Kent, Bruce

Since I am writing this piece in early February, between the hundredth anniversary of the granting of the first and partial voting rights for women in the UK (6 February 1918) and International Women’s Day (8 March), there is only one obvious subject. So here come a few words about three great and strong peace and justice women among so many who have inspired me.

The first is Olive Gibbs, commemorated in Oxford Town Hall on 6 February itself – which would have been her 100th…

At this end of the year, the conflicts of the world can be seen in our small north London back garden.

The birds are hungry and our swinging seed feeder is getting a lot of attention. But then comes the arrival of the large and powerful – the green parakeets from Hampstead. Colourful they may be, but greedy they certainly are. The small ones – robins, wrens, finches, and the like – get driven off. Or they would get so driven if I did…

It is nearly 70 years since I began my two years of conscripted military service.

Having been to a boarding school, it was not much of a shock. Despite some class differences we were all in the same boat and got shouted at in the same way by various corporals and sergeants.

In 1947, the cold war was just starting, and it was to faraway places like Malaysia and Korea that some of my contemporaries were sent. At least one, my friend ‘Tubby’ Maycock, a year below me at…

What an odd world of priorities we live in. Any more about Brexit – important though it is in so many ways – tends now to produce a yawn.

Yet the recent Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons has not even started to be a priority. We must all make it one.

It was passed with the support of 122 countries at a UN conference a couple of weeks ago. Only the Netherlands voted ‘No’.

The nuclear weapon countries, including our own, took no part. In fact Michael…

Three documents are sitting on my desk right now. Pope Francis’ message for this year’s 1 January World Day of Peace is one of them. The next, a lengthy message from him to the diplomatic corps for 9 January 2017. The last – a merciful mere three pages – is his representative’s message to the Vienna conference reviewing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in May 2017.

One thing is quite obvious. Francis has been reading Peace News. It is all there. No to violence, war and…

I’ve never before heard of a paper called The Weekly Dispatch but it was clearly doing well in 1917. In September that year it published a furious piece headed ‘Traitors in the Parks’.

It was all about the anti-war rallies being held in Finsbury Park and Hyde Park – ‘long haired strapping youths... using language about Cabinet ministers which horrified all decent people’.

It got much stronger in the next edition. ‘Sedition mongers and their dupes – insidious…

Robert Hinde would be surprised to find his obituary in Peace News. But he more than deserves a mention though I very much doubt if he, academic and ex-RAF coastal command wartime pilot, was a regular Peace News reader.

He died just before Christmas at the age of 93. Many of us have lost a very good friend, a wise advisor and one of the most modest men I have ever met. Professionally, Robert Hinde was a distinguished zoologist, a former master of St John’s…

Well it couldn’t happen could it? So said 90 percent of the commentators – but it did.

Donald Trump, once only known here because of some row about a golf course in Scotland, is going to be president of the United States. He will soon be the key world figure with his finger on the nuclear button which, if pressed, could be the end of us and most of our lovely world.

We have been here before. Read Daniel Ellsberg’s Secrets: a Memoir of Vietnam.

How…

When my brother, sister and I were young, many eons ago, Aunt Edith was a regular visitor. She always brought sweets which were most welcome. But she also had wise words not equally appreciated. ‘If I were you dear….’ was the start to many a long talk about what we should be and ought to be doing. The editor of Peace News has asked me to contribute a column a few times a year and this is the first. I will do my best to avoid Aunt Edith’s ‘If I were you dear...‘ old age syndrome.…

Joan was a new arrival in the CND office sometime in the 1980s. This warm-hearted woman with the sunny disposition had a desk opposite mine and I therefore saw a lot of her. Her job was to sell advertising for our CND magazine Sanity.

I marvelled at her technique. If, on the phone, a possible client hesitated, Joan knew exactly what to do. ‘I quite understand, Mr X or Ms Y, that you are too busy at the moment. It might be better if I called you…

Who would have guessed that there was a peaceful connection between Russian czar Nicholas II, who was later assassinated, and the London borough of Islington?

Well, there was. In 1898, Czar Nicholas sent a message to all the major heads of state urging them to come together to discuss ending an arms race ‘which will lead to the very disaster which it is desired to avoid… we must put some limits on these increasing armaments and find means of averting the calamity that threatens the…

I cannot recommend this book too highly. It is an excellent compilation of all the myths, lies, nationalisms and vanities which have led us into wars past and present.

Swanson, who must be a bit older than his website picture suggests, has been active in the United States peace world for many years. He was at one stage the press secretary during Dennis Kucinich’s presidential campaign in 2004.

The book is self-published and a fund has now been created to enable it to be given…

People forget too quickly. This little book is a great reminder of much that has been achieved, so far, by Labour Action for Peace which began life in 1940 as the Labour Pacifist Fellowship.

Long before then, back to the days of Keir Hardie, there have been those in the Labour party with the same vision and hope.

The book is a fascinating trip down memory lane, from the introduction by Tony Benn to the cheery photo of current LAP president, Jeremy Corbyn.

The cast is…

On 19 May, the public sector union Unison sponsored a day conference in London taking forward the campaign against Britain's Trident nuclear arsenal.
PN talked to Bruce Kent the next day, and this is what he told us: “It was a very positive meeting. It lasted from 10am to 5pm, and people really stayed.
“There were over 70 people at it, and they represented quite a wide spectrum of churches, trade unions, and peace activists.
“There was no feeling that the vote…

You've been in the peace movement a long time - what got you started?

In the 1950s I became a chaplain for Pax Christi - the first priest to take an interest apparently! I was rather bored for the first year, until I heard about conscientious objection in Spain and Portugal and became active in CO issues.

Later I got involved in CND - it never stopped! There's not just one issue - they all interconnect.

You are the current Chair of the Movement for the Abolition of…