The Tides of Life

Tidal Home, Jay Caskie

Though life unfolds in unplanned ways of moments amidst our lifecycles, each moment presents different challenges, and endurance is the cornerstone of our evolution. The ability to face adversity head-on and adapt could be the moment to test both the strength and weaknesses in human nature.

My topic of writing is taken from the angle of a migrant from the African continent to Europe, which is miles away from the community I was raised in, to a new, advanced, diverse country and another environment with different patterns of weather.

In the new community there was a lot to learn. As life went on, my living day-by-day came to be the reality of the plight of a failed asylum seeker - a status given to those migrants/immigrants the state does not recognise as bona fide residents in the community.

States create complex multi-layered hostile policies and laws making life both unviable and unbearable for new migrants and, in such a situation, puts migrants in a very vulnerable position, and with that shock of fear leads to despair and confusion, continuously disrupting their sense of the future and keeping them in uncertainty.

As states turn away from their responsibilities or minimise their help to migrants, there comes support from various worldwide organisations to help and support the needy ones, especially migrants.

The care and support from these non-profit-making organisations, including the London Catholic Worker, the Jesuit Refugee Service, the Refugee Council, the Red Cross, and Islington Refugee Council, offer a lot of support to the vulnerable and needy ones. The organisations’ unwavering support and care in connection with other charities of the like has indeed enabled some of us who had no hope to live with dignity.

The support and care I myself Have received as a guest at one of their family homes, Giuseppe Conlon House, is more than meeting basic needs. I have been able to live with dignity, and it has helped me with that sense of connections and confidence, as well as resilience, further opportunities in life, and the shared power of the community, and in all, with strength, experience and resilience, we are enriching our own Harringay and the surrounding communities.

LONG LIVE THE LONDON CATHOLIC WORKER and all the charities in this cause, and I give my sincere gratitude and appreciation to the great work given by communities worldwide.

Billy Tendo

Blessed are the Peacemakers

This obituary for Brian Quail was first published in the Glasgow Catholic Worker in February of 2026, reprinted in the London Catholic Worker - Easter 2026 by permission of the author.

Photo by Jamie Simpson

He came to mind the way the desert prophets do—a little wind-burned, a little out of step with the world, and wholly unwilling to soften the truth. John the Baptist, with his wild honey and locusts, his rough coat and rougher message, never tried to belong to polite society. He prepared a way. He made straight the path. He unsettled people into honesty. Brian Quail lived like that.

There was in him the same stubborn, luminous refusal to compromise—the same sense that faith was not meant to be tidy or respectable, but alive, inconvenient, and burning. The old Russians had a word for such people: a Fool for Christ. Not foolish in mind, but foolish in the eyes of a world that mistakes comfort for wisdom. The holy fool speaks plainly, lives simply, renounces applause, and becomes, just by existing, a quiet rebuke to complacency. We had one of our own.

I first met Brian on the evening of 19 March 2003, at a Scottish Socialist Party rally in Greenock opposing the second Iraq War. Within hours, the bombing would begin. Brian, already known as a tireless peace activist, spoke that night with a kind of trembling conviction—not theatrical, not rehearsed, but rising from somewhere deep and immovable. I was captivated. He was impossible to miss: an older man, white-haired, oddly dressed, wearing bright red braces, a CND T-shirt, and Doc Martens. Around his neck hung a large silver Russian cross. That, more than anything, startled me—this hardened left-wing peace campaigner marked so visibly by faith.

Someone in the crowd heckled him: ‘Aye, you’re bangin’ on aboot peace, but that cross roon yer neck is the biggest killin’ machine the world has ever seen!’

Brian looked down at the cross, then back up, and said slowly, gently, ‘This? This is Jesus of Nazareth.’

It would not be the last time I watched him disarm hostility with nothing but simplicity, sincerity, and truth. At that time, I had drifted from Mass and buried myself in Marxism. I did not know Christians like Brian existed, certainly not in left-wing political circles. I sometimes think that if I had not met him that night, I might never have returned to faith at all. Brian did not preach at people. He never demanded heroic gestures or arrests.

 Yet his life—steady, stubborn, sacrificial—unsettled our comfortable beliefs. He gave everything to peace, though he never romanticised it. He did not enjoy prison. He did not enjoy cold cells. Once, on our way to Faslane for a four-minute prayer vigil—four minutes, the time it took for Nagasaki to be destroyed—he confessed he felt physically sick every time we went. Courage, in Brian, was not bravado. It was endurance.

Even in later years, when his body began to fail him, he continued. Arrest, prison, witness—again and again. When he could no longer throw himself beneath military vehicles, he still showed up. Presence, for Brian, was resistance. Yet he was never dour. He could appear in full kilt and Glengarry at republican socialist commemorations, proud and smiling, a man stitched together from faith, politics, and history. At the end of our weekly Catholic Worker meetings, he loved to lead us singing the Regina Caeli in Latin—his voice thin but determined, as if heaven might lean closer if we sang bravely enough.

He had a gift for unsettling rooms. In 2016, at a polished event in St Aloysius’ School, he stood mid-lecture and reminded everyone it was the anniversary of Easter 1916, asking Glasgow Catholics of Irish descent to pause and remember. The air thickened with embarrassment. I felt only pride. He confused people, too—especially secular activists—with his seamless garment ethic: anti-war, anti-nuclear, anti-death penalty, pro-life. To Brian, consistency was not ideology but conscience.

He encouraged my writing, offered ideas, nudged me forward. I will miss him more than words allow. Last August, though frail and gaunt, he joined us once more at Faslane to mark the 80th anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He sat on a small stool, worn from a lifetime of resistance, yet still present. Around us hung peace banners. We carried a replica of the Nagasaki Cross—the only thing left standing after the cathedral was destroyed and its faithful incinerated. From ruin, a sign of reconciliation.

Photo by Jamie Simpson

Brian often despaired. He could not understand how humanity accepted what he called a portable Auschwitz. Many dismissed him as eccentric, unbalanced—a fool. But he understood something the world prefers to forget: sometimes one must become foolish to be wise. Brian was wise. The madness was never his. He stood, stubborn and gentle, a voice in the wilderness, pointing toward another way—a world beyond violence, made possible through the life and witness of Christ. He believed peacemaking was a calling, even unto imprisonment, trusting that faithfulness, not success, was the measure, and that in the end, resurrection would have the final word. Rest in peace, Brian Quail.

Ross Ahfeld

Houses of Hospitality

Expulsion of the Merchants from the Temple, Monreale Cathedral, Palermo

I am the newest volunteer at GCH, here for a short(ish) stay of six months. I’ve been invited to write about coming to the community, and I thought of contrasting this place to Camphill, since I volunteered in one of those communities for ten months.

The quickest way to draw out the difference between the two is the following—at the end of January, I was arrested at a Palestine protest. If this happened to me at Camphill, even if I wasn’t roundly shown the door, I feel sure that the sense of having committed a grievous faux pas would have made me leave.

Long term Camphillers tend to be left leaning, but socially quite conservative. Everyone knows they are involved in a good work (providing support to adults with learning disabilities), and that is enough to be getting on with.

Large scale disruption of society is not in the Camphill credo. I got the sense that in the early days, the socially conscious sensibilities of the sixties were more prevalent. But with the introduction of the Care Inspectorate, comprehensive legislation around the care of vulnerable adults, and the fact that most community income now comes directly from government spending, Camphill and revolution aren’t compatible.

In contrast, while we agreed we should get better at preparing for the worst when someone goes out to protest, here at GCH, they stand by a comrade in need. Never have I had the sense that everyone is contemplating what a maladapted hooligan I am.

Here, there is an understanding that we are in a shared struggle against an unjust status quo, each working in whatever capacity suits us best. And that, at the end of the day, a few tables will be upturned in the temple before the kingdom comes.

 A further difference between GCH and Camphill is how comfortable I feel here. There were times at Camphill when I felt like my whole personality was a faux pas. I arrived fresh from a Scottish council estate and a chaotic failed attempt at a commune, and the very wholesomeness of Camphill life alienated me.

The typical Camphill volunteer is a middle class German teen. Living there was my first encounter with so many peers from financially stable, two parent families. It seemed like everyone’s mother and father were together in holy matrimony, and on top of that, they were both heart surgeons.

The farm was the saving grace of Camphill for me. It was an open space where I could run around, get muddy, wield pitchforks, and generally swear and shout. I had free expression at tea break, messing around with the autistic service users I came to have genuine friendships with. It was the place where I was able to be outspoken and test the boundaries of Camphill social convention. And if I don’t flatter myself too much, I think sometimes I cheered things up.

But at the opposite end of that spectrum were whole community social events, which were frequent, performative, and mandatory. These wholesome gatherings always put me on edge. I felt like a coarse, ill mannered ned forced to imitate, if not quite ‘high society’, still a type of society I had never experienced. I always felt like a fugitive about to be unmasked and would sneak off for as many cigarettes as would get me through the evening.

In contrast, here at GCH, I genuinely enjoy it when we do things together. And I don’t feel like I need to stretch and strain to be something different than who I am. Maybe it’s because I’m a few years older and wiser. But I think it’s also something hard baked into this community.

The whole place is aimed at reaching out to the disenfranchised, people who’ve been handed way worse cards than me and who don’t even have the security of citizenship in the country they live in.

Camphill is also trying to help people, but it does it in a totally different way. Camphill’s approach is pedagogical. It ultimately aims at making people with learning disabilities better. Teaching them to do useful work, to feel responsible for others, and to be less chaotic in their interactions.

The approach here couldn’t be more different. This community certainly doesn’t see itself as teaching guests how to behave or integrate into British society. It is just an open hand, a point of rest, an attempt to offer compassion.

Maybe that’s why I feel so comfortable here. To stay at Camphill, I felt I would have to cut off large parts of myself and let them disappear. Let all my bad memories be overwritten by pleasant dinner parties and cold dips in the loch.

Here, there is no such pressure. This community doesn’t turn itself away from the pain of the world, seeking to insulate its members within an ideal, mini society. This community is here to engage with and confront that suffering.

I suppose that is to be expected when the image of a crucified God is at the heart of a place. It is really no wonder I feel comfortable being here with all my wounds.

(Disclaimer: despite my moaning, Camphill is pretty nice. I love going back there as a visitor, it is just not somewhere I would commit my life to. I wouldn’t advise anyone against volunteering there.)

Eva Martinez