People that have been involved with the Meeting

Trevor Macpherson

Trevor Macpherson was born on 5^th February 1925, in Coventry. We know little of his childhood and education, but he would have been 14 when the Second World War broke out.

On 7th June 1945, Trevor was conscripted into the army. After basic military training he completed his training as a linesman and was posted to Kiel with the Royal Signals where he witnessed at first hand the destruction and appalling conditions in the aftermath of the Second World War. This experience led him to question official statements about the war and the futility of war itself. In fact, his commitment to pacifism had its beginnings in the bombing of Coventry which he witnessed as a child, and this was re-enforced during his period of military service in Germany where he saw at first hand the devastating destruction that war brings to a country. 

Ten years later, he married Sheila, on 11^th August 1955. They had a long and happy life together, and raised five children.

As a child, Trevor attended a Methodist Sunday School in Coventry.

He came into contact with the Unitarian Church while in Canada and maintained his involvement with the Unitarians on his return to the UK and continued to be active in the church during his subsequent time in Coventry.  When the family moved to Northam in North Devon, Trevor found that there were no local Unitarians, and started to attend Barnstable Quaker Meeting, as the Quaker outlook on social issues, such as pacifism, was similar. This was the start of his engagement with Friends.  On moving to Sutton Coldfield (Trevor’s professional work was as a Social Worker) in 1972, Trevor applied for membership in what was then Warwickshire Monthly Meeting.  Trevor’s faith was rooted in the non-conformist tradition which he felt allowed him to explore questions of faith in his own spiritual journey.

Sheila saw the post of Caretaker for the Pales advertised in The Friend; the opportunity appealed to her.  In her own way she was able to make a contribution to the Society of Friends and to live a life she enjoyed with the dogs, poultry and occasional lambs and the beautiful countryside of Powys.

So, Trevor and Sheila became caretakers, and later wardens, at the Pales in 1980. Facilities at the Pales were very basic in those days, as there was no adequate water supply, or heating in the Meeting House. Nevertheless, regular Meetings for Worship were sustained and in 1985, largely through Trevor’s efforts, Pales Recognised Meeting merged with Llandrindod Preparative Meeting to form Llandrindod & Pales Preparative Meeting.

Trevor was very involved in local community affairs, being a keen member of Llandrindod CND, the local Liberal Democrat party, and a keen railway enthusiast. But he is also very widely remembered for his interest in local and Quaker history. He was a keen member of the Radnorshire Society and contributed articles to the Society’s Transactions. His major labour of love whilst at the Pales was recording the history of Quakers in Radnorshire, a topic on which he lectured and published a book, ‘Friends in Radnorshire’. In later life, he attempted the ambitious project of extending this to Quakers in Wales generally, county by county. The fruits of this labour, ‘The Gathered People’, can be found at here. He was particularly an expert in the subject of Quaker burial grounds.

He served the Society in many roles, in addition to Pales warden, holding the roles of Elder, Overseer and Clerk at various times, as well as Treasurer of many Pales Trust Funds.

In 1989 Trevor and Sheila undertook the substantial task of fund-raising to re-thatch the Pales, the last time this was done. Two years later they oversaw the sinking of a water bore-well, a transformative event for the Pales, that has allowed its subsequent expansion.

In the early 1990s, with Sheila’s health failing, they decided to move into sheltered accommodation in Llandrindod, where they lived till Sheila’s death in 2005. Trevor remained there for several years, finally moving to sheltered accommodation in Bournville, where he died. He is buried alongside Sheila, at the Pales Burial Ground and is remembered very fondly. One of his daughters, Kate wrote:

“Considering his severe limitations in his sight and hearing Dad managed to remain cheerful and uncomplaining up to the end.  He also retained an enormous enthusiasm and joy for life, which I think was why he was so valued at Oak Tree House.   Despite having very little useful sight and hearing he continued to travel the country on public transport to get to where he wanted to go, and could definitely be said to have 'lived life adventurously'. “

Beryl Sewell

Beryl Sewell was a quiet, friendly, independent, caring, spiritual and artistic person who became engaged with our local meeting and with Quakerism in general and was genuinely committed to the corporate discipline rather than an individualistic approach to religious experience.

Her religious exploration began in an Anglican environment where she developed a lifelong discipline of daily prayer and bible study. Having been both an art teacher and a policewoman, she tried life in a convent, but appears to have found this very difficult. The experience changed her attitude to the established church. Her interest in American native spirituality showing that she could not be confined.

Her prime satisfaction came from drawing and painting, but she was also interested in travel. She spoke French, even completing French crosswords, and her love of France expanded into following the Tour de France as it travelled through the countryside that she knew well. She had a great interest and knowledge of the archaeology of Brittany, but also once travelled around Iceland in a cargo vessel and, on another occasion got into trouble demonstrating in the USA.

When Beryl discovered our local Meeting she quickly became involved and a stalwart of the Meeting, although it was to be some 16 years before she applied for membership. She was a quiet presence at the core of the Meeting, rarely ministering but very concerned with the Meeting as a community that care for each other. Her care and her artistic ability were both demonstrated by the personal cards that she produced for the Meeting's children's birthdays and the tuition she gave them in drawing and painting.

For as long as she was well enough Beryl was always prepared to take on roles both in the Meeting and representing it outside. She was active in the Area Meeting, in Friends in Wales and was our Cytun representative. She served on Area Meeting Nominations Committee, she was both an elder and an overseer as needed and served as Assistant Clerk. She was always ready to do her share as welcomer, even when she needed to be seated to do so. Beryl's paintings and prints of the Pales have brought income to the Meeting House, and she assisted Martin Williams with mapping the burials in the Burial Ground.

Beryl was a peace builder, listening carefully to people, her smile spreading kindness. At the end her acceptance and contentment (despite being in hospital for nearly a year) was such an example. Her serenity shone out right to the end of her life.

Bridget Senior.

Over the period prior to 2010 Bridget and John had been establishing themselves as a couple and gradually moving from Cumbria to live permanently in Mid Wales. They had met at a “Just This Day” event near Sedburgh. Bridget had been to some Buddhist classes and now was introduced to Quakers through John. They deepened their knowledge of, and comfort with, Friends by attending various courses at Woodbrooke and Swarthmoor, and through Yearly Meetings and residential weekends. They both were very attracted to, and became active in promoting “Experiment with Light”, which appealed to both their Quaker and Buddhist practice. Bridget, with John, helped to bring spiritual diversity to our Meeting and brought an openness to our experiences.

John and Bridget married at the Pales on the 25^th April 2011 in a ceremony which was enjoyed by both their families and local Friends. As they became more settled in Mid Wales so they became more active in Llandrindod and Pales LQM. Bridget became a Pastoral Carer for our Meeting. She was a great listener, and as an Overseer would spend as much time as was needed to grasp any particular problem put to her. Additionally she then took on the service of being Clerk, a role in which she was well organised and timely in her handling of the complexities which are part and parcel of Quaker life. Over several years Bridget, with Emm Hardy, and then also John, maintained a weekly Healing Meditation for the Meeting. All of this was achieved in spite of her problems with her own health and mobility.

Bridget had an extraordinary capacity to give of herself and constantly demonstrated her courage in doing this. She believed in goodness which gave her the inner power to give far beyond her physical strength. Her capacity to give and love endures and continues to nurture us all. She daily demonstrated her bravery and generosity. Her spirit sustained us as a Meeting through the difficulties we have come through. John and Bridget had moved their membership from Southern Marches Area Meeting to Mid Wales, just prior to Bridget's untimely death, but they and we were anxious to keep a close relationship. As a Meeting we all recognised Bridget as a lovely, natural, warm and friendly person, always approachable. It is difficult to know exactly what to say when such people are taken from us so abruptly, other than that we shall miss her.

Jean and Harold Hughes

When Harold was teaching in Canada, which he did for over twenty years, and during which time Harold and Jean had decided to separate, he became very friendly with a Vietnamese family who had fled their home to escape the Communist regime. One of the sons of the family was a student of Harold's. Harold fell in love with, and married one of the sisters, and that is Thoa. They would come to Neuaddfach each summer, returning to Canada to spend time with Thoa's elderly mother and her family each November. They commuted like this every year until the traveling became too much for Harold by which time he was 89.

Harold and Thoa have been devoted to each other, constant companions and helpmates. 

Harold Hughes was an impressive man, with a life full of achievement, a man of action and of principle, who was never prepared to accept the status quo, a conscientious objector in wartime, a green thinker who could see not only the problems but also the solutions, and then have the ability to make those solutions happen. Neuaddfach was the house that Harold and Jean bought with no vehicular access and the most basic of attributes, Harold and Jean began the long process of improvement of access and comfort. Many years later Thoa joined him there, alternating between Canada and Wales, and it has been her loved home for 28 years while she assisted Harold as he steadily brought it to be a place of warmth and beauty, caring for its oak wood and planting a further 1000 trees.

We give thanks for a life well lived, by a man well loved. He is no longer with us in a physical sense and that is regretted, just as he regretted the old age that had limited him.

Richard Kite

Richard Kite died on the 28th August, 2018, following a long period of declining health.  He had been an attender at Llandrindod Meeting since moving to that area in the late eighties.  He served as Treasurer. Richard's wife Ann had been in membership since her University days.

Richard grew up in Birmingham where he and his parents were active members of their local Baptist Church.  Although Richard demonstrated Asperger's Syndrome, he was very high functioning and attended university at a younger age than most to study civil engineering. It was there that he met Ann in a church group,

Whilst the couple courted Richard took an engineering job, building a bridge on a new motorway. He later worked on an engineering project in London but wanted more challenge. He became interested in computing and applied for a job with English Electric Computers which came with a house they could rent.

In the late 1960’s, at the peak of the Cold War, Richard worked on projects involving submarines and ships. This meant traveling between Epsom and Stuttgart. He had been one of the first civilians to see live feed from one of the space missions when he was at the University of Stuttgart.

In the 1970s Richard and Ann moved to Somerset, to start a new lifestyle of semi-self sufficiency in the countryside, albeit with an early, huge home-working computer under the stairs. Ann and Richard were enthusiastic in all they did. On their smallholding they grew large amounts of fruit and veg and kept ducks and geese and sold the duck eggs from the front door.

In the 80’s, Richard and Ann started a business running machine knitting lessons from their home. . This later evolved into a business producing videos for home learning, ; a forerunner of on-line learning. Another business venture was running a small bike hire business, hiring bikes for use on the Somerset Levels.

He never lost that love of trains and together with son Graeme he built a model railway in the garden, a huge undertaking, including a hand built scale model of Shepton Mallet viaduct. Graham knows how precise the model viaduct was because he remembers going with his dad to survey the viaduct, to take photos and measurements.

Richard's enthusiasm never waned for trains, politics, civil engineering projects, community projects, photography or art, all of which he was well versed in and loved to converse about. Richard's Aspergers and being so eclectic in his knowledge, did prevent him from suffering fools lightly, as he was so particular in getting things right, Richard was a man who could consider a situation from many angles and plot a safe and sensible route through it, at the same time being able to educate others by sharing his knowledge. He was a pioneer in his field of computers and video learning; he was a radical and an adventurer; was passionate about politics, community projects, money reform and, of course about his son and daughters and the generations they have created. 

One of the ministries at his memorial meeting was based on the following:  "Richard was, I believe, one of the most spiritual Friends in our Meeting, he also had a very clear idea of what we Quakers call “right ordering”. Richard had never become a member of Friends, but he was very clear on the positive message that early Quakers had formulated, not that mankind was “mired in sin” but rather that everyone had something of God in them. Richard saw God in order, in things that were well designed and that worked, railway engines, full sized and miniature, motorway bridges, a proper set of accurate accounts. As an engineer he needed the pieces to fit, and he had the brain to work out how to make them do so. Now I'll tell you something about the Society of Friends; it does not always work like a piece of well designed machinery and Richard was very frustrated by that, to the extent that he could never become a member. Quakers are but human and as a small, ageing, organisation we sometimes muddle along with good intentions but procrastinating, taking far too long to come to decisions and individually leaving things for others to do. In spite of remaining outside membership Richard was very effective at trying to keep us in line, particularly when it came to our accounts.

Richard was amusing, good humoured and very courteous, just as long as he did not get behind a computer keyboard. Once there he became the scourge of the inaccurate, the unsure or the slow and even, sometimes, the blameless! As one who has, on many occasions, felt the rough edge of a Kite email, I shall miss his erudition, his determination, his thoughtfulness for others, and his anger.

Peter Coleridge

“Live Adventurously. When choices arise, do you take the way that offers the fullest opportunity for the use of your gifts in the service of God and the community? Let your life speak.” (Advice 27. Quaker Faith and Practice)

Peter Anthony Coleridge, born 1943, died peacefully at home on 12 June 2019 after living courageously with an aggressive cancer since 2010. His life was one of intensity and fulfillment. He was born in Arusha, Tanzania, in 1943 and educated at Monkton Combe. It was here that his love and talent for music and sport became evident. These would remain sources of solace and inspiration throughout his life. He also discovered his love of languages, for which he had a natural gift. During these years he spent school holidays visiting his parents in Yemen which ignited his passion for the Middle East.

 

He read Arabic at Oxford, taking a year out to learn Palestinian Arabic and acquiring a deep love for that country. He taught English in Ha’il, Saudi Arabia, in his spare time he explored the Gulf by dhow and traveled across the desert by motorbike. His spirituality was touched by the majesty and beauty of the natural world. Writing at that time he says ‘The whole of creation is throbbing under me and around me with a busy awakening. One’s very existence becomes a prayer.’

He married Angela in 1969. They shared each other’s values and love of travel and adventure. They taught in Sudan,

before joining the staff at the Quaker school in Brummana, Lebanon. This is where they were first introduced to Quaker faith and practice. It resonated with their values and, though they never became Members, found it a natural spiritual home. With a young family, they had to flee Lebanon in 1976, when the shell-fire of civil war reached the campus. They found new work as ‘house parents’ at Atlantic College, the International 6th form college in South Wales where Peter taught English and led the Social Service unit. It was here that Peter had his first taste of disability work, teaching blind children in the locality how to canoe.

In 1981 Peter joined Oxfam. Alongside remarkable Palestinians, he helped develop an approach which enabled villagers to discover how, together, they could solve many of their problems. It had a revolutionary impact in health and agriculture. He also ensured the first foreign grant to al-Haq, today an internationally renowned Palestinian law centre. In 1988 Peter was kidnapped in a refugee camp in south Lebanon, accused of spying by the Abu Nidal terror group which routinely executed captives. Uniquely he was released alive, probably the result of the high esteem he enjoyed in the refugee community in Lebanon, his own patent innocence, his fluency in Arabic and his readiness to establish an understanding with his captors. 

 

Peter wrote what became the classic text on community-based rehabilitation for the disabled. He left Oxfam to work in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan on disability. He never shied away from the toughest assignments. Later he became an international disability consultant.

Peter also pursued a profound spiritual life which transcended the orthodoxy of his Church of England upbringing. He and Angela became Attenders at Llandrindod Meeting in 2007 and have participated actively, when time allowed, in the life of the Meeting. When not abroad he involved himself in local initiatives on enironmental and community concerns. He quickly established deep friendships with incoming Syrian refugee families and was able to put his Arabic to good use. He continued to work with communities abroad to within months of his death. Dear to his heart was a remote town in SW Tanzania where he and Angela traveled each year to foster local initiatives in sustainable development, encouraging local solutions to local problems.

He worked persistently for a shared vision of equality, justice, sustainability and peace. His integrity, tenacity and fierce independence made him ready to stand alone on issues of conscience and retain commitment to causes and friendships throughout his lifetime. His commitment to effective action and the courage it required deepened his faith in the underlying goodness in others. His fearlessness made him a champion of beleaguered causes and individuals . His acute integrity made him ready to challenge and question accepted practices and beliefs. He would take risks, break rules where necessary and expose himself to danger. Yet there was also a lightness in him and a ready humour that endeared him to so many. 

 

He was passionate about what he valued, demanding the highest standards of himself, such as his music, pursuit of knowledge, writing and inner discipline. He was also ready to recognise his own limitations and failings and this brought a humility and openness of heart. His life work led him to realise true ‘development’ can only come from within each individual. It was ‘that of God’ in everyone. Toward the end of his life he wrote : ‘Each day is a gift. It is a time to look back with tremendous gratitude, but also anticipation for the new spiritual discoveries that are ahead. I feel composed, together, and fully alive, alert to the wonders and small details of each day’ . He had a great sense of personal fulfillment in the life he had lived and what he had chosen to do.