Russell Cleaver (Bristol ’62, Nalchik ’63)
Having just embarked on my career in hospital administration in 1963, I made contact with the Semashko Institute just before our group left Moscow, and returned there in 1965 with a nurse, General Practitioner and university lecturer with an interest in the Soviet health service. We spent a fascinating week visiting Moscow hospitals, finishing up by giving a presentation on the National Health Service to the Institute staff, who could not believe that capitalist Britain ran a socialised medical service!
Throughout the Cold War years of the 60’s to the early ‘80’s I remained as actively involved in the international workcamp movement as my job would allow. This was mainly through the medium of International Voluntary Service (which has strong Quaker connections) and which during these years had links with numerous East Europe and Soviet Union youth organisations via its parent body, Service Civil International. Using the Tripartite model, I initiated the running of Work & Study projects with East Europeans and at least 2 were held in the UK in the 1970’s. I was also fortunate to expand my experiences in Eastern Europe through participating in educational study visits to Hungary, Romania and Czechoslovakia.
My only other return visit to the Soviet Union was in 1976 on a trip with Intourist when I linked up with Sasha Chicherov in Moscow for a few hours and he presented me with his paperback ‘India – Economic Development in the 16th – 18 Centuries’. Our tour took in Tashkent, Samarkand and Dushanbe.
After taking early retirement (a euphemism for being made redundant) from my career in NHS management 7+ years ago, I worked on a series of part-time contracts with the Quakers at Friends House, London for over 4 years. The highlight of this period was working in Lebanon with a small Quaker Peace & Service team on complex legal issues concerned with attempting to reclaim Brummana High School (outside Beirut) for the Quakers from a committee of BHS old scholars who had been authorised to manage the school during the ‘period of unrest’ there. Some years on, the school is now managed by a charitable company I was involved in setting up – Quaker International Educational Trust (QuIET). Historically, American missionaries first went to ‘Syria’ in the 1820’s with Beirut as their base for opening up schools, and the starting of Brummana School (1873) was in essence the outcome of close teamwork between a small group of British and American Quakers.
Missing out on longer-term volunteering overseas before getting stuck into my career, Anne (an ex-teacher) and I tapped into a ‘gap year’ organisation 18 months ago and taught in Tamil Nadu (S. India) for 10 weeks. We literally did a double act, teaching together – which we found necessary, if only to control the natural exuberance of the large classes of youngsters, for whom being taught by Europeans was the height of novelty. Since our return to the UK, I have been working with the sponsoring organisation Teaching & Projects Abroad to promote the idea (through writing articles and giving talks etc ) that older people can offer just as much as the youngsters when it comes to voluntary work overseas!
But to come back to the Tripartite projects in ’62 and ’63, the latter experience especially made a lasting impression on how I viewed Cold War issues and the Soviet people. And the memories were so powerful that for years I’m sure I could recollect events on a day-by-day basis! Forty years on, our Gathering of some 10 or 11 of us will indeed be a strange yet evocative experience.