ST JOHN'S COLLEGE DURHAM FAIR TRADE AND THIRD WORLD SHOP
I am writing this to provide a historical record of the founding of THE THIRD WORLD SHOP that became known later as the JUST WORLD SHOP at St John’s College, part of Durham University.
I have been compelled to do this, because
despite numerous letters to the College over the years, including to Revd Dr
David Wilkinson, who has regularly delivered ‘Thoughts for the Day’ on Radio 4 espousing
Christian standards, as well as Professor Jolyon Mitchell, whose interest is ‘peacebuilding’,
the lack of response has indicated that the College has adopted a cynical
disregard for the facts.
I am a controversial figure and a critic of the
Church of England,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archbishop_Jonathan_Blake
and driven, I surmise, by a strategy to
expunge my involvement, and my association with St John’s from the public
record, the College has pursued a disreputable policy of historic revisionism.
I could not source any readily available mention
of The Third World shop or how it began. Instead, what is prominent is the
bogus claim that the Fair Trade interest in the College was linked to Richard
Adams. He was a former student at the College, and after leaving, became professionally involved with Fair Trade, heading up Tearcraft, and then rebranding it Traidcraft.
However, he had no involvement or influence in the founding of the Third World Shop, nor the College’s adoption of a Fair Trade concern thereafter. His work, nevertheless is important, and this article is in no way critical of Richard, for whom I have considerable respect.
When I was an undergraduate, the College had no
Fair Trade interest. However, I was committed to development work and to the
need for Christians to do all they could to redress the world’s inequality.
I negotiated with Bruce Kay, the then Acting
Principal, to convert the whole of the unused loft space at St John’s into a
trading outlet, to offer goods, sourced from fair trade operators, paying fair
wages with good working conditions, to promote trade as a means of providing
sustainable and dignified aid.
I gathered a group of interested students
around me and we began work clearing the cobwebbed roof space, arranging a bank
loan, investigating Fair Trade importers, purchasing, unpacking, pricing and
displaying stock and arranging the grand opening.
Revd Canon Dr David Kennedy, formerly Vice-Dean
and Precentor of Durham Cathedral and presently Vicar of St Andrew’s,
Corbridge, and a lifelong friend, was the treasurer.
I spent hours working through the night and
often would sleep under the eaves of the roof on the floor.
I purchased goods from many sources from around
the country, and the shop was a great success, trading thousands of pounds
worth of goods.
I would borrow one of the lecturer's vans and
travel overnight to London, and then onto Oxford and other centres to collect
the stock, and return shattered, to battle lectures and seminars while running a retail outlet.
At Christmas, we arranged to take over an empty
shop space in the city centre, which involved a massive increase in work, as so
much extra stock had to be purchased, to cope with the Christmas demand, as
well as filling the enlarged display space.
None of this work had anything to do with
Richard Adams, though we purchased goods from Traidcraft, and when I went to India, following graduation, I invited
Richard Adams to visit the ceramics factory in Calcutta, I was trying to
establish, to employ Mother Theresa's orphan children who were now adults,
hoping he would order some of the items. However, at that stage they were not
refined enough for sale.
When I left, the Fair Trade work continued in
the College, with an unbroken history from my founding of the shop for over 25
years. When I last visited, the shop had been renamed the Just World shop and was
operating from a ground floor Common Room.
Still to this day the interest remains and St
John’s hosts a Fair Trade fortnight and has Fair Trade reps, however, inaccurately
they link it all to Richard Adams. Thankfully, the internet provides the opportunity
for facts to resist myths and correct reporting to replace political spin.
posted by Bishop Jonathan Blake | 3:06 PM
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