Free The New Breadmakers by Margaret Thomson Davis Page B

Friends had been working on all sorts of reforms behind the scenes. Elizabeth Fry, for instance, was determined to do something to improve the lot of women prisoners in the hell-holes of jails at the time. With great courage she went in among the prisoners and worked with determination and patience to help them in every practical way she could. Eventually, she succeeded in setting in motion the reform of the whole prison system. Quakers had never lacked courage. In the past, they had been persecuted, imprisoned, tortured and killed. The authorities had forbidden them to hold their meetings, but they went on meeting together and, when all the adults had been flung into jail, the children continued, even the youngest going along. But nothing stopped them. When they were banned from universities, the legal and other professions, they went into business, becoming renowned for setting a fair price and sticking to it. People were surprised and suspicious at first but then began to trust them. Their businesses grew as a result. Firms like Cadbury’s, Fry’s, Clark’s Shoes, Horniman’s Tea, Huntly & Palmer’s biscuits, to name but a few, were all started and made a success by Quakers. Most of the Quaker firms put their profits to good use, often building whole villages of decent, attractive houses for their employees – in stark contrast to the abysmal slums of the time.
    Sammy blessed the day he had found the Society of Friends. It was the only place he felt he belonged. Not that he felt good enough, or courageous enough for that matter, to join. He had been what was called an ‘attender’ for years and, as far as the members were concerned, it seemed he could go on being an attender for the rest of his days. Nobody put any pressure on anyone to join. He wanted to become a full member and maybe one day he would. Meantime he was just grateful to be able to sit in the quiet meetings every Sunday morning. There he gained the strength to enable him to face his father across the lunch table, in the gloomy house on the rough track that led to Auchinairn. He tried to bring the peace of the meeting to his aid now in the empty silence of his house. But, in a meeting, any silence was meaningful and comforting because of the people there. And because of Christ’s words, ‘When two or more of you are gathered together in my name, I will be in your midst’, he could believe that Christ was with him and the others in Meetings. But no one was with him here. Nothing helped here, in the home he and Ruth had shared and had been so proud of.
    He sank down on to a chair and angrily cradled his head in his hands.

10
    Sandra McKechnie dreaded being off work. She even felt apprehensive about going home afterwards. Sleeping all night in the bakery would have been far, far better. She had come to dread every hour in the gloomy flat in Broomknowes Road, where she felt unbearably oppressed by the crush of huge Victorian furniture, a legacy from her father’s family, who had once lived in a large villa in Pollokshields. She felt overwhelmed by the dark-brown moquette settee and armchairs that sucked her into their cushioned depths. The brown chenille tablecover, with its heavy fringe and tassels, and matching curtains, that cut out the light, depressed her.
    Everything was too big, too dark and too heavy – including her father. She was afraid of him but recently she had plucked up the courage to talk to her mother about what had been going on. At first her mother had been horrified and hadn’t believed her.
    ‘Your father’s a Jehovah’s witness and an elder in Kingdom Hall. How can you say such terrible things about him, Sandra? Your own father, who has done so much good work for Jehovah?’
    That was what made it so confusing. They had all tried so conscientiously to do God’s work and to spread the Good News. Sandra’s brother, Peter, had been very clever at school and had been told by his teachers and the headmaster that he should go