P R E S S R E L E A S E

Amongst the guests invited to join in Bedford Quaker Meeting 50th anniversary celebrations on the week end of 24-25 September are people who have been married at the Friends Meeting House since 1955.

Planning to come are the couple whose marriage was the first, only three months after the premises opened. Barbara and Kendall Clark remember the rush to get the place ready for the big event. They still have a tape recording of their wedding, part of which will be played during the week end programme, with their children and grandchildren amongst the listeners.

Barbara Clark's parents, who for many years kept a sweet shop in Castle Road, were the late Gertrude and Albert Lawrance, two of the founder members of Bedford Meeting in 1931. The first meetings for worship were held in the Orange Tea Rooms in the High Street. With six of their friends, who shared a keen interest in the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the Adult School Movement, but felt also a need to develop a spiritual community, they decided to write to the Quakers' London office. In due course the eight of them joined the Society of Friends together.. It was nearly a quarter of a century before the Quaker Meeting acquired a permanent home in Bedford. A short play about these early days, which the children of the Meeting will perform, has been written by Barbara Clark.

The large Victorian house at 5 Lansdowne Road, with some later alterations and extension, is familiar to the wider community it serves. Quakers from the region and local Bedford organisations use its facilities. On Saturday morning, 24th September, these and other friends of Friends are welcome to drop in for coffee and a look at the an exhibition, when there will be open house from 10.30 to 12.30.

Contacts: Grace Crookall-Greening Tel. 261066

Hazel Mitchell Tel. 215445

Clerk of Bedford Friends Meeting