Recent Events

August 2019

Over 35 of our local supporters including Michael Eavis attended a brief commemorative ceremony to mark the anniversary of the dropping of the first Nuclear bomb on Hiroshima. We floated a candle on the Bishops Palace moat for each year since it was dropped.

July 2019

Campaign stall at Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival 19th -21st July.

June 2019

Sidcot School Peace Festival Saturday 15th June

Again this year we took our campaign stall and several activists to Glastonbury Festival.

January 2019

December 2018

Our annual Carol singing for a local charity

June 2018

Mid-Somerset CND displayed the exhibition 'The Challenging Road to Peace since World War I' during June and July 2018,  at Wells & Mendip Museum. The exhibition and our programme of talks provided an alternative view of the war, and a complement to the Museum's World War I galleries. (This exhibition was produced by Tavistock Peace Action Group).

December 2017

Saturday 23rd: 11:00 - 13:00 Carol Singing in Wells,

outside library in Union Street.

In support of OXFAM

November 2017

Saturday 25th Glastonbury Frost Fair

Friday November 3rd

Glastonbury Mayors for Peace reception with Hiroshima exhibition

October 2017

Saturday 7th One World Fair - Wells Town Hall, 10:00 to 16:00.

September 2017

Wednesday 21st Harry Patch Day: 13:00 outside Wells Museum, Cathedral Green.

To mark United Nations International Peace Day  http://www.un.org/en/events/peaceday/,
Mid Somerset CND & Peace Group lay at 1.00pm on September 21st a wreath made with White Poppies by the memorial to Harry Patch by Wells City Museum on Cathedral green given his abhorrence of war and concern to remember those who died on both sides. (The Last Tommy : BBC History)

It is also the day before Harry Patch's own personal Remembrance Day - September 22nd. The day he was wounded and three of his mates were killed.

“To me, it's a licence to go out and murder. Why should the British government call me up and take me out to a battlefield to shoot a man I never knew, whose language I couldn't speak? All those lives lost for a war finished over a table. Now what is the sense in that?"
H Patch (interview Sunday Times, 7 November 2004).

Every year, November 11th is an annual opportunity for the nation to mourn the dead of two world wars and the many other conflicts since. It reminds us that our lives are built on the efforts of those who have given theirs before us. It gives us the opportunity to recognise the heroic sacrifice of those who have given their lives for what they believe in. But it should also remind us to remember those who also lost their innocent lives as bystanders in the conflict, normally women and children. Civilian causalities on both sides normally far exceed those of the armed forces. They have not been trained to fight, nor are they fighting for a cause, they simply happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Their deaths are often not even on the battlefield, but are a result of disease, the breakdown of civil society and malnutrition.

The First World War was believed to be, at the time, the war to end all wars. Sadly this has not been the case, but it does not diminish the need to minimise the call to arms and to persuade the politicians and others to truly always seek non violent alternatives before resorting to killing. When the troops returned home in 1918, “Never Again” was their desire and belief – we should respect that.

In 1933 the first white poppies appeared on Armistice Day produced by the Cooperative Women’s Guild and the Peace Pledge Union. The white poppy began as a message, mostly from women, many of whom were mothers, sisters, widows and sweethearts of men killed in the First World War. They, like many others, began to feel with the rising domestic and international tensions that the war to end all wars, in which their men had been maimed, killed or languished in prison for refusing to fight, would be followed by an even worse war.  The white poppy is not intended as an insult to those who died in the First World War but a challenge to the continuing drive to war and to remember all those who suffer it consequences.  

The British Legion chose the red poppy as a symbol of remembrance in the aftermath of the First World War, during which the shells and shrapnel which fell on the trenches and craters of Flanders led to a mass of poppies covering the killing fields. Stuart Gendall, its spokesperson, (reported in The Independent, November 2006 ) said “What you wear is a matter of choice; the Legion doesn't have a problem whether you wear a red one or a white one, both or none at all. It is up to you.” If you wish to support the work of the Legion in supporting ex-servicemen and women, then buy a red Poppy, if you wish to remember all those affected by war and to pressurise politicians to seek non violent resolution to conflict then buy a white poppy. There is no contradiction between the two, so wear your poppies with pride, whether red, white or both.

September 6th Strode College Fresher’s Fair

August 2017

5th and 6th Hiroshima Day

July 2017

14th – 16th July Pitch at Tolpuddle Festival.

June 2017

21st - 25th Campaign stall at Glastonbury Festival.

May 2017

Monday 8th AGM 19:30. Upstairs at the Globe Inn, 18-20 Priest Row, Wells BA5 2PY.