I always say that the upbringing I had enabled me to recognise Bahá’u’lláh as bringing the truth to the world without too much difficulty. Being brought up by parents whom, from my perspective, I viewed as being free of prejudice meant that I was free to explore without preconceived ideas, etc.  I was also fortunate to have been involved in religious institutions which were also relatively free of tradition and dogma. My mother was born into an Irish Catholic family living in Belfast at the time. I was very fortunate that she had the ability to see with her own eyes and not through the eyes of others. 

As a child, I was also fortunate to live in Singapore for three years between the ages of 4 and 7 and was exposed to such an array of different cultures and religions as well as different food. My mother felt very comfortable in this environment and had friends from many different backgrounds. We would have loved to have stayed longer except that my brother needed to go to high school and there was no such school for him to attend in Singapore.  We, therefore, went back to England and lived in Liverpool for a short while before heading to London again.  Whilst living there I went to Sunday school at the Anglican Church and then went to the Congregational Church where there was a vibrant youth group.  At school, I studied RI – religious instruction — and took it in the O Level exams as I was very much interested in not only religion but also the history contained in it.  

During this time I would ask the question of the various people involved in the church, if Jesus were to return who would He be? At that stage, I wasn’t thinking beyond Christianity and I was simply asking which denomination/sect would He be and if only one, would that mean all the others were wrong? This was my teenage level of thinking but as no one was able to give me an answer, I decided that Christ wouldn’t return until all the different sects were united. 

Following school, I had no thought of further education and whilst I trained as a dressmaker, I was only interested in one thing and that was to travel.  During my time at the youth club in Kingston, London I met someone who had been poached from the Baptist Church to be the youth club secretary and whilst my friend and I were determined not to like this person, who was encroaching on our territory and taking away the attention of the youth leader, we found it impossible not to like her.  Her name was Pamela Poulter and she was a couple of years older than me. We became friends and we both wanted to travel, so we applied to go to Australia together. In those days it was easy as they paid for your travel and staying for at least 2 years was the only condition.  One minor problem was that when my papers of acceptance came through, I was still only 18 and still considered a child. I was deemed to need a chaperone. Luckily for us, Pam was by then 21 and could be my chaperone.  We laughed a lot about that over the years. I was 19 when I stepped onto the ship. During the voyage, we met Wendy Scott, another adventurer with whom we became very friendly, and stayed in contact when we arrived in Perth. 

Pam had a distant relative in Perth with whom we stayed for the 14 months that we lived there. During this time we met a young Englishman who worked with Pam and was going back to England.  He had heard of the Faith and on his journey back to England he declared his Faith in Bahá’u’lláh. His name was Charlie Pierce.  A few months later he wrote to Pam saying he was returning to Australia, that he had become a Bahá’í, and asking if we would like to go to a fireside. Given Charlie played the guitar and sang, I thought this would be great as I loved to sing as well. We went to a house in Bentley, a Perth suburb, which was the home of Margaret and John Handley even though they were away, visiting over the east. There I met Verona Mauger (now Lucas) and for the first time heard about the Bahá’í Faith during this fireside. I don’t recall having any concerns or even doubts about the Faith as it seemed to make so much sense. I went to various firesides and meetings. Then, on a visit to a small island off the Perth coast with Charlie, a friend of his, and one of Charlie’s colleagues, the friend turned to me and asked if I was also a Bahá’í. My experience had been that if I went to a church, then I tended to say that I belonged to that church — for example, I was a Congregationalist. Therefore, when he asked me, I said, “I suppose I am.” Charlie told me that, you had to sign a declaration card saying that you wanted to be a Bahá’í. This then made me think more about the commitment I was making and, shortly after that, I made the declaration of my faith. 

In those days before you were accepted, you had to read the Will and Testament of ‘Abdul-Bahá and discuss it with a representative of the Local Assembly, if there was one. Luckily, there was one Local Assembly in Perth at that time. This discussion took place about three months after I had heard of the Faith in December of 1968. 

A few months before Charlie arrived back in Perth, a young man also became a Bahá’í. He was British but had been living in the United States and was now living in Perth. His name was Adam Thorne. A couple of months later, Pam and I decided to move to Melbourne. We had kept in touch with Wendy, even though she had moved to Melbourne before us. She found a flat for the three of us to share on St Kilda Road, right opposite the Blind Institute just a little way from the War Memorial. Adam had also moved to Melbourne and was living in a flat with Grenville Curtin. Their flat was a sort of unofficial Bahá’í centre. Sometimes Adam would answer the phone by saying, “Battersea Dogs Home,” and bark until someone took him seriously. Then the caller apologised for ringing the wrong number!

During the time we were in Melbourne, I introduced Wendy to Adam, although it was a number of years later, after Adam had finished his teaching degree back in England, that they married and had two lovely boys. 

While in Melbourne, before moving to Sydney, the three of us visited Sydney and stayed with some of the Bahá’ís in Surry Hills, which, at the time, was a rather unsavoury area. Pam hadn’t become a Bahá’í when I did. She wanted to make sure she was doing it for herself, not simply because I had declared. Wendy was just learning about the Faith. To my great delight, whilst we were staying in Sydney during the 1969 National Convention, they both declared. One whilst visiting Lang Road, where the Bahá’í Centre was, during the Convention and the other at the same time to Verona, who lived at the house where we were staying.  

Pam and I stayed only a few months in Melbourne before moving to Sydney, where we moved into Verona’s house.   

I turned 21 in Sydney and was promptly elected to the Local Assembly of Sydney as Pieter De Vogel, the first full-time National Secretary, was keen to step down from the Assembly. Not only was I elected to the Assembly but also elected Treasurer. Thus began my education in the Faith’s administrative order and finances. Pam had left after four months in Sydney to return to Perth. She stayed there until returning to England. She and Wendy travelled to England a year later, around about the same time that I also returned.  

I arrived in England to find my parents had moved yet again to Southampton, a city with no Bahá’ís. When in Australia, I wrote letters, as we did in those days, to my parents and told them that I had heard about the Bahá’í Faith and was serious about it. My mother, in her usual way, went to the library to look it up. She wasn’t particularly worried about me because she trusted my judgment but she wanted to know about it for herself. She saw a poster whilst searching. This promoted a public meeting in Winchester just up the road from Southampton.  My mum and dad decided to go along and they met the wonderful Winchester Bahá’ís who, although only a handful, were warm and welcoming. Among them were David and Barbara Lewis and Peter and Sandy Jenkins, who had a young family. When I arrived back in England, this community was the nearest to me.  

Over a period of 18 months, we had numerous firesides, public meetings, and weekend gatherings, and the receptivity was high. About 18 people became Bahá’ís — not all of them lived in Southampton. They included my mother and 15-year-old sister. Also during this time, the youth loved travelling to the weekend schools, wherever they were held. They involved inviting people to a show on a Saturday night, usually consisting of perhaps a talk and a singing group. While I was in Southampton, the first Unit Conventions were held in the UK and one was in Southampton — even though there was no Local Assembly. I not only helped to organise it but was elected chair and then, subsequently, a delegate. It was my first time as a delegate. 

Given it was near the end of the Nine Year Plan, only the second of the global plans, there was a great need for activities to be intensified to make sure we won the goals. One of the Counsellors, Betty Reed, on behalf of the Counsellors of Europe, asked me if I would be willing to travel around Europe to teach the youth songs. The idea was that they could then use them as a focus for teaching. This was for the final year of the Plan. I was, therefore, very fortunate to have such an experience. I started travelling in April 1972 and spent 14 months on the road. 

It not only consolidated my knowledge of the Faith but also created such learning and uplifting experiences that well and truly enhanced my identity as a Bahá’í. Quite often I travelled with Betty and, therefore, would be present when she was giving talks or consulting with various people. I also had the opportunity to travel at one point with Annalise Bopp, who later was appointed to the International Teaching Centre. I travelled to many countries in Western Europe and had the absolute bounty of meeting many of the Hands of the Cause of God, staying with Dr. Adelbert Mühlschlegel in Switzerland when there was a youth campaign in the town where he lived. A two-year European youth campaign had been formulated to assist with the final years of the Plan. Three conferences were planned. The first was in Switzerland in a small town called Fiesch, where some 500 youth attended. Following this conference, a group of youth in the UK was asked to organise the next conference in Salzburg, Austria. I was one of the six privileged to be part of the team. I began travelling around Europe shortly after this conference. Many of the wonderful youth I met in Europe later served on many of the Institutions of the Faith. 

At the end of those 14 months, I went back to England and in December 1974 married my wonderful husband, Keith. By 1979, we had three girls — twins Gemma, Anna and Natalie. In 1982, we moved to Australia and had a son, Philip. We lived first in Singleton, NSW, where we helped form the shire’s first Local Assembly, and moved to Fremantle, Western Australia in 1984. We live now in East Fremantle. I was elected to the Australian National Spiritual Assembly in 1992 and served on it until 2023.

___________________________

Fiona McDonald

Western Australia, March 2024

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