PN-related

Peace News is 75. Happy birthday! Today is another anniversary; it’s two years  since my Mum’s death so I’m feeling somber, remembering the failings in the hospital care she received and our struggle to get her home so she could die as well as she had lived: in peace, with her family, in familiar surroundings. Time was short, and when some of the things that should have happened to facilitate this did not and our questions met with poor excuses, we blew the whistle to get things moving.…

On 5 June 2011, the day after a Peace News 75th anniversary celebration was held nearby in North London, I attended a panel discussion at the Stoke Newington Literary Festival. It was 90 minutes on “The Age of Dissent”, featuring Laurie Penny, Dan Hind and Dan Hancox. Despite the overarching title of the festival, the panel had practically no literary content (other than that the panel were writers and journalists), and only the most tenuous of connections to Stoke Newington.

In the…

On the night of Monday/Tuesday 14/15 April 1986, US aircraft bombed Libya as a response to alleged Libyan support for terrorism. The 18 April issue of (the then fortnightly) PN was already on its way to the printers when news came through; but a Stop Press supplement written on the Tuesday carried news as it came in – of the attack, and of some reactions in just the first few hours.

Peace groups respond to attack on Libya

At Upper Heyford airbase, one of the bases where the F1-…

The site of the PN75 party
Gail Chester (shiny jacket) comperes the Red & Green Choir
Dennis Gould, anarchist poet These are some pictures from the party on Saturday 4 June. First three: The Catholic Worker building on the Harringay Ladder in North London (in Haringey!) / Compere Gail Chester of Peace News Trustees with the…

75 years on, what is the future for Peace News? One thing is clear. As activism, and life in general, become more and more digital, Peace News will have to develop its presence online, and find new ways to be useful to new generations of activists. The new website we’re launching this summer is just the start of a broad range of major digital PN projects.

Having said that, and despite our reliance on phone conferences for organising PN activities, we remain firmly committed to old-…

Peace News had its origins in a pacifist study group convened by Humphrey Moore in Wood Green, London in 1936. Having completed their programme of studies they decided to engage in some form of practical action that would propagate the pacifist case to a wide audience. The publication of the first issue of Peace News on 6 June 1936 was the result, financed by donations from members of the study group and their friends.

The first issue had a print run of 5,000. Humphrey Moore was the…

“If I ever decided to go through Catonsville again, I would never act with men; it would be a women’s action for me or I wouldn’t act.... I don't want to waste the sisters and brothers we have by marching them off to jail and having mystical experiences or whatever they’re going to have.... I think you have to be serious and realise you could end up in jail but I hope that people would not seek it as we did.”

Mary Moylan, writing from underground (Peace News, 3 July 1970). Mary Moylan…

The paper reports from the first meeting of War Resisters' International after the Second World War (10 January 1947)

The Hitler question

One of the challenges still regularly thrown at pacifists today is the “But what about the Second World War?” question. This might be thought to have been even harder to deal with at the time. But James Avery Joyce rose to the challenge on the front page of PN on 26 September 1941.

“At this…

Congratulations and thanks on PN attaining the ripe old age of 75; five years older than me! How the world has changed yet remained dangerous. Among the hundreds of events I cite three special memories.

My PN cuttings of 1961 (and arrest warrant) remind me of the Committee of 100 sit downs in London – I recall – no shouting or violence, but not enough involvement from the Labour movement either.  My notes of the Cuban Missile Crisis include a visit with local folk to Bertrand Russell…

In Charing Cross Road in London in the 1950s, there used to be an elderly woman selling Peace News who stood on the pavement saying: [uses frail voice] “Pacifist paper. Pacifist paper.” And it put me off! Although I was interested in the peace movement and remember going to a big anti-bomb meeting in Hornsey town hall addressed by Alex Comfort among others, before CND was formed, to buy the paper seemed uncool, although I wouldn’t have used the term then. Of course I regret it now!
…

Saturday 4 June 2011, 4pm onwards (till late) at the London Catholic Worker building, Giuseppe Conlon House, 49 Mattison Road, London N4 1BG. Tube: Manor House. Bus: 29. Map: http://tinyurl.com/6hgf3sl

Performances will include:
- Leon Rosselson: http://www.leonrosselson.co.uk/
- the Carbon Town Cryer: http://www.myspace.com/…

This June marks our 75th anniversary as a publication dedicated to peace and justice. We've decided to mark the anniversary in a unique way by having a one-year donation-based subscription offer. We are allowing people to subscribe for a year with whatever donation they think is appropriate. For a whole year, we will be entrusting ourselves (and our salaries) to the generosity of the British peace movement!

Instead of having "subscribers", we want to recruit more "sustainers", people…

Brilliant. I hope your new donation-based subscription system [to be announced fully in the June issue] works as well for you as it did on our market garden, Growing Green. Dave introduced a subscription system, to separate “money” and being part of the project. At least one third of the subscribers paid far more than the minimum, some double! Occasionally people paid less, and increased it again as soon as they were able. A beautiful, trusting system.

I write in reply to your notice of changing from “subscribers” to “sustainers”. I feel it is a bit risky. But on the other hand it seems a bold step which might call forth greater support than you ever dreamt of.

I can’t remember what my subscription is but I would, at least, wish to retain it at its present level. Maybe, if it is possible I would consider slightly increasing my subscription, though I am not weathy being an 80-year-old pensioner.

Best wishes for your new…

Thanks for producing such an inspiring and energising paper – we thoroughly enjoyed distributing it, and will aim to do so again at some point in the future. Your info on how to deal with the census form [see p2] was both a revelation (I’d not realised Lockheed was involved!) and an inspiration – very useful indeed! My form has now been suitably adjusted, and I’ve sent the relevant link to dozens of people around the UK.