Quakers in Australia do not regularly include singing in Meetings for Worship. Unlike many of our American counterparts, we reserve singing for special occasions such as farewells at close of Yearly Meetings or at memorials when we say goodbye to Friends who have passed.

We do have favorite songs, however. “Dear Friends” is one such song.

Traditional English Round

“Dear Friends” is set to the traditional English round melody “Rose,Rose,Rose,Rose” known to have been in circulation since 1609 and on the Continent as “Beaux Yeux” (Beautiful Eyes) with a variety of customized local lyrics – sometimes about a flower blooming, sometimes about the wind and in 17^th Century France the singer pines for the maid with beautiful eyes.

Who Wrote “Dear Friends” Lyrics?

Investigations with American, British and French sources turned up conflicting “claims” of authorship and dates of first appearance.

Peter Blood, American Friends singer/song writer and editor suggested it was composed in the 1970s at a large liberal yearly meeting on east coast USA.

“Dear Friends” is also a favorite round/chant at Plum Village Zen Buddhist Monastery founded by the late revered Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. The words are reflective of that community’s focus on love and peace.

Plum Village’s administrators could not put a date on the songs first appearance but notes the song is included in their songbooks in 2013.

John Sheldon, British Quaker singer/songwriter and editor suggests “Dear Friends” lyrics were created at Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp in the early 1980s. Several other sources support this claim quoting evidence the second verse of a well-known Greenham Common song, “Building Bridges,” contains “Dear Friends” lyrics.

“BUILDING BRIDGES”

Building bridges between our divisions,
I reach out to you as you reach out to me.
With all our voices and all our visions,
Friends, we can make such a sweet harmony.

Dear friend, dear friend.
Let me tell you how I feel.
You have given me such treasures.
I love you so.

The “Dear Friends” & the Quaker Association

Various sources credit “Building Bridges” (and its second verse “Dear friend, dear friend”) as a discovery by British Quaker Elizabeth Cave who heard the song at Greenham Common Women’s’ Peace Camp while she was there in the early 1980s.

The Peace Camp Women co-operatively wrote many songs during their time there. These songs were hand-written and circulated in 1982 in such limited editions as the “Anti-Nuclear Songbook (Peace News Pamphlet No. 3, Nottingham, UK), then collected into the “Chant Down Greenham Songbooks” in 1983, later minimally published but now largely out of print. In 1983, Elizabeth Cave reportedly sent her own copies of “Building Bridges/Dear Friends” song to the Britain Yearly Meeting asking it be published in the children’s meeting newsletter.

Thus is was Elizabeth Cave, present day member of Ealing Meeting in London, who first heard “Building Bridges/Dear Friends” at Greenham Common and shared it with the larger British Quaker community.  In the word ‘friend’ may be heard a double meaning – generic friends and ‘Quaker Friends’.

Now a Quaker Tradition

When did “Dear Friends” finally reach Australia? No one can recall! As Yet….Perhaps someone will come forward with evidence? But Quakers worldwide have Elizabeth Cave of Ealing Meeting, UK to thank for introducing this much loved song.