Letter from Murray and Mary Rogers and Heather Sandeman.

Note: This piece gives some insight into the Baker's lives in the Himalayan period and also provides a more personal, informal and intimate account of life with the Bakers

I suppose that it was about 1953 that it all began for us. Somebody told us in the village outside Barielly, that there were a couple of Quakers who had arrived in the nearby Clara Swain Hospital, from the hills. Would I perhaps be able to go and see them? I did, and more happened down the years ahead, than I could have imagined then. They were at that time living at Pithoragarh in the Himalayas, a stone's throw from Nepal on top of the mountain, were Laurie with the help of the people around had built the most intriguing home cum hospital with a stupendous view of some 400 miles of the highest peaks in the world. Mary and 1, Cheryl, Linda and Richard went to spend some time there out of the heat. We in the plains had just been given 5 '/2 Acres of land in a broken down old mango orchard where, we needed by hook or by crook, to put up a chapel as the centre of our life, and some extremely simple huts, not to mention a cattle shed. They needed to be simple because we had very little money, and for reason good enough for followers of Gandhiji to understand, had no intention of even trying to collect, money from abroad.

We hadn't realised it then, but we had landed among the right friends at the right moment. Staying in Mithranikethan (House of Friends) the name of their fascinating hospital, it hardly needed any brilliance on our side to wonder whether Laurie with his architectural skill and determination, to be really amongst the poor and the ordinary people of India, would help us with plans for the land and building of the ashram in and out of the mango garden between the village of Karela and Kargaina .He would! It is no exaggeration to say that he made the ashram. With his architectural vision we quickly saw too that there is a great deal more to buildings than bricks and mortar and the ability to put up a wall that stays in place! Laurie's buildings spoke, they articulated a vision, and they suggested a revolution. You can tell Laurie's work because it is designed to be a part of Nature, of the environment, of the trees and landscape that is already there before he turns up! How exactly right they were, the chapel, first tobuilt, the huts, the Gandhian loos, the silent huts, the shape of everything, the paths, Maun Kutir (The Silent hut), where the community building should be placed, and so much more. The whole fitted so perfectly our needs and our vision for our ashram life.

At that time in Kareli village, they were two mistris (work men) bricklayers, ready to begin work, with Laurie to guide them and Fidah Hussain, our good multi purpose Moslem friend. They already knew Laurie and I can see now, their faces full of smiles, at the thought of his arrival for two weeks of work. For them he was 'Engineer Sahib'. Laurie himself worked with them when it came to rounded walls, a completely new idea to the village builders, his work and example were essential. The same went with what he called "holey walls", a style new I believe in those far off days

Everybody at work, the locals, including us, students, visitors, village friends, was equally enthused by Laurie's presence and work, not to mention his humour, which was never hidden for long? So many visitors came to Laurie and Kuni and vice versa —some not easy to live with. He nicknamed this "passing on" of people as the "ashram crawl". We remember one such was Swami Abhishiktananda (Dom Le Saux) a dear friend for years, of us in Jyotinikethan and of Laurie and Kuni at Mithranikethan. At that time (early 60's) he was a traditional Roman Catholic priest and monk, and his visit to a Quakers family was little less than a bolt from the blue! On that occasion he had arrived with us hoping to cope with a painful attack of Shingles. A doctor in town had ordered Vitamin —B injections. It was a moment to remember! We, in the ashram, possessed one needle for injections; it had been used to inject our chicken with a serum against Ranikets diseases. Swamiji came next! No wonder he needed a week or the days of recuperation in the hills with our Quaker friends; a new variety of Christian people whom he had never met before .The experience there, was reported back to us on his return to the plains, amazed and theologically changed beyond imagination. He asked himself, how Quakers like the Bakers, with no sacraments, no prayer books, with no proper Christian pedigree, were more genuinely Christian, than most Catholics, he had ever met? Some friendships make a mark that never passes. This was undoubtedly the case for this French Benedictine monk by then a Swamy, and a Sadhu.

By saying, that Laurie is a member of the Society of Friends, I reckon that you have located him, a little as a Christian, but not really! He fits nowhere and everywhere. He does not allow denominations or for that matter, religion, to get in any sort of way with friendship. It was once said that Jesus promised his followers three things:

To be absurdly happy, this does not exclude suffering and tears

To be entirely fearless and

Always in trouble —that is Laurie's and Kunis form of Christianity, it doesn't need too often to be talked about, always provided you live it, and they did —seeing that Jesus himself was not a Christian, they are not keen on being labeled either.

Gandhiji, once on his weekly silent day, when asked for a message for a newspaper responded – "my life is my-message". That to my mind expresses the freedom and joy and madness of our friend Laurie. If he had been born a Russian he would have been destined to be a fool for Christ and all with a delicious non-self consciousness, that is irresistibly attractive and immediately disturbing to the `religious' and 'good people' of any religion. Those three marks of Jesus are so appealing that you can't keep the word fun out of the description for long.

Life and laughter go together; humour just explodes everywhere and anywhere. Once when Mary and I were with him in the mountains, and Laurie had just (once again) begun to read the bible through at the end of breakfast. He had reached the spot in genesis where Abraham was in the habit of passing his wife off as his sister, it had happened once and as Laurie was about to read of a second occasion he interjected his own aside. "Oh! Not again Abraham!" You can imagine the applause from the children, seconded heartily by their parents and Heather. In preparation for one of our visits, knowing that I would wish to celebrate holy communion, while staying with them, occasions when he and Kuni always joined us, he had made some home made wine for communion. Duly made, it was placed on a shelf in the kitchen. Sadly enough, the Anglican position on fermented wine (to be used in the sacrament) was hardly seconded when, the day before we arrived the home made wine exploded all over the kitchen. What a laugh we all had. More seriously, but as genuinely, the suffering, grieving person could always rely on the good and compassionate hearts of Laurie and Kuni.

Another surprise was the building named by Laurie 'Ladle Cordage', a little house along the hillside put up by Laurie and his leprosy patient helpers, around the trunk of a tree for the use of whenever we felt able to be there, for Mary, me and Heather, (who was with us from 1954) and the three children. It was a house gloriously sited with bunk beds in tiny rooms for 8 people, a dining area with kitchen and a sitting room with a huge window, out of which we had a magnificent view of the wooded valleys, and the top of the house had a chapel to which we climbed on a winding stair round the top of the tree trunk, and all believe it or not for roughly £ 100 — or at the rate of exchange then Rs. 1000. Another of those unforgettable moments! I needed an operation on my behind. Kuni with her skill as a surgeon was as ever came to operate. Laurie as usual, passed her instruments, a local anesthetic did the necessary; my legs were up in the air, on a home made, first rate medical contraption to keep me in place. Kuni went ahead and Laurie accompanied the surgery with uproarious jokes, suitable and unsuitable, when suddenly Kuni exploded "really Laurie — stop joking, I can,t operate on Murray when he is shaking with laughter! That quieted Laurie temporarily. Operation over. Laurie piggy backed me back to my bed, as he did all the patients operated on by Kuni because no three yards of the floor of the hospital was on the same level. After all, it was built on the peak of a small mountain.

How like Kuni it was, at the end of the time in Pithoragarh to say "Laurie was behind me in my medical world. Now I want him to get back to architecture again". And my word, he did and thus, with work that speaks of his extraordinary imagination and skill up and down the country, with so much of it being the use of skill for happiness and comfort4-Of the most poor and the most down trodden, whether it is cathedrals or fishermen's houses, they have that glorious Laurie touch which speaks of the most human of human beings.

One last memory, more recent than the rest, Mary's and my grandson James, (a member of Cheryl and Andre's family is in France) visited Kerala in the summer of 2000, with Laurence his girl friend. How could I resist, introducing them to Laurie and Kuni from afar, hoping so much, as Mary and I did, that they might be able to welcome the young couple. They did and from James and Laurence accounts on return to Europe, we heard how their time with this glorious unexpected couple of human beings was a revelation of generosity and wisdom, of laughter and compassion. So joyfully the circle of endless friendship continues. We men and women, far too often be swallowed up in violence and brutality but when by some marvelous stroke do good fortune, you meet real human beings like Laurie and Kuni in India, u know that it is still wonderfully good to be alive. Doesn't eves` way of wisdom and truth lead us to the same awareness, if only we dare to go that way.

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