Obituary

John Rety, former editor of the anarchist newspaper Freedom and good friend of Peace News, has died at the age of 79.

John had several passions apart from politics, including chess (“the most Bohemian player we are ever likely to meet”, said the late Bob Wade, former British chess champion) and poetry (“He ran the only truly democratic poetry reading venue, where anyone was allowed to get up and read one poem before a guest reader,” said poet Jehane Markham).

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Colin Ward was the leading anarchist thinker and writer of post-war Britain. His was an anarchism that was at once constructive, creative and immensely practical. It drew critical, but sympathetic attention from many outside the anarchist movement. It still holds many lessons for the left.

Born in 1924 in London, Colin gravitated to the anarchist movement while serving in the army during the Second World War. Towards the end of the war, the anarchist newspaper Freedom (or War…

A PN editor from 1976-1982, Chris Jones continued helping with PN as a volunteer until June 1983. Chris died suddenly in his sleep on 6 December of heart failure. He had felt ill the previous day playing in a marching band in Oswestry where he lived, and returned home early.

Howard Clark writes: Chris began helping Peace News just as I was leaving. He had come to pacifism by a strange route – having joined the RAF after school, and first became a vegetarian and only later a pacifist.…

On 25 July 2009, Henry John “Harry” Patch died. Aged 111, he was the last British survivor of the First World War trenches still living in the UK. Following the funeral held in Wells Cathedral he was buried near Combe Down where he was born.

For more than 80 years Harry refused to talk about his wartime experiences, refused to attend regimental reunions and avoided war films on the television. It wasn’t until he was over 100 that he broke his silence. In 1998 with the…

Sometimes in your life you find yourself under the influence of a powerful personality: it could be a lover, a political leader, an author, or a spiritual teacher. It happened to me with Keith Mothersson, who died on 3 July at the age of 61.

Keith combined many of these elements and yet in some ways his life failed to yield the fruits which his talent predicted. Among the brightest minds of his political generation, he distilled much of the counter-cultural zeitgeist of the 1970s…

What amazes me, looking back, is how little I knew about Elnora Ferguson’s life in the post-Cold War years when I encountered her as Chair of the National Peace Council.

We were too busy taking advantage of the positive effect she would have on people when she entered the room with her calm but keen-witted sense of enquiry and interest in what was going on and how you all were. People would try a little harder and acquit themselves a little better, and this had more to do with…

The tireless campaigner for peace and justice, Peggie Preston, died suddenly just after her 84th birthday. Peggie will be fondly remembered across the many campaigns and communities of which she was a part; she committed her life to finding political and personal solutions to poverty and oppression.

Born in India, Peggie grew up in Scotland, and travelled south to work in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, but, horrified by the merciless bombing, she later joined the Quakers. By the…

Peter Cadogan was once called “the England”. He campaigned most expelled socialist in effectively on many fronts for peace, justice and human rights. His most important mentors were William Blake, Gandhi and John MacMurray.

Peter Cadogan was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1921 where he witnessed the poverty and humiliation of workers during the Depression - something that drove him all his life.

After working as an insurance clerk, he served in the Air Sea Rescue Service from…

Many older readers will remember Len from his work from 1962 through to 1988 running the Film Van, a vehicle he drove around the UK during the summer months, appearing at showgrounds, market squares and many other locations around the country, where he would show anti-war films from the back of the van in the open air, campaigning for peace against war and violence. While showing the films, he would make peace books, leaflets and other material available, such as Peace News,…

Cassandra was working with Peace News on a spring semester internship via Ithaca College's London Center. She had just returned from a weekend trip with fellow students when, on 12 February, she died suddenly of natural causes. Peace News sends condolences to her friends and family.

Adam Curle, founding Professor of Peace Studies at Bradford University, was born on 4 July 1916, into a family of thinkers. His mother, who had lost three brothers in World War I, instilled in him a loathing for all war. Nonetheless, he was a soldier in World War II, rising to the rank of Major, and after the war was over he worked, at the Tavistock Institute, for the rehabilitation of British Servicemen.

No doubt this experience, and his early study and university teaching as a…

Sixty-four years ago, in 1942, Bob Hockley resigned as Treasurer of the local branch of the Peace Pledge Union in Southampton.

Not because he had changed his views, for he was as resolute as ever that “Wars will cease when men refuse to fight”. No. He had refused four times to attend a medical examination before being called up to the armed forces and had received a summons to attend the Court of Summary Jurisdiction.

He knew a prison sentence was likely and was paving the way…

Jerry Hartigan, peace activist extraordinaire, died on 9 January after months of treatment for Hodgkin's disease. Buddhists from the Milton Keynes Nipponzan Myohoji Peace Pagoda and people from many walks of life spoke at the funeral mass at his church, St Gregory's in Northampton.

Jerry was valued as a most hard-working, supportive member of Milton Keynes Peace Campaign, Milton Keynes Peace and Justice Centre and Milton Keynes Interfaith. He was unfailingly cheerful and generous…

I first met my dear friend Stuart “Mitch” Mitchel in 1965 when he was teaching at St Albans College of Further Education. Now, 40 years later, Mitch has died in his sleep (I'd guess he was in his early 80s but he regarded age as an irrelevance) and Beryl and their four children and seven grandchildren have lost a strikingly original, handsome and intelligent companion.

Mitch taught at the College until he retired and never ceased to be a polite, determined, constant irritant to the…

Many of us at 5 Caledonian Road - and many other groups working for a better and war-free world - enjoyed the real privilege, comradeship - and challenge - of working with our good friend Howard for the past forty years.

Not for him the public status and esteem that many lesser people sought. For all his experience, knowledge and wisdom, he was always self-effacing and unassuming.

Yet in his loyalty, commitment and caring for the world he was a truly great man. He was great in…