 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Introduction:
The Church and the Kingdom of God
Derek Poole
Comment:
A Question of Belonging
Peter Wilson
From
the Director
David Porter
Colosse
Michael Whitley
Revisiting
the Kingdom of God and the Church
David McMillan
Faith
and Practice - Baroness May Blood
Ruth Hutchinson
Ephesus
Heather Morrow
Lead
us not into temptation
Alan Wilson
Galatia
Priscilla Reid
CEPU...a
personal testimony
Ken Irvine
Econimail
- Fancy Models or Straw Dolls?
Book
Review
Ethel White
INTERVIEW
WITH BARONESS MAY BLOOD
The purpose of this and succeeding interviews
is to explore the connections between faith and practice. We hope to talk
with folk whose work within the community is well known, who also hold
their Christian faith dear. Each will be asked a number of core questions,
about the work they do, the vision that has fired them, the values that
undergird the work and the part their faith plays both inside and outside
the work place. We begin with Baroness May Blood.
I first started working life in a mill, a huge mill on what’s now known as the ‘peace-line’ in West Belfast. There were 450 people working in the mill and over the years I became first the shop steward and then a senior steward. In a sense I was responsible for everyone in the mill. So in that way I’ve always been involved with people. I’m nosy and I think that’s always a good thing. It helps you to go beyond what you’re being asked to do. And certainly the years of the troubles in the mill weren’t easy years because you were working not only in a dangerous situation, physical danger, but you were working in a very hard situation mentally. You were working with men and women whose outside lives were all over the place. Some of them were young women, whose men had been lifted, interned. You had people coming in who had relatives killed. You had people in the factory who absolutely hated the RUC. You had people in the factory who absolutely loved the RUC. When the soldiers first came on the streets, we had young women in the mill who married into the army but two years later were told they couldn’t marry them. So you’d all those kind of complex problems. But also within the mill setting you had domestic violence, you had poverty, you had children’s health. You heard all this as the day went on and in that way I suppose that’s where my love came for community. While I had a full-time job, I would still have done voluntary work at night. That’s how I came to be known as the ‘Vicar of Blackstaff’. Everybody brought their problems to me. People would say, “Away up and see May Blood and if she can’t solve it, it can’t be solved.” I suppose in that sense you need a real feel for people, where they are coming from. I’ve always tried to do what I could that way. Capacity to Lead
May did not always see herself as a leader. She believes she gained all her education through the Trade Union Movement. I left school with absolutely no education. My parents had higher aspirations for me but I went into the mill. When I arrived I was a very shy person. I wouldn’t really have spoken in public. Through the Trade Union movement I got my education. I learned the art of public speaking and gradually gained leadership qualities. But that never encouraged me to take the skills outside. In a sense the mill was my comfort zone. In the mill everybody looked to me, so it was easy. Once I came outside the gate it was totally different. Then, when the mill closed and I became unemployed, a friend who was in community development offered me a job managing a project for long-term unemployed. I can remember saying to her, “Don’t be stupid, I can’t even manage myself, never mind a project.” But she encouraged me to do it and I never looked behind. Obviously I had some kind of leadership qualities that I didn’t recognise at the time. It’s just been my privilege to be involved in it that way. But in the early days no. If anybody had told me when I was young that I was going to get up and speak, I’d have said, "Forget about it." Greater Shankill Partnership
When the mill closed May became involved with the Greater Shankill Partnership. She worked as Information Officer with them for several years before being elevated to the House of Lords in Westminster, where she concentrates on her new role as a Crossbench Peer. She describes this as taking community development to another level. She seeks to challenge the statement once made by Margaret Thatcher that there is no such thing as society. Vision and Values
May was clear that people have been her priority. Her aim in the mill was to improve the conditions of the men and women working there. This brought her into conflict with employers who did not see how better conditions would improve profit margins. One value that I was reared with has been with me all my life - to value people for what they are. I have tried never to judge anyone for their religion or their colour or anything like that. To me people are people. You know everybody has the same problems and so in that sense I started from a base that the only way is up. I think you take people with you. But the one value I carry in my life is that I like to treat people as people. That’s very central to everything I do. Faith and Defining Moments
We asked May to talk about her faith and the place it has played in her life so far. She told us how she had once planned to be a missionary with the Salvation Army, but came to realise it was not what she should be doing. She is now a member of her local Presbyterian Church. My faith is something that is very personal to me. I wasn’t reared in a Christian home but I went to Sunday school like most young Protestants do. Sunday morning you were up, you were away to the Bible class and then you went to church, came home, got your dinner, you were back to Sunday school, you were back to the church that night. And that was just your way of life. But I think you’re taking in things at the time you probably don’t realise. And my faith is very, very important to me. I make no secret of the fact that I would go to church. For me it’s very vital to go to church and have my faith. Not that going to church gives you your faith, but to me it’s very vital - that inward faith. I lost my mother and father in the one year, so again my faith was a great source of comfort to me, and I’ve had a number of problems in recent years. I have a very clear vision of what a good Christian faith is, and it’s not grounded in the fact that you have to sit in church every Sunday. In fact I’d be very critical of the churches throughout the troubles. I’ve always been religious in the sense that I went to church as a child and really can’t remember a time when I didn’t. I really can’t remember a time when I wouldn’t have been interested. I think they do put into you a basic respect that is perhaps missing today. Certainly for me anyway I always have my faith to fall back on. One of the verses in the Bible that always comes into my mind, especially when I’m out public speaking is, ‘For what is your life, it’s but a vapour.’ I like to think that perhaps that has been a guiding principle, that I’ve always tried to work to make my life meaningful and make it responsive to people’s needs. And always, and I don’t mean this in a big-headed way, I’m willing to go the extra mile. And I think your faith has to come in on that because certainly in community work there are a lot of knocks and I think if you don’t have that basic fall-back you could be in serious trouble. Churches and Northern Ireland
We invited May to say what she thought about the way churches have engaged with the real issues of community development. She was very clear about that. I would be very critical of the churches. In the years of the troubles, certainly in this area, the church didn’t really respond to the community and I think in many ways the church missed out. You basically only saw the church in those days if somebody well known was killed. They were at the funeral. But by and large they didn’t want to know and I think the Protestant churches missed out. I can remember when we were doing research around the work of the Greater Shankill Partnership. There’s some forty-seven churches and mission halls in this area. I can remember writing out to them because we wanted them to know about what we were doing and I think only about four responded. They’re not seen as part of the community. I’ll give you an example of this. I’m very often approached by people who say Protestants aren’t getting their fair share of the peace and reconciliation money. You go up and down this country any day of the week and you will see Protestant churches sitting closed. You’ll see their church halls sitting closed. You go past any Catholic Church, there’s something going on in the church hall, mother/toddler group, women’s group, you name it, it’s there and they’re in for all the funds. Now that’s not grabbing the money, that’s supporting their community. I don’t believe we as Protestants in the church have learned it. I think we’ve had a very negative attitude towards community development. In a sense they’ve almost missed the boat. I think there could have been a lot more done. She spoke of the vision she had of the future and how she would like to see churches becoming involved with their communities. I think the church has enormous talent, the potential to do a lot of things within their community, for instance just simple things like mother and toddlers groups or a youth club or something like that. But many churches don’t want to be bothered, it’s too much trouble. Look at the enormous talent that’s within a church. One of the things that fascinated us from our research was the number of organised, uniformed groups in the Shankill. Young people, who belong to a church for the BB or the Scouts or whatever, have no connection to the church other than that. They’re just in the uniform. There are exceptions to that rule but by and large I would say that the talent and the scope that the church possesses has never really been utilised in Protestant areas, certainly not in community development. The future for the Shankill
May was optimistic about the future of both the Shankill Community and the Partnership. Well, the Partnership set itself the task away back in ’92/’93 to look ahead for the next fifteen years and it had a very concentrated programme. It was looking at health, employment, housing, young people. Education was the biggie, anything we did came back to education. The Partnership has been working through those programmes in the last five or six years and they’ve had really good success. The Greater Shankill Partnership was ahead of its time. Partnerships are now flavour of the month but this one was ahead of its time. It took on an area that had a great deal of deprivation and tried to raise the whole standard. It has worked very well. What they’re looking at now is where the next five years go. The Early Years Centre is up and running. They’re now building a new youth, arts and culture centre here on the road. It will be ready late this year and will put a wonderful facility in the hands of young people. They’re also looking at partnerships as part of private development. Today on the Shankill every available space has been bought up for private development. Five years ago if somebody said they were buying a house on the Shankill, they’d have been told, "Don’t be stupid, who’d buy a house on the Shankill?" Today the property is going for anything from £50,000 to £80,000. And as fast as the houses are being built, they’re being bought. So there’s a whole upsurge in the community here and the Partnership has to take that on board now. They’re looking at a further three to five year plan. They set themselves the task of working with children from the day they were born, or preferably before they were born, because they knew they had the highest proportion of young teenage pregnancies in Western Europe in this area. They’ve worked through that now but obviously you’re not going to solve that problem in five years, so we’ll have to wait until those children are grown up to see the advantages.
ECONI want to thank Baroness Blood for her willing participation in the interview. We wish her success as she continues to make a difference in people's lives.
 |
||
 |
 |
|