My friend Anne Muir has recently completed a major project on an oral history of the early days of the Iona Community.
She sent me the following snippet which is a good illustration of why oral history is irreplaceable as a source of gossip, perspective, and testimony.
Speaking of Karl Barth, here’s a wee extract from one of my Iona interviews. It’s with a mason called Adam Campbell who was one of the first craftsmen to work on the re-building of the abbey during the war. He’s telling me about the young ministers who used to come and labour for him.
We got permission, through the Church of Scotland, to work the glebe at the manse, and some of the young ministers went out to cultivate it. They had a cart with a donkey – ‘Nebo’. If I mind right, it had to work every second day, and I think the beast knew it, because it was stabled in one of the ruins, and it would get out of there easy enough, and away up the road, braying. “Hee-haw! Hee-haw!” You heard it in the Evening Service in the summer time. The chap that took charge of the donkey was a minister. Marcus. Marcus Barth. I think his father was a theologian – Karl Barth was it? Aye, Marcus was the only one that could make that donkey work.’
Anne will be the keynote speaker at the first meeting to launch the Centre for the Study of Scottish Christian Spirituality, on March 24, from 10.00a.m. till 1.00p.m.
The theme for the meeting is ‘Persepctives on George Macleod and the Iona Community’.
The venue is the Scottish Baptist College, Block K, University of Paisley, at 10 o’clock. Email me if you want more details.
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