Thelma Batchelor
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Thelma Batchelor (22nd October, 19__) is an English Bahá’í known especially for her support of Bahá’ís from Britain who have pioneered overseas.
Life[edit]
She found the Bahá’í Faith in Montreal, Canada, while still young, and became a Bahá’í in San Francisco in 1964. Back home in England, at Ridván 1965 she pioneered to Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire (now part of the City of Birmingham), and the following year to Salisbury, Wiltshire.
In the summer of 1965, while attending an international Bahá'í Summer School in Berlin, she met the man who was to become her husband, Ron Batchelor. From 1970 to 1973 she and Ron were overseas pioneers in Honiara, British Solomon Islands, and from 1976 to 1985 they were pioneers in Kathmandu, Nepal.
Her experience during and after her pioneering time led her to think that more should be done to support the pioneers overseas, so she started Pioneer Post, a newsletter in which pioneers could share their difficulties and triumphs with one another. After many years of editing Pioneer Post, Thelma compiled a volume of stories from the newsletter in the book Stories from Pioneer Post, which was published by George Ronald in 2010.
For a number of years, Thelma was the co-ordinator of the Literature Review Panel for the United kingdom. Another project led by Thelma is the UK Bahá’í Histories Project. The attempt is being made to capture the stories of how individuals became Bahá’ís, in order to preserve their stories and convey something of the prevailing conditions for these relatively early British believers.
She lives with Ron in the town of Leatherhead, Surrey. She has two children and one grandchild.
Publication[edit]
- 2010 - Stories From Pioneer Post
External Links[edit]
- UK Bahá’í Histories Project [1]
- Thelma's own story http://bahaihistoryuk.wordpress.com/category/batchelor-thelma/
