•   Tigerlili & Adam Cavill, who have been worshipping with us for the past six months, have moved to Princeton in New Jersey, where Adam has a new job. We’re very sorry to lose them just when we were getting to know them, and wish them a very happy time.

Tigerlili writes:- "Thank you for your last message. I'm sad we didnt get to see you before we left, but I'm sure we will see you again. We are going to try one of the New York meetings either this weekend or next, and I'll be sure to report back. We have settled in a lovely place called Hoboken which is about 20 minutes into New York. A couple of evenings ago we saw a performance of Mozart's Requiem Mass at a Catholic Church round the corner which was holding a community evening for peace. It was very moving.

    Please send our regards to all at the meeting

In the meantime our blog is at www.acavill.com.
Nov. 2006.

More about Tigerlili and Adam, below, including their first American Quaker Meeting.

•   Rebecca Francis has moved to Chedworth, another village in Gloucestershire. “We have spent much of summer in our van in Cornwall and Wales and now back to school and life ...Esme has started school much to her disgust! Callum is in Year 3. The village is where the school is, and the pub and even a farm shop! Ant is rushing about teaching at 3 Universities and I try to do freelance Human Rights training as little as poss as there is no childcare here....It is a bit 'full on' as always but beautiful and we have a cat, a tree house in the apple tree and walk to school over the fields. We miss you all.”
Nov. 2006.

•   Our Friend Zehra Balman who has spent some years in a community on the Isle of Erraid in the Hebrides, then in the Burnlaw Bahai community, writes:- "I returned to London on 6/11. On 19/12 I go to India until 20/01/07. Then on 17 February I go to Northern Cyprus. In the meantime I am looking for jobs part-time, temporary jobs... I am hoping to attend a Meeting at Stoke Newington as soon as I can and look forward to seeing you. A few months ago I became a Bahai. I am well and adjusting to living in London...not easy....
Nov. 2006.

•   More from Tigerlili:- "We have had a busy few days. We went to the 15th Street Quaker meeting on Sunday. It starts at the very sociably agreeable hour of 11am, so we got up at 9 (what luxury as Adam normally gets up at 6.30 during the week!)

We travel by rail over to New York, it takes us about half an hour door to door. The Quaker building is opposite a park, and surrounded by other churches. Many people are just leaving their places of worship at this time, a Catholic priest with a smile like Robert DeNiro beams at his parishioners, on the steps outside, I'm sure he converted the fallen leaves to suddenly charge up the stone steps and gather in the vestibule, my eyes followed the leaves up and I saw candles and a huge image of Jesus looking like the great hippy Lord of Love that he is.

This is the 15th Street website http://15stfriends.quaker.org/ and I have attached a picture of the room.

The picture attached doesn't really show the room fully. It's over two levels, a main part and then a balcony upstairs. You can see it is the old style, wooden benches, arranged so that the first two are facing each other and the rest are arranged similar to the houses of parliament I think. They have nice long red velvet cushions on them and are wider than church pews so they are comfortable. The room is heated so it is warm, but not sleep inducing. Apart from the red cushions, everything else in the room, the walls, and the benches are painted a soft grey-green, a very pleasing colour that makes the red stand out, and also the people, the view through the window, all seem enhanced by the quiet reassurance of the paint. It's the sort of muted shade that makes you want to think in bright colours.

As we came in two plain clothes Quakers, a man and woman were standing talking in the middle of the room. He was older and had a big hat on, and she was young and looked like I imagine Jane Eyre looks in the book, in a cloak with a fancy umbrella, and her hair was tied in a long braid down her back. (I liked that, there was something romantic about them being untouched by time) They were the only two dressed that way, however, as others filed in, we saw every type of person, every colour, every age. A woman in a wheelchair with limited movement, an ebony spectre with beautiful long black dreadlocks, a smiling fresh faced student, with spectacles and woolly vest jumper and shirt, and a mother with a tiny baby, who fussed and made little crying noises, to which she would kiss the top of its head and snuggle it until it fell asleep.

The meeting commenced at 11, and more people filtered in, until there were about 50 or more. Some spoke about the new democrat status, anger at war etc. Someone talked at length praising Jesus, amen oh lordy lordy amen Jesus! in a more Christian way than I would have expected, something that might have put me off if it had been my first time. I spoke about children, and then others did too, and then about halfway through something magical happened.

Adam nudged me to look to the left and in came all the children, little girls mostly, like little angels, waving paper and glitter pens, the room got warmer and you could hear the children breathing in that way that children do, huffs and snuffs, and little bare hot feet on the pews. And then the rest of the meeting was happier for me, little sniffs and fidgets behind me. Very nice! One of the children spoke in a very Hermione way about the effects of war, and that made me cry a little.

The meeting ended and announcements were made by the Jane Eyre lady. Newcomers were encouraged to introduce themselves. There were about five or six people who had never been to a Meeting before, and the same amount who had come from other meetings. One man had moved from Toronto. We said who we were and sent regards from the Stoke Newington Quakers, and she said that she would like to send the greeting back to you from the 15th Street Quakers. Dry humour was evident in those Elders who gave notices, which is a common feature of the Quakers I've observed.

Notices as usual then. But then the announcement of the death of the mother of a Friend. Notices to volunteer time or food for the homeless Thanksgiving meal. The meeting house is used as a shelter for 15 homeless men and women every night I think. And then the "social hour", with homemade biscuits, cakes and books on sale. Tea and coffee from the big urns. We didn't stay for it because Adam needed Mexican chilli eggs and how could I refuse him?

So we will go again this weekend, and I'll let you know more as I discover it.

Apart from that, on a personal level, this week we went to see a talk by the director of Pi and Requiem for a Dream, about his new film, The Fountain. It's not like his other films at all, it is a love story that takes place in 16th century Spain, then moves to present day and then in distant future, and is an esoteric and sci-fi epic and deals with the idea of eternal life. I'm really looking forward to seeing it, it has no CGI, instead they found the guy that did special effects on movies like Superman, and he filmed things through microscopes and they enlarged them. The results are these incredibly beautiful trippy looking backgrounds and effects. You and Peter might like it. http://thefountainmovie.warnerbros.com

I think we will see Borat over the weekend, too, just to make sure that it is tasteless and very very funny.

Please send our love to all.

Tiger   X
Nov. 2006.

•   Our Friend Charles Hodson moved to Somerset, where he and his wife Heike have been doing a massive conversion on a farmhouse.

"Good to hear the Stoke N Meeting is in good shape. It is one of the things I do miss now that we are out in Somerset. I am of course fond of my people at Taunton PM but it is actually quite a strain to get to Meeting; an extra 26-mile round trip always seems too much effort when one spends so much time travelling. I must admit I do go to the steeple-house in Stogumber from time to time on the basis that one really ought to form a faith community with one's neighbours and not always be too precious about one's sectarian predilections. I do try to go to Westminster Meeting's lunchtime sessions on a Tuesday if I can (rarely ... grrr) and get my hit of silent worship that way.

Did you catch any of the "Humphrys in Search of God" series on Radio 4? Well worth having a look at the BBC website if you didn't. I was struck by the Quakerish ideas that the Archbish of Canterbury came up with.

As to the house, it is now more or less finished (to the extent that it ever will be), rather more so than the garden which seems to inch forward rather slowly. We are wondering how to find the last £20k needed to put a roof on the barn we rebuilt, but the big headline was an award from the Somerset Buildings Preservation Trust for being one of the best conservation projects. Heike must take all the credit; she has now started working for a local architect for one day a week, and is also doing a postgrad course on architectural conservation at the Univ of Plymouth one day a week. I'll tell you in more detail in my dreaded end-of-year letter.

I am bumbling along at work, though am under a slight cloud for speaking truth to power once or twice too often. Power doesn't always like it when you do that, but that's Quakerism for you.

My sons are moving ahead at varying rates and degrees of success/satisfaction. I share a flat in Bloomsbury with Will so I see him often, while Thom should finally be graduating next year, in sha' Allah.

Getting to the pictures is a bit of a problem because of always working weekends, though our flat is very near the Renoir so I'm aware of the film you mention and thought it looked worth seeing. Heike and I sometimes go to a town called Wellington where there's a fine old Art Deco cinema which mainly shows slightly offbeat stuff while occasionally cashing in by showing things like the new Bond flick. Add in a halfway decent curry beforehand and you've got an evening of pleasures so simple you don't have to 'fess up to your oversight group afterwards.

I had a squizz at the website and it does look impressive. It's good that people stay in touch, even if they have decamped to Western Australia.

I spend a lot of time trying to work out how I can spend more time in Somerset and less in London. I think I'd rather miss not going to the Smoke occasionally, but I so enjoy my time at home that it is tempting to give up quite a bit in order to have that bit of extra lifestyle.

The main event at Preston this year was 8 Labrador PUPPIES. Utterly gorgeous, but very hard work and tragic to see them all go, even to good homes. We kept one yellow gal, though, now a bouncing 5-month-old, so life in Somerset is one long Bitches' Ball as she and Dotty careen around the kitchen pretending to kill each other.
Nov. 2006

•   Oliver Robertson worshipped with us before he went to University in Glasgow. He is currently at the Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO). He is also our Friend Ruth Robertson's son.

"It is now two months since I arrived in Geneva to work as a programme assistant on the human rights and refugees desk at the Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO), and nearly three since I left Glasgow to do so. My role, while slightly different from the one-year peaceworker jobs run by Quaker Peace and Social Witness (QPSW), was advertised in the same place and my training took place with those peaceworkers going to Britain, Serbia and South Africa. Altogether ten one-year workers met during the two-week preparation period QPSW organised at Friends House in London and Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre in Birmingham, which introduced us to the work done by Quakers in Britain and abroad and helped us to prepare mentally and spiritually for our placements.

QUNO operates out of a house in the north of Geneva, a short bus ride from the UN and other international institutions. It very much has the feel of a house rather than an office: my desk is in the conservatory, next door is the dining room which we use when having diplomats round to dinner, beyond that are the wooden stairs which creak mightily whenever anyone walks on them and out back is a garden with apple and peach trees and a swing.

This doesn’t stop you having to work, however, and a lot of the work I have done so far has involved going to meetings and getting a feel for who does what where and when. I have also been doing lots of reading, mugging up on the issues that QUNO is concerned about at present (these include the situation of women in prison and the children of imprisoned mothers, rights of conscientious objectors and problems faced specifically by refugee women and girls). Like all work it has boring and interesting moments, but the wealth of people with real expertise who want to tell you about these important issues (be it in word or in print) mean the latter definitely outweigh the former.
Nov. 2006.

Return to top of page