Watford Quakers

Power Shift gathered 350 16-25 year olds from all around the UK (and a few from abroad!), including several young quakers, between 9-12 October at the Institute of Education in London. The weekend focused on the development of personal stories: styled on Barack Obama’s grassroots election campaign. Essentially it involved getting people to talk about their personal journey to caring about climate change, and linking it to the ‘story of us’ and ‘the story of now’, in terms of acting immediately and collectively. There were also many very good speakers and workshops and stalls. We also performed a ‘flash mob’ dance on the monday, which was the highlight for me: you can see us performing on parliament square to the greenpeace activists who had climbed parliament the night before on the Guardian website here.

Owen Everett

Being true to seed
Is long slow germination
Patience, not hard graft.

Ruth Shadwell

Two brothers, Bill and Gilbert, pose confidently in this photograph I hold. They are showing us their new bikes, with their carbide lamps to show the way – in the dark they did not know was waiting for them.

In ten years time Bill was to “leap into cleanness” with Brooke and millions of others. He was killed on 1 July 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme, when 20,000 men were machine-gunned to death on that one day.

Gilbert did not “leap into cleanness”. He hesitated, remembering that he was a strict church-goer. That August, he cycled to church as usual, and was met by the vicar, who asked him if he was going to join up like his brother, and help defeat the dastardly Hun. Gilbert said “No, Jesus never carried a rifle . In fact he said ‘put up your sword'”.

The vicar, astonished, preached of duty, protecting your sister from the rapacious Boche, and, most of all, pointed out that God was on the side of the British, for had they not brought civilisation and God to the peoples of our great Empire?

The next time Gilbert went to church it was for Matins, the service he loved. It was a glorious morning, bedecked with the words of Herbert and the bible of King James. He saw ancient stone, carved lintels, a Norman doorway, the glowing glass, the square tower with its clock ticking away the time, the yew-tree sequestered in the comfort of the remembered past, and began to doubt. Should he defend this scene, this sweet especial scene, with the offer of his life?

He knelt on the worn hassock, bowed his head, and felt the church-born ambience flow through him. It was as though he floated there, suspended in a limbo of his own.

Then “How great thou art” echoed from wall to wall in the organ’s defiant voice.

He got up, walked down the aisle lost in a trance.

At the door stood the old vicar, with the good of his congregation at heart. His cassock was pure white, ironed by his wife that morning, on his chest two Boer War medals. He shook hands with each member of his flock, bending forward over each offered hand.
But when Gilbert came up, the vicar’s face changed, hardened. He withdrew his hand, sharply and obviously.

Gilbert stood stock still, speechless. He saw the others turning aside, avoiding his eyes. He felt empty inside, and so alone. Stumbling away, he knew what he must do. He must be wrong to think those conchie thoughts. His mind ploughed on.

Next day he volunteered, burying his doubts.

Later, he too was buried, at Paschendale. The vicar, when he read the paper, said a prayer for him.

The bicycles lay untended in the shed, never to be seen again.

Geoff Bould

I was not in a hurry. I was being careful. Everybody told me I should be careful – ‘at my age’ they added, very carefully. So I was very careful. But it happened none-the-less. I wasn’t doing any harm to anyone. I was minding my own business. But it happened.

The sun was out, shining benevolently on me and the rest of the world. I was coming home from the library, carrying a book on being careful in old age. How not to bend down, stand up, turn around, look up, look down, for fear of falling. Not much left to do, I thought. Nevertheless, I carried on, carrying my years lightly before me, and my past somewhat darkly. I wavered now and again, but that’s to be expected, I thought, when the stairs are steeper and the policemen younger. It’s all the same to me, I said, reprovingly, to myself.

Then I came to those steps. I knew them well. Stone they were, with a pretty fair handrail, much admired by all who passed by. Of course, they didn’t need the handrail in the first place. But everything was normal. The steps were dry, a slight haze lit the air; a cricket ball would swing, I thought.

Then, in a trice, a moment, a nothingness, I dived forward like an Olympic diver, hands out, perfectly poised for a racing dive. Only this time there was no water. Perfectly executed, I would have thought, if I could, which I couldn’t.

I picked myself up (there was no-one else to do it) and looked at my grazed hands as if to blame them for the fall. Then I blamed the steps, giving them a kick for their bad behaviour.

Then I blamed the sun and the shadow on the step halfway up. I had tripped over a shadow. How clever was that?

Geoff Bould

The lazy days of summer! I went to Yearly Meeting Gathering. It was a huge undertaking, and you can imagine how much organization it took to get 1600 people accommodated, fed, looked after and occupied, with so many fringe events and special-interest groups. York Quaker volunteers had no chance to go to more than a very few events, they were busy answering queries and organising tickets. I believe next time certain problems should be ironed out, because of course this was the first year that the three events – Yearly Meeting, Junior Yearly Meeting and the Gathering – have been combined. The general feeling was that it went well and should be repeated. The ticketing was difficult and many people were unable to go to the events they would have liked, and it may be that that will be solved, but the reason was really that certain events were very popular and the rooms available were not big enough.

A rabbi who visited the gathering was very impressed with our business method. He said it hit him between the eyes. It was impressive that the sense of the meeting in such a big gathering was clear and was so ably interpreted by the clerks. Of course it was the civil partnerships, now called marriages, which took up most time, and we saw Quakers’ minds being changed by what we heard and what was said. But you might say that 22 years is a long time to come to such a conclusion about the matter. It was this long since the subject was first mooted at Meeting for Sufferings. The young people were suprised that there could still be those who opposed. The publicity Quakers received for their decision was I believe pretty positive, though perhaps there were papers which considered it immoral.

Lindsey March, August 2009