The editor recently went to a lecture in one of her local village halls and was mesmerised by the story of Admiral Collingwood, an unsung maritime hero who was Nelson's great friend and temperamental foil (Collingwood was the more restrained of the two). A new biographer is trying to drum up interest in this little known figure from the north east whose diplomatic skills were every bit as effective as his battle strategies. The story which engaged the editor most was how Collingwood dealt with a rebuff from a Moroccan emir who would not sell his horses to an 'infidel', which he claimed was forbidden by the Q'uran. But Collingwood knew his Q'uran, which he often read in his cabin, and he disputed the emir's interpretation. Not what you would expect of a sea captain!

While on his tours of duty he berated the government in London for sending diplomats abroad who had no knowledge of the Q'uran or the culture of the people with whom they would be dealing. A man of war ahead of his time.

Eye liked the anecdotes about Bounce, Collingwood's dog who accompanied him around the world and was often lulled to sleep while his master sang him Shakespearean sonnets. But Bounce is a mystery to historians as no-one knows what breed of dog he was. Collingwood never let on. The biographer favours a large dog, like a Labrador, or thinks Bounce might have been a Menorcan rabbit dog. The editor has her own theories (as usual). 'Alpha males sometimes have rather sophisticated little dogs,' she speculates 'look at Judge John Deed.'
eye@thefriend.org

During the training day run by the CYP Travelling Team at the Pales Meeting House, Mid Wales on 25 March the participants were given 2 pages of faces showing expressions varying from frenzied, enthusiastic, to pressurised and worried. From these expressions we had to select the ones which described our feelings about our Children's Meeting. The face showing mixed feelings precisely defined how I was feeling.

I love the joy and life that the children bring, but I felt jaded and stale and lacking in inspiration. But not any more! We had an inspiring day, exploring spiritual development, positive ways of getting help, and a consideration of how Children's Meeting could be a real and satisfying Meeting for Worship for the adults involved. We also did a practical exercise on honing in on a word to work up a theme, and as we were given 125 starting point words, plus keywords which gave an approach to planning a year through aspects of spiritual development. We also had an excellent display of books to use as resources, and a display of ideas for All Age Meeting for Worship. I came home feeling energised and enthusiastic.

Thanks to the CYP Travelling Team, Meeting of Friends in Wales for initiating the day, the Friends from Llandrindod and Pales Meeting for being so hospitable.

- Dorothy Bell

Our favourite Quaker publisher Bill Sessions (ninety and not out) showed a mischievous streak when he was first in with his entry for the very short story competition. On length alone Bill would win – his entry consisted of merely thirteen words.

Here it is – 'Two Quaker girls went for a tramp in the woods. The tramp died.'

As a mystery thriller it is not quite in the John Le Carre class, but Bill adheres to simply stated Quakerism. We don't think you'll pick up a prize with this attempt Bill – but do keep trying.

In the meantime, the short stories are fast accumulating in The Friend office. Entry closes on 21 April so don't delay if you have that inspiring idea. Get it down on paper and send it to us.

BYM beckons! Well, it's at the end of May, but here at The Friend we are already trying to muster our team of eager reporters to help us cover the sessions and the socialising. Are you adept with a pen and pad (or indeed, a laptop or PC?) and are you happy to chat to your fellow Friends? If you would like to be part of the BYM coverage in the magazine, please let us hear from you soon. Our production manager Clare and news editor Simon await your calls.

Spotted outside Friends House, last Friday night. Feel free to supply your own captions...

Nantucket Quaker whalers have continued to fire your imaginations.

Audrey Hills writes to us: 'I came across more evidence of some of them when visiting Nova Scotia a few years ago. It seems that at the end of the war of American independence, a small group of the whalers who wanted to remain under British rule emigrated to Nova Scotia and were given land in Dartmouth, across the harbour from Halifax.' They built timber houses and a Meeting house. 'This no longer exists' says Audrey, 'but one of the houses remains more or less in its original state and is an exhibition centre – complete with a Quaker marriage certificate from the eighteenth century on open display.'

These whaling Quakers only stayed a short while in Dartmouth as they soon had the invitation to go to Milford Haven.

'Presumably they were reunited there with others coming directly from Nantucket,' Audrey guesses. 'If anyone is visiting Halifax, I recommend the boat trip across the harbour to visit 'the Quaker House.'

No don't get too excited, it's not the number of Quakers in Britain Yearly Meeting that has grown by 15%, its the number of subscribers to Young Quaker magazine.

Yes, even though the number of Quakers in Britain is either roughly staying the same or slightly decreasing there was a remarkable uptake in the number of people subscribing to Young Quaker in 2005.

It could be that the number of Young Friends involved in Young Friends General Meeting (YFGM) has increased by 15% and that has caused the increase, right? Wrong, numbers at YFGM are roughly the same. YFGM is basically a place and a Meeting for all Quakers in Britain aged 18-30s. A bit like the notorious holiday company Club 18-30, but this time without the sex, drugs or alcohol. Okay, not like Club 18-30 at all then.

So what is going on at Young Quaker? Well, over the last 12 months or so the editors of Young Quaker have been shaking up the magazine and seeing what sticks and what falls away. They've captured a certain blend of the essence of where Young Friends are at and have bottled this mysterious situation and are releasing it bit by bit to the baying masses.

Zeitgeist. That's where Young Quaker is right now. And at £11 per year for subscribers in the UK, it's great value for money. Averaging 24.6 pages a month in 2005, they're already at 29 pages a month in 2006. And its not just Young Friends who are sending their cash in. In 2005 almost every letter published from a reader who was enjoying the magazine came from the 70 something year olds who want to keep up with where it is at in the Religious Society of Friends.

Young Quaker has something for everyone. But don't just take it from me, I'm an editor of Young Quaker. Check it out for yourself at the www.youngquaker.tk

Here is an article Tom wrote the day before he was captured, called Why are we here?

I spent much (too much) of yesterday engaged in creating what might be recorded as the most obscure cover in the Friend's history.

The image is of an ostrich with an identity crisis: it thinks it is an owl. The inspiration is an article by Susan Robson, who followed up a recent article by Jamie Wrench which referred to the animal conflict-types as they relate to Quakers. Susan has done a lot of study on this and writes: "They wanted to be owls, not sharks, teddy bears or even foxes. The Quaker version of the animal conflict typology in Conflict in Meetings increased the number of animals. The solitary avoiding turtle was given two new companions in avoidance, the lemming and the ostrich. The original five-fold typology places the avoiding turtle at the bottom left-hand corner of a diagram, able to back out of it. Unspoken conventions stop Quakers even getting onto the diagram. Aversion, the stage before avoidance, is practiced. Eyes and minds are turned away from conflict in a Quaker group. Ostriches abound."

The image is therefore of an ostrich with an identity crisis. It involved taking the adaptation of an ostrich with its head in the sand, as rendered by Toogle and then replacing the image of the ostrich, letter by painstaking letter, with the phrase "I am an owl" and other phrases from the description of the collaborating owl to be found here. When you look close up, the creature insists it is an collaborating owl, but when you look from afar, it is quite clearly an ostrich.

The exercise was interesting as it threw up revelations about our own self-images, including my own (so when I say 'we' I am refering to Friends as referred to in the article as well as myself). We all like to think we are the balanced, sane one as we interact with others, but what is the reality? Sad to say, at The Friend we are not only on the receiving end of a lot of poorly directed anger, but we hear more than our fair share of the pitfalls of employment by Quakers as well as manipulation, threats and malice that is kept well out of the projected image of Friends. We often have to take criticism that we feel is unfair and internalise it, we probably take such encounters more to heart than the large amounts of lovely comments, constructive criticism and generous feedback. Some of the text, as I typed it in, developed a tone of self-righteousness: echoes of people saying 'I take a great deal of time and effort' and then feeling hurt and angry when everything is not OK. The Swarthmore lecturer Simon Fisher refers to the great deal of offence that we build up inside ourselves by not developing positive conflict strategies. Working on the image and thinking about the idea made me see that I am just as much at fault in many of these respects.

In some ways, the image calls on the Society to assess its benign self-image, but it is not necessarily negative. The ostrich may have poor crisis-management skills and a tendency to lash out at the wrong time, but they are flamboyant, exuberant and hilarious, capable of running incredible speeds and strong as well. Ostriches have provided a creative opportunity for UK farmers in trouble with their (sorry vegetarians) delicious meat and eggs. We can be proud of being ostriches, even if we aspire towards improving on our weak areas.

Not having a telly, Martin Mottram came late into our debate about evolution inspired by Richard Dawkins’ TV series. But now that he’s here he has some interesting information. ‘My father V.H. Mottram, one time professor of Physiology and Dietetics, London,’ he tells us ‘wrote, in 1946 or thereabouts, a book called The physical basis of personality published by Penguin. A second edition was published about five years later, in which a further short chapter was added. In this he discussed – if I remember correctly – the very same problem – i.e. God and our personality (design or natural selection).’
Martin says his father was a Friend at Shaftesbury meeting.
Eye is intrigued to discover what Professor Mottram had to say in the forties about a subject which is becoming increasing contentious today. But we are a little frustrated in efforts to lay hands on the second edition of his book. FH library has the first edition (1944) in the catalogue, although not on the shelf, but not the second. We will have to hunt around the Euston Road (British Library or Wellcome Library), or perhaps a reader might just be harbouring this possibly illuminating book?

Rumour has reached Eye of a group of hardened Friends who braved the Birmingham snow to tidy the Leaveners’ garden. A patio area has been unearthed, just big enough for a picnic table. Now that brambles and dead leaves have been cleared to the appropriate Woodbrooke compost heaps, Eye would suggest a summer of afternoon teas and live music on the Leaveners’, albeit mossy, lawns.

We will keep secret the name of the gentleman who sent this email into Friends House enquiries section:
‘Dear Sirs, I am writing to you to request compensation as I recently purchased Quaker Oats 1kg. But I found a hair inside the packaging. The best before date was 17/02/07 the code on the box 046. My address is... Many thanks…’
When will we shake off this porridge image we wonder.

So how many of you actually listen to Minutes drafted at Meeting for Business? Pay attention at the back there! This beguiling tale of lost concentration has been passed to us by a Friend who wishes to remain anonymous ‘to avoid a more public embarrassment to the now contrite committee and their Meeting.’
The story is taken up by our nameless Friend: ‘Our Premises Committee follows the common practice of requiring the convener to draft the minutes after the meeting, which are then circulated and subsequently approved or amended at the next meeting.’
The convener was apparently going through a period of self-doubt. Did anyone consider, or indeed read, his Minutes? ‘He decided’ says our Friend ‘to test his suspicion by slipping in this rather delicious phoney one’.
The sham Minute read: In view of the many problems in our Meeting house we consider the best solution to be the speedy demolition of the whole building. We ask the convener to obtain tenders from three suitably experienced subversive organisations and to go ahead with this plan. If in the meantime any member expresses the view that this may not be in right ordering we would be happy to defer the action to our next meeting.
No-one appears to have noticed. At the next meeting the usual question about minutes of the last meeting met with the usual blank faces – even some suggestions voiced that the minutes had been read carefully – which soon turned to red faces when attention was drawn to the imposter minute.
Fortunately, reports our Friend, the Meeting house was saved from destruction by an astute PM clerk who had read the minutes and stopped the attempts at living adventurously going any further!
The prank was – thankfully – taken in good humour. Our Friend is generous. ‘Many committee members in our Society are overworked people so part of me says thank goodness there are not too many mischievous conveners around playing tricks on them. However, perhaps there is a salutary lesson in this incident in that all conveners should be watched more closely than they sometimes are – and supported by having their minutes read.’