London remembers Hiroshima Day

Remembering Hiroshima at Charlton House

 by New Worker

correspondent

AROUND 300 peace activists gathered last Monday to mark 6^th August as Hiroshima Day in Tavistock Square Central London and lat in the evening in south-east London another 60 gathered in the Peace Garden at Charlton House to mark the event.

The event commemorates the detonation of atomic bombs at Hiroshima and a few days later at Nagasaki – the only two atom bombs ever used in warfare that caused such death and destruction that such weapons have never been used again.

 And the horrors of those two bombs sparked the creation of a worldwide peace movement calling for an end to all nuclear weapons – and other weapons of mass destruction.

In Tavistock Square campaigners gathered around the Japanese cherry tree to hear veteran peace campaigner Tony Benn, CND general secretary Kate Hudson and Green MP Jean Lambert speak before observing a minute’s silence.

 At Charlton House, in the grounds, campaigners gathered to share food they had brought and then proceeded to the peace garden to hear poetry and songs before also observing a minute’s silence.

 Then as rain threatened, they went inside the House for more music and reminiscences among the campaigners, who included veterans of the first Ban-the-Bomb marches and Greenham Common.