Here is the first of several 'family trees' of friends at the Bridge Methodist church, Radcliffe, Lancs, where Ruth Garner, Phil's wife Ruth, grew up, and where Phil became part of the friendship group through becoming Ruth's boyfriend in 1961. Click on the RHS arrowhead above to move to the next in the sequence of 'family groups' in this series.
Looking back, here was living proof of the community spirit and friendship which the Methodist Church could inspire and support, and which my father, Frederick Archer (FGBA) was part of at Wesley Memorial Church, Oxford, throughout his life - though Gwen Archer was more than a litle reluctant to concede could be so. (3.6.2018).
The extended friendship group came about because several 'strategic' marriages took place linking family groups. So here we see one of those marriages: Sid Kirkman marrying Alice Bridge, thereby linking the small Kirkman family with the larger Bridge family, which included Alice's brother Frank ('Uncle Frank' to Ruth).
QUESTION: So why does such a 'Family of Friends' as you call it Phil, actually matter enough to take the trouble to put it on this website?
ANSWER: It matters very much because, to me, it is so contrary to the allegation that I grew up with, that 'Methodism is just the usual religious 'hocus-pocus stuff' that some people need, and has nothing to offer in the way of solid social values and friendship. No doubt FGBA valued his friends at 'Wesley Mem' just as much as his other friends. And the friendship groups at The Bridge in Lancashire, though unknown to FGBA, corresponded to FGBA's friends at 'Wesley Mem', as it was known, though these latter were less-easily discernible than the Bridge's friendship groups, as far as I could see.
Notable in this group then, are Alice Kirkman, the primary school teacher, known to be so adept at getting her pupils through the 11+ examination which, in the 1950s and 1960s was the key to cost-free secondary education at local Grammar Schools and Direct Grant Schools (such as Magdalen College School, Oxford where I was a pupil, and Bolton School, where I applied for and was offered a teaching post after my Diploma in Education at Oxford University's Department of Education, in 1965).
An anecdote about Alice Kirkman: she and Uncle Sid and Arthur Barratt came with us (Ruth and me and Nancy and Graham) to stay at a guest house at Dunkeld, Perthshire, Scotland, in September 1972. And when I mentioned that way back in the mid-1950s Shakespeare's 'Macbeth' had been one of the set-books for my GCE O-level English Literature exam, she quizzed me on the (admittedly well-known) concept of 'Birnam Wood coming to Dunsinane' in the play. And when my answer was not up to the mark, she gave me a hard time (no doubt in a playful but 'schoolmarmish way) about my ignorance, which has become part of our family's folklore ever since! She was famous for her strict ways of dealing with inadequate performance in schooldays stuff.