Marion and Alan Pollitt Carole Fothergill first mentioned the word ‘Bahá’í’ as we were walking home from work in Nelson, Lancashire.  It was January 1963 and I was 19 years of age.  Carole told me she had just become a Bahá’í and handed me a wedding invitation to her traditional Church ceremony and reception in the February.  She added that since Peter, her fiancé, was also a Bahá’í this meant that they would also have a Bahá’í wedding after the Church ceremony at a home in Burnley.  She mentioned in a couple of sentences – the concept of progressive revelation and the Ba ..read more

Marion and Roger Prentice Alan Watts said you can’t feel down in the dumps if you are singing! A yiddish proverb says, ‘We plan. God Laughs.’ My life is a mixture of laughter and a thirst for deep spirituality —————— I became a Bahá’í in the home of my spiritual father Abbas Mehrnoush in Watford at 00.30 hours on the 28th March 1963. His home was next to Mr Grillo’s ice cream shop. The 1940s My parents and I lived in North Watford.  During the first 4 years of my life the German Nazi bombs and ‘doodlebugs’ fell all around. I did take this personally because my parents and I lived with t ..read more

To read the first part of Peter’s story, please click here. I am adding this postscript about the now almost 40 years I have lived in Bangkok. We arrived here in 1985 when I started working at one of the university campuses on the far side of the city. For most of the early part of our stay here transport was a major problem, and I regularly spent seven hours a day or more on the commute, often clinging to the outside of a massively overcrowded bus or stooped over on the inside because the low roof made it hard to stand. After a year in the small Religious Studies programme at the university ..read more

Jody Cooper My life as a Bahá’í began early – I grew up in a Bahá’í family and so I don’t remember a time when it was not a part of my life.  However, this doesn’t mean that my life has been easy; on the contrary, my faith has been tested many times and it has taken me a long time to really appreciate and understand what being a Bahá’í really means (and I’m still learning!).  People I meet who didn’t grow up in the Faith tell me how lucky I must have been and now, with hindsight, I am able to see what they mean.  But as a child I wasn’t able to know the difference between bein ..read more

Louise in 2017, with her husband John I was sitting in my parents-in-law’s sitting room sometime in the summer of 1975 when I first heard the name ‘Bahá’í’ but it took me until 1989 to declare. I remember the date because it was the year our first daughter was born. My parents-in-law had been to the Holy Land and had brought some water from the River Jordan back with them for us to use at our daughter’s christening. My mother-in-law was showing me photographs of their trip and I distinctly remember her showing me one of the Shrine of the Báb and telling me that it was the Bahá’í Temple (sic ..read more

I joined the Bahá’í Faith in 1974, aged 35, while I was at Central School of Speech and Drama, studying Speech and Language Therapy. I had been interested in the Faith for many years before that, however, and especially in the idea that Christ had returned.  I was very unhappy at boarding school in my teens, and it so happened that my mother was friendly with Lisbeth Greaves.   Lisbeth was a Baha’i, originally from Australia, who lived in Belfast.   Lisbeth had been born with the gift of healing, and though my mother was a dedicated member of the Church of Ireland, Lisbeth aske ..read more

  It might help to know my background.  My dear father was a very strict Roman Catholic, which in some ways did not help.  But I was grateful for the discipline and faith, which enabled me to face my difficulties in life.  Since becoming a Bahá’í, my spirit is now free!  So I will begin my story… There is a wonderful building in the Cotswolds called Stanton Guildhouse, on a hillside overlooking beautiful countryside.  It was built specially to teach arts and crafts in a natural setting.  Once a month, this centre held what they called a ‘Quiet Day’ (at the t ..read more

Sadly neither of my parents, Ann and Peter Kyne, were able to write their histories themselves, so this is only a summary of their relationship with the Bahá’í Faith, but time runs on and I was at least a witness to the beginnings of their journey during my teenage years and watched their spiritual metamorphoses (though with a stunning lack of insight, I now realise….).  Although we had lived for several years just a stone’s throw from the Guardian’s Resting Place in Southgate, North London, Ann and Peter first encountered the Faith through a most special and radiant soul, Atherton Parso ..read more

Don and Margaret celebrating with their grandchildren at cricket The following is an amalgamation of both our stories as they are obviously intertwined, and since Don lost the ability to walk, talk, read or write in 1991 (owing to a severe head injury), his early years are based on my recollections of our previous conversations.  Don was born in Glasgow on 20th November, 1951. He had one older brother, two younger brothers and a younger sister. His father was a builder and his mother a seamstress. The whole family moved to Shrewsbury when Don was about 7 and started a bed-and-breakfast ..read more

The following account has been written by Hassan’s children, Farid Afnan and Parvin Morrissey. The quotations are taken from the transcript of a video of Hassan which his eldest daughter Shahin recorded in 2001. Birth Hassan Afnan was born in Yazd in 1926. He and his brother Abbas were descended from two of the maternal uncles of the Báb through his (Hassan’s) mother from Hájí Mírzá Hassan-‘Alí and through his father from Hájí Mírzá Siyyid Muhammad. Hassan spent most of his childhood in Shiraz, where his mother’s branch of the family lived, but spent summer holidays in Yazd, visiting his grand ..read more