less guilty, but in
the economic depression brought about by the peace
settlement after the first world war, when Germany
was forced to make crippling payments – so-called
reparations – to the allies, massive inflation followed,
for which Adolf Hitler blamed the Jewish community.
Ordinary Germans were mesmerised by Hitler’s vision
of a proud and revitalised fatherland. They learned to
shut their eyes to the fate of their Jewish neighbours.
Ruth David in Child of Our Time shows us what it
was like to be on the receiving end of this policy. Her
father owned a cigar factory in Germany and was the
biggest employer in the locality. Ruth and her brothers
and sisters went to school and played with the other
children. But, after 1934, Nazi laws made normal life
more difficult. Ruth could no longer go to school or
play with ‘Aryan’ children.
Persecution came to a head in Kristallnacht, when
mobs smashed the windows of Jewish shops and
houses, and brutal attacks were officially encouraged
against Jewish people and property. Ruth tells how
she and her sister cowered in the family car to hide
14 the Friend, 23 January 2015
from the mob that destroyed their home, breaking
every piece of furniture and even smashing the pots
of jam and preserves that her mother had laid by for
the winter, ‘the liquid mess oozing blood red through
broken glass’ on the floor.
Ruth was fortunate not to have perished in the gas
ovens along with the million and a half Jewish children
murdered in Hitler’s ‘final solution’. Instead, she was
one of nearly 10,000 children rescued and brought to
England in 1939 in the so-called Kindertransport –
organized by Quakers and others to save them.
Ruth’s book tells the story of how she was treated in
England. The Jews who fled Hitler were regarded by
most uncomprehending locals as ‘Germans’ (officially
called ‘enemy aliens’) and even suspected of being
spies. Ruth was interrogated as an eleven year old by
the police after a vigilant neighbour saw her hiding
a note to one of her school friends in the crevice of a
dry-stone wall!
There are heroes and heroines in this story as well
as villains. Above all there was Mina, the family
retainer – cook, housekeeper and surrogate mother to
Ruth – who refused to obey Nazi orders by working
for the family and befriending them whenever she
could. It was Mina who accompanied Ruth’s mother
and father up to the time when they boarded the train
that took them on their final journey to their deaths at
Auschwitz.
When they made their farewell, Ruth’s mother
thrust a bundle of papers into Mina’s hands. They
were the letters sent by her four older children, who
had all managed to escape abroad. These letters are
the topic of Ruth’s other book, Life Lines, which forms
a companion volume to Child of Our Time. Together
they form an important contribution to the historical
record of what is, arguably, the greatest crime in
human history.
Malcolm is a member of Leicester Meeting.
Child of Our Time: A Young Girl’s Flight from the
Holocaust by Ruth David, I.B.Tauris, 2003, ISBN:
9781860647895, £22.50. Order form on page 18.

See you soon Caroline!
David Birmingham reviews a novel that reveals Quaker efforts to
relieve unbelievable suffering in the 1939-1942 concentration camps in
southern France
D
uring the first two years of the second world
war America was a neutral country and
American Quakers, unlike British ones, were
able to conduct relief work in mainland Europe. A
glimpse into the records has enabled Bernard Wilson,
a Canterbury Friend, to write a young person’s
novel about how a family fared when occupation,
racism, internment, death and the issue of refugees
hit southern France. In See you soon Caroline! the
romantic dimension in the novel – for intended young
readers – is wrapped up in historical insights, which
can seriously grip those who lived through the very
dark year of 1940.
When a totally English teenager finds, unexpectedly,
that a grandparent had – as a baby – been a Jewish
Holocaust survivor in a camp at the foot of the
Pyrenees, the fast-paced story unwinds. The American
Friends Service Committee (AFSC), the Paris
Holocaust Museum, remote Catholic monasteries
and philanthropic food banks all jostle to provide
interesting and often surprising insights into a
terrifying world that France has not yet managed to
forget but which is barely known in the Anglo-Saxon
world.
The fictional social worker at the centre of the story
is based on the courageous life of an Irish woman
who worked for the AFSC. Bernard Wilson was
able to interview her children seventy years after the
horror, which accompanied the closing of the camps
at Perpignan and the railing of thousands of victims
to Poland for extermination. This refugee service had
begun in 1939 when it was Spaniards fleeing Francisco
Franco, rather than Germans fleeing Adolf Hitler,
who were temporarily protected from starvation and
persecution. Documented accounts of the camps, the
bureaucracy and the trains, are interwoven into the
the Friend, 23 January 2015
Books
novel. On one occasion 600 meals were delivered to
a shipment of Jews and others – men in bare cattle
trucks and women and children in old coaches with
loos – when the train stopped briefly in Toulouse
before leaving for the unknown east.
The history of the camps is one of blistering heat,
sand-laden winds, treeless scrub, tangled barbed
wire, shelter-less cold and stinking latrines. Children
who received portions of rice gobbled them from
discarded Nestlé tins, but many adults starved to
death. Some American rations supplied by Quakers
were blockaded by Britain lest they fall into military
rather than refugee hands. The first internees, half a
million of them, arrived almost overnight after the fall
of Barcelona. Next came Germans, gypsies, democrats,
Jews, pacifists, Jehovah’s Witnesses – all equally
unwelcome in an impoverished French province.
Among the courageous women who tried to bring a
breath of humanity to the camps – risking months in
prison for their efforts – were members of the Swiss
Red Cross. One of them, like the Irish heroine of this
book’s historical chapters, recently received an Israeli
medal of recognition for saving the lives of many
children. One ended up in Surrey as the grandfather of
the fictional child who tells the story.
A saccharine romance for sixteen-year-olds may
not appeal to all readers of the Friend. However,
remembering the historical horrors we Europeans
inflicted upon one another seventy years before the
horrors began unfolding in Greater Syria is icily
sobering.
David is a member of East Kent Area Meeting
See you soon Caroline! by Bernard S Wilson, Shore
Books and Design, 2014, ISBN: 9780993022227, £6.99.
15
 a look at the Quaker world eye@thefriend.org

For the love of the sky

A campaign to save Luke Howard’s house was
launched by the Tottenham Civic Society in December.
In a paper written in 1802 Luke Howard, aka
‘the namer of clouds’, proposed many of the cloud
classifications still in use today. The Bruce Grove
house in which he lived is the only building in
Tottenham to bear an English Heritage blue plaque.
However, it is currently on the ‘buildings at risk’
register due its derelict condition.
The Tottenham Civic Society has launched an online
petition asking the local council to force Redwing
Estates Ltd, which owns the building, to undertake
essential restoration works – for which planning
permission was granted in 2013. The petition can be
found at: http://bit.ly/7BruceGrove
The Cloud Appreciation Society added its support
to the campaign, saying: ‘We can’t allow this historic
home of the man who did so much for the love of the
sky to crumble to the ground.’
Luke Howard was a Quaker who attended
Tottenham Meeting and is buried in Winchmore Hill
Meeting’s burial ground. The 150th anniversary of his
death was marked by a CloudFest event last July (see
‘Eye – 4 July 2014’)

The Salters return to Bermondsey

Figures of the Salter family –
Alfred, Ada and Joyce – now grace
the riverside walk near Cherry
Gardens Pier in Bermondsey.
A seated bronze statue of social
reformer Alfred Salter was stolen
from the site in November 2011,
presumably by metal thieves.
Three years later, on 30
November, newly installed statues
were unveiled.
‘Dr Salter’s Daydream 2014’ was
created by Diane Gorvin, the artist
also responsible for the first statue.
Alfred’s likeness now sits alongside
a statue of Alfred’s daughter Joyce
and her cat. A new statue, of
Alfred’s wife Ada Salter, completes
the family group.
The Salter Statues Campaign
raised half of the £120,000 cost
of the project. The group said it
received ‘a flurry of donations’
from Quakers, following a piece
on Ada Salter in the Friend (10
January 2014).
Alfred was involved with
Quakers for some years. With
Ada, he campaigned for free
healthcare, and for better living
conditions for the poor. The Salter
Statues Campaign website says:
‘Not only has justice been done
to Alfred Salter, whose statue was
stolen… but the addition of Ada is
historic for all of London, where
currently there are only fourteen
public [open air] statues of women
compared to hundreds of men.’
Ada’s statue is the ‘first
public statue of a woman
environmentalist, the first of a
woman trade unionist, the first of
a Quaker woman and the first of a
woman politician’.

The Salter statues. Left: Alfred. Centre: Joyce. Right: Ada. Photos: Jamie Simonds.

16 the Friend, 23 January 2015

23 Jan 16/1/15 20:02 Page 5
pl
e Friends&Meetings
m
e
sa y
p
e
Fr co
1914-18
Digital Archive
The Friend 1914-18 Digital
Archive offers a unique
treasure trove of Quaker
and social history. See the
fascinating extracts from
our archive in this issue.
For a free sample copy of
our 7 August 1914 issue
visit our website at
www.thefriend.org/archive
and select ‘free sample’.
The full 1914–18 archive is
available to individual
subscribers of the Friend at
the reduced rate of just
£12 a year (usual rate £50).
Simply phone Penny Dunn
on 020 7663 1178 to con-
firm the sum due to cover
the remaining balance of
your current subscription.
To take a new subscription
to the Friend with access
to the 1914-18 Digital
Archive see the subscription
form overleaf or visit
www.thefriend.org
Changes of clerk London Quakers
Friday 20 February, 6.30pm
HORSHAM QUAKER MEETING
From 1 January, clerk: Ruth Hodgson
01444 401586. Mail to Horsham
Bring and sing
Meeting House, Worthing Road, Friends House
William Penn suite
Horsham RG12 1SL. Email
horshamquakermeeting@ Run by Patrick and Millie of
phonecoop.coop the Leaveners. Just turn up,
ready to enjoy yourself!
If you want to eat, bring food for
Diary yourself. Room opens at 6.30,
singing at 7, ends 8.30pm
2015: CRUNCH TIME IN EUROPE All welcome.
Quaker Council for European Affairs
Study Tour in Brussels and Strasbourg,
18-25 April 2015. Find out more at Meeting for
www.qcea.org/events or phone 0032 Sufferings
2230 4935. Register by 7 February.
Review Group
FAITH & ACTION: QUAKERS AND
THE FIRST WORLD WAR Relationships with
Stories of peace, war, conscience, relief
and faith. Exhibition, Birmingham
Listed Informal Groups
Museum and Art Gallery, curated by Meeting for Sufferings is
reviewing the way Britain
Central England Area Meeting.
17 January – 7 June 2015. Yearly Meeting relates to Listed
wwone.ceq@btinternet.com Informal Groups and other
Quaker bodies in Britain. It has
HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY appointed a small group which
‘Etty’ one woman play based on the wants to contact all Quaker-
diaries and letters of Etty Hillesum, related groups and organisations.
performed by Susan Stein. 7pm
If you have not been contacted
Tuesday 27 January. Amersham
Meeting House HP7 OJB. Tickets and would like to be included in
£10/£6 from: 01494 876594 or our review, please let us know
office@jordansquakercentre.org by contacting:
A Chilterns Quaker Programme Event. Juliet Prager
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WHAT DO WE THINK ABOUT GOD? Friends House, 173 Euston Rd,
London Quakers, Quaker Dialogue 17. London NW1 2BJ
Saturday 7 February, 10.30am-1pm. 0207 663 1101
No charge. No need to book. Friends
sufferings@quaker.org.uk
House, 173 Euston Road, London
NW1 2BJ. www.londonquakers.org.uk Registered charity no. 1127633
Luton and Leighton Area Meeting
Pre-election conference
Watford Meeting House, Sunday 8 February. 2 – 5pm
Making Us More Equal in the UK:
What We Ask of Politicians
Tax Justice – The Pay Gap – Fuel Poverty – Fair Money
Presentations - Workshops – Discussions
With expert speakers from a range of organisations
Some places still available – contact Don Atkinson at
don@dcat12.com or 01582 762837
Changing the national narrative on equality
the Friend, 23 January 2015 17
23 Jan 16/1/15 20:02 Page 6
Hull Local
Quaker
Meeting
WARDEN
A full time, residential warden
is required soon for Hull LQM,
for 2015.
We are a small LQM in a York-
shire city, close to countryside
and coast, in Pickering & Hull
Area Meeting. In our modern,
city-centre Meeting House, we
frequently let meeting rooms,
including at evenings and week-
ends. A warden's apartment is in
the building. Grounds include
Child of Our Time modest gardens & parking area.
Ruth David’s profoundly human
story, that of a small girl growing Remuneration: Living Wage +
on-site accommodation.
into a teenager, caught in the vortex
of her flight from the Holocaust. Please contact Dev Preston
£22.50 hardback, post free. for information:
hullquakers.clerk@gmail.com
The Cloud Book 07814 144284
"…a beautifully produced and illus- Quaker Meeting House, Bean St,
trated guide." Peter Moss, the Friend Anlaby Road, Hull HU3 2PR
Closing date 3 February 2015.
A guide to
the clouds,
helping
you to “...how thankful I was to
identify have your advice...”
various
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types and personal service”
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It features an introduction on the
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COBER HILL HOTEL/CONFERENCE CENTRE
A superb hotel in Cloughton, near Scar-
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KENDAL, COSY COTTAGE FLAT. Two
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events
RE-DISCOVER ADVICES & QUERIES
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vol 173 No 4
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the Friend
54a Main Street 173 Euston Road
Cononley London NW1 2BJ
Keighley BD20 8LL T 020 7663 1010
T 01535 630230 F 020 7663 11-82
E ads@thefriend.org E editorial@thefriend.org