Exeter Friends in Hiroshima peace vigil
Event marks seventy-five year anniversary of nuclear bombing
Exeter Quakers held a socially distanced peace vigil exactly seventy-five years after the second atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki.
The event on 9 August was introduced by Exeter Quaker Laura Conyngham who recalled her visit to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, saying: ‘While I was at the tomb, a group of citizens asked me to lay a bouquet for a photograph to illustrate a guidebook for tourists. I felt utterly guilty.’
The event took place in front of the Japanese cherry tree planted in February 2005 to mark Exeter’s pledge to work for a nuclear-free world. Ian Martin from the Meeting said that the declaration fifteen years ago was part of a joint commitment made by ‘mayors of towns and cities around the world, including ninety in the UK’.
The declaration was started by an organisation based in Hiroshima which said: ‘We pledge to make every effort to create an inter-city solidarity, transcending national boundaries and ideological differences, in order to achieve the total abolition of nuclear weapons and avert the recurrence of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki tragedies.’
You need to login to read subscriber-only content and/or comment on articles.