So what with my work at the factory, my studies at the Technical School, and preaching, teaching and many other incidental duties, my life was so hemmed in that I had scarcely a moment for myself. Yet I revelled in it. And of course it was all voluntary work for which I received no financial recompense whatever. I did not want any. In fact, the thought never occurred to me. My work brought its own rewards. In helping to build up and fortify the minds of others, I built up and fortified my own, and in the process enriched my life with innumerable social relationships and abiding friendships. It was a hard life, but a buoyant spirit insured my physical health.

These walks revealed my father at his best, for he revealed to me the secrets and the beauties of nature ... Those lonely, glorious moors fascinated me, moved me as nothing else had ever done. I there felt the deeper meaning of freedom. The memory of those boyhood expeditions I still count as one of my most treasured possessions. They gave to my life a mellow, contemplative quality which helped me to acquire and maintain a steady, balanced mind.

By 1897... discussions among Sunday School teachers, Church workers and lay preachers had led me to study of the works of Ruskin, Tolstoy, Carlyle, Kropotkin, Thoreau, Emerson, Wordsworth, etc., all of whom influenced me profoundly, especially Ruskin and Tolstoy... Books like William Moms' "News from Nowhere" stimulated the minds and freed the spirits of thousands of workers from the bonds of a soul-destroying industrialism.

Most socialists rested their case solely on the economic argument, whereas I saw the basic error of capitalism in certain spiritual deficiencies, and realised that unless these deficiencies were made good little would be gained in the long run, and my unresolved problem was how the socialists would carry the spiritual idealism of their prophets into the new social order...

I began to feel that the most urgent need of our time was knowledge of how to live, in every section of the community, capitalists and workers alike, and that it might be my duty to take some part in spreading this knowledge of the art of living, by word, by pen, and by living.

The future of the Labour Party rests on its power to win the confidence of and to keep intact the Trade Unions, but its success in this direction will depend upon its power to shake off over-zealous theorists and those who would commit it on questions which lie outside the sphere of Labour proper. Only by limiting party action to purely Labour questions and by allowing each Labour Member of Parliament perfect liberty on all other matters, thus giving to each section of the community the right and power to extract from Labour candidates such promises and pledges as they can on those other matters, can the Labour Party hope to be successful as a party or to keep Trade Unionism intact and to save it from disaster.

What you fail to realise is that when you have got your Socialist state ... you have brought in the official ... If you cannot convert men to a finer social idealism now you will not be any more likely to do so when you have got your socialist state. But then if you only get men with the right spirit in them you will have no need for Socialism, but will then proceed on the more simple lines of cooperation.

From every point of view I found myself unable to sanction or support the war. It came up against what I felt to be the fundamental law of human life, that of self-giving prompted by love... I also realised that if people suppressed their convictions every time war was declared, the era of world peace and goodwill towards all men would never arrive. I therefore knew that the practice of non-violence in time of war necessitated a willingness to suffer, but also that holding fast to a principle develops an inner strength which calmly triumphs in the end.

The No-Conscription Fellowship was founded in November 1914 by Fenner Brockway on the prompting of his wife. Although it was primarily a campaigning organisation aimed at mobilising the population against the threat of conscription, and as such was based in the first instance on the defence of libertarian rather than pacifist principles, the Fellowship did require of its members that they "refuse from conscientious motives to bear arms because they consider human life to be sacred, and cannot, therefore, assume the responsibility of inflicting death." Although the leading national figures and the majority of its membership were drawn from the ranks of the ILP, it did manage to draw under its umbrella a remarkable range of dissenters. As Fenner Brockway was later to recall, "in its branches scattered throughout the country, were Socialists, Anarchists, Quakers, and other religious objectors, and it was remarkable how well they pulled together." Nelson was no exception to this pattern. The bulk of the branch membership was drawn from the ranks of the ILP, and their meetings were held at the ILP premises in Nelson and at their "Clarion House" in nearby Pendle. However, the strength of non-conformist dissent in the town was such as to ensure the membership of religious pacifists such as Wellock, and his friend Richard Bland. The Nelson Branch covered the area from Burnley to Barnoldswick and had somewhere in the region of 45 members. The dominant figures were Dan Carradice, one of three brothers, who was the acknowledged leader of the socialist wing, and Wellock who was secretary of the branch and the leader of the church wing.

Obviously with such a rich mixture of members the No-Conscription Fellowship was not free from controversy, both at the national and branch level. There was internal debate about whether it should concentrate on the libertarian principle of conscription as an institution inimical to individual freedom, or should it be primarily an anti-war and pacifist organisation. There was also dispute, particularly after the 1916 Military Service Acts, about what stand should be taken on the issue of alternatives to combatant service. The official N-CF policy advocated the "absolutist" line of rejecting alternative service of any kind, but there remained a substantial body of opinion that felt it should be left to the conscience of the individual members. It was not solely in its internal debates, however, that the N-CF proved its vitality. In places like Nelson and throughout the country members strove by means of public meetings, pamphleteering and other forms of `persistent propa¬ganda' to convince a hostile public of the evils of conscription and the barbarity of war.

Despite such efforts the Military Service Act became law on January 27, 1916 and conscription came into force a few weeks later. The immediate response of the N-CF was to increase its propaganda activities with the aim of forcing the repeal of the Act. However, members were now not only facing a largely unsympathetic public but also were in direct opposition to the state. As a consequence harassment from the government increased, whilst outraged "patriots" were given free reign to disrupt local meetings.

It travelled all over the world. We sent out small packets of three, six, twelve etc into every part of the country.

A large number found their way into camps and to the Front. I received letters of thanks from soldiers, even at the Front, and from all over the world, from people to whom friends had sent copies.

I also received small donations from the most unexpected places. Often I found 2s. or 3s. wrapped in a piece of paper, without name, pushed in my letter box with the simple message: "For The Crusader."

After that experience I have never despaired of minorities, and have never been afraid to do anything I felt was necessary, on the ground of being in a small minority. It was pacifism in the War which showed me how tremendously powerful a very tiny minority can be.

The Society of Friends was, however, insufficiently radical on social and economic issues to attract the most remarkable Christian socialist pacifist of the inter-war period: Wilfred Wellock (1879-1972), an absolutist who became a Labour M.P. in 1927. Despite starting work in a Lancashire cotton mill at the age of ten, Wellock was driven by his puritan upbringing and remarkable self-discipline to improve and educate himself. As he did so, he became preoccupied with the need to restore the spiritual element in life which, from his experience in his Lancashire factory town, he believed had been steadily destroyed by industrialization. Because the Great War seemed to him to be the apotheosis of this corrupting industrialism, he seized on pacifism as the best means of rediscovering true values. "Pacifism is simply applied Christianity", he wrote early in 1916. Although eligible for exemption from conscription as an Independent Methodist lay preacher, Wellock opted to take his stand as an absolutist; and in March 1916 he launched from his home town a Christian revolutionary journal, the New Crusader, published by "the Committee for the Promotion of Pacifism, Nelson". After he went to prison, the paper was edited and financed by a Quaker novelist, Theodora Wilson Wilson (1865-1941), who had been converted to socialism during the Great War.

What a country, what a world is ours!... Shameless selfishness, political and commercial corruption, self-indulgent looseness in manners - in a word, brazen materialism spreading on every hand fostered by national pride, by national and personal hypocrisy, aided, alas, by a soul sold Church - and all the fault of a Holy War! Whence did righteousness make claim to such a heritage? Can figs grow on thistles? And yet the Church is looking around aghast, and wondering why the people, after their intoxication of "self-sacrifice", should show no disposition to pay tribute to formal religion and is attributing the remissness to every conceivable course rather than the true and, indeed, obvious one. In this, as in a thousand other directions, the obvious Christian truth must be proclaimed with clarion voice.

It is not to industry as such that we object; it is the spirit in which it is carried on. It is not the making of wealth that we decry; it is the making of a wealthy class. It is not necessarily the creation of cities that we deplore; it is the creation of hells by means of labour whose chief if not sole object is profit.

Of one thing we may be perfectly sure: the thought of instituting the Marxist or Communist state by means of a popular rising and of expecting, after a short Dictatorship, to effect the transition from the present regime of force to that of free, non-political democracy, is a wild foundationless dream.

Notwithstanding my enthusiasm for the Revolution, that is, for the spiritual aspiration and idealism of which it is the expression, and my intense desire to see these triumph, become embodied in a more rational and beautiful social order, I am not blinded to the fact that in order to make the Revolution effective things have been done which must inevitably weaken it, if, indeed, they do not bring its overthrow... The springs of action are in the mind and heart, and to these we must direct our attention if we would attain the kingdom of Heaven. Use violence and you create an enemy, and enter on a path of endless deviations.

Germany today is an outstanding example of the bankruptcy of capitalism, a proof of the impossibility of further progress for civilization under the existing regime ... There is no need for the Communists to preach the Class War ... The Class War rages, and soon there will be what is tantamount to a Dictatorship of the Right.

At present the Press and almost all our educational institutions are supporting slave conditions and a slave morality. By one means or another we must close the avenue to great riches, so that a new way of life and a new set of values may be revealed ... without a revolution, i.e., radical external changes, it will not be possible to create a widespread social consciousness adequate to the civilisation desired.

I do not think it is possible to say how the transition to communism will be made. More than that, I do not think we should greatly concern ourselves about that question: our business is to create a Christian Communist consciousness, and to let the revolution, or what there be, come out of that...

We must concentrate upon the ideal, preach and teach it everywhere, proclaim it in the cities, in the churches, at the street corners - go into the highways and the hedges and compel the people to see life anew, and in the light of a finer ideal to re-create the world... to create a public opinion, organise a spiritual movement for the overthrow of Capitalism and the establishment of Communism which will be positively irresistible...

Great changes are necessary... and if we do not accomplish them by means of a vigorous and aggressive pacifist policy they will be attempted by methods more drastic if less successful.

As I moved about the country after 1920 it was next to impossible to secure a response to any kind of spiritual appeal... The only organisation that appeared to be advancing was the Independent Labour Party... The rapid march of the socialist movement in Britain at this time, with the Independent Labour party as its spearhead, owed its success to its essentially spiritual appeal. The ILP inherited the spiritual idealism of the early Christian Socialists and of the artist-poet-craftmanship school of William Morris... This was the only kind of socialism that appealed to me... I am a socialist, provided you give a spiritual interpretation to the term ... I have only recently decided to enter practical politics since I have seen the possibility of making politics, through the introduction of spiritual considerations, a veritable means of social transformation.

I never felt so impotent... I found that after a few years in the House of Commons, most Members seemed to lose their enthusiasm for idealistic objectives. The general tendency was towards ease and security, and to regard the House of Commons as a first class club where one can easily meet the people who matter in the political world.

It was in the "thirties" that the "bread and butter politics" of the new materialism completely overwhelmed the spiritual idealism of the earlier Socialists. The decline of that idealism was quickly followed by the rapid spread of the materialistic values of capitalism among the working classes, including the Trade Unions and the Labour Party. This meant that henceforth Party politics would degenerate into a power struggle for the right to determine which social classes or groups should benefit most from the financial policies of the Government.

What struck me everywhere on this second trip (to the Soviet Union) was the big change in the spirit of the people. The workers' freedom in the factories, their participation in management, the self-denying ordinance of the communists, and the enthusiasm with which things were done, had all departed in the space of six years! Whatever soul Russian communism ever had - and I had felt its impact in 1927 - Stalin's purges seemed to have obliterated. He inherited from Lenin a considerable spiritual legacy, and left behind a spiritual wilderness.

Militant anti-fascism displaced peace as the foreign policy preoccupation of the majority left, thereby depriving the peace movement of the broad base of social sympathy on which it had stood for so long... After the Spanish Civil War began, peace was no longer the vital issue of the times: fascism, and what to do about it, was.

One difficulty about the Movement was the fact that I and my colleagues on the small staff at Long Acre had ceased to be pacifists, without clearly realising the fact. Soaked in politics, we were all ardent anti-imperialists and even anti-militarists, but the real essence of pacifism, which is a positive faith, was not in us. We survived the Abyssinian War, because our loathing of Italian imperialism was balanced by an equal loathing of British and French colonial policy; and we were logical enough to see that it was absurd to demand "sanctions" against Italy unless we favoured providing rival bandits with a gendarme's baton ... The Spanish Civil War presented more complicated issues, but they were not so easy to evade.

That the materialistic decadent civilization of today led naturally and with increasing inevitability to that modern monstrosity, the totalitarian state, and that this called for a revolt - the creation of microcosms of democracy, which would eventually absorb the State. Finally it became clear to me that this creative purpose was the true way to world peace, and should therefore be regarded as the essential mission of pacifism. Hence pacifism was no longer a merely negative policy of non-resistance, but an instrument of creative peace, and incidentally a social revolution.

I grow more and more grateful to you everytime we meet in conference. I think you can hardly over-estimate the value of your contribution to the general deliberations - so few people can take the political measure of events today, and I find your conclusions so conclusive. Your little survey - over the fire on Sunday night - was a real gift to clear thinking - especially to the younger generation who know comparatively little of the historical background. And, if I may say so I do appreciate enormously the modesty with which you habitually present a case... It was yourself and Henry Carter who made the conference the success I felt it to be.

In the midst of the biggest and most devastating war in history, steps were being taken to build a more stable and enduring civilization on new foundations. By 1941 I was devoting all my time to this purpose. Every month, I spent several days at Holton Beckering to help in its work, and strengthen the faith of the men working there. In addition I visited as many of the new communities spread about the country as I could, and in the meantime wrote articles for Peace News, in whose pages Middleton Murry and I were perpetually expounding the wider aims and implications of the community concept.

The real dictator of the modern world is the machine. The power of the dictators who are now harassing mankind is derived from the productive power of the machine, as is also the power of the financial dictators. Until the machine is controlled nothing else can be controlled. The profits derived from machinery led to the worship of the machine, but also to huge surpluses of goods on the world's markets, to economic breakdown, to war and revolution. Revolution brought the dictators, whose faith in machinery exceeded that of the capitalists whom they superseded. Out of that faith came total war, with all its unspeakable horrors... The first enemy of mankind today is the uncontrolled machine... It is destroying the human person and the foundations of good living everywhere.

I learnt little about Gandhiji's industrial and economic policy until I came to India in 1949... I followed closely the development of Gandhiji's non-violent techniques. This was natural because the winning of Swaraj was the immediate and all absorbing problem and this was reported in Britain because it was connected with British politics. We also heard a good deal about such matters as Gandhiji's championing of the depressed classes, the freeing of the women of India and the opposition to caste privileges. Things like these we knew but not the details of his Constructive Programme... at Santiniketan we spent most of the time listening to the close associates of Gandhiji. We knew from them the close relationship between Gandhiji's concept of Swaraj and the principles of non-violence and his concept of a peaceful social order and how to realise it. We learnt that in Gandhiji's view war was simply the outward manifestation of inward contradictions within society and within the individual person. Thus the causes of war had to be sought in the way of life and habits of the people.

The National Council for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons Tests (NCANWT) had been formed in February 1957, whilst the Emergency Committee for Direct Action against Nuclear War (based at PNs offices in Blackstock Road) came into existence a couple of months later in April 1957, in a belated attempt to frustrate the British H-bomb test at Christmas Island by trying to send a boat into the test area. Later that year, in November, Hugh Brock suggested that the Direct Action Committee (DAC) should organise a march to Aldermaston.26 The first Aldermaston march took place the following Easter when 4000 people left Trafalgar Square on the four day journey to the atomic weapons establishment. By this time NCANWT had handed over its funds, files and organiser (Peggy Duff) to a new campaign - the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). This took place at a meeting held on 16 January 1958 with Canon Collins and a group which he was later to depict as the "prima donnas of the campaigning business": they included the editor of the New Statesman Kingsley Martin, Bertrand Russell, Michael Foot, Sir Richard Acland, Ritchie Calder and Rose MacAulay.

During 1958 the number of nuclear tests throughout the world reached almost one hundred, double the figure of 1957, and Britain agreed with the USA to build four bases in East Anglia for sixty Thor missiles. One of these bases was at Swaffham in Norfolk, and it was there in December 1958 that the first major action involving civil disobedience organised by the DAC took place - forty-five demonstrators were arrested for blocking the entrance to the site and thirty of them spent Christmas in jail, including Hugh Brock and Christopher Farley of PN, Pat Arrowsmith, April Carter, Michael Randle, Michael Scott, and Will Warren.

So the pattern was set for the next few years - with the DAC eventually giving way to the Committee of 100's campaign of mass "sit-downs" leading up to the "National Day of Civil Disobedience" on 9 December 1961, when 5000 people took part in actions at the Wethersfield, Brize Norton and Ruislip airbases, and in supporting demonstrations in Bristol, Cardiff, York and Manchester, resulting in the arrest of over 800 - including six leading figures charged under the Official Secrets Act on 8 December. Meanwhile CND continued along the more constitutional path oforganising public meetings and rallies - including the annual Easter march from Aldermaston - and seeking to win over the Labour Party to unilateralism.

I do my best mental work in those early hours. My brain runs into a fever almost the moment I awaken, presents me with a platter of ideas which compel me to rise...

As I write, before the window which looks on to the lawn, I look out on a fine array of roses and at the back of these an arc of conifers, rhododendrons and flowering shrubs, which shut out the lane beyond. It is lovely and quiet, and I can write in peace without any obtrusions of any kind.

For one thing, Fanny has steadily lost her sight and also her (short-term) memory, which together have greatly reduced our leisure and made it increasingly difficult to maintain a steady correspondence with our many friends.

Recently it has been made possible to remedy that situation by the fact that our Local Authority has decided to build some bungalows for the sole use of elderly people who really needed them. As I am turned 90 and Fanny is 88 we possessed a major claim to one of these bungalows, while since I am president of the elderly people's club and took an interest in promoting the welfare of such people, the committee felt I would be of great help in developing a community spirit in this new community project ... This situation frees us from a lot of uncertainties and other worries and enables us to enter upon a new way of life with free minds. I feel we can surmount the ills of old age with much less worry than would otherwise be the case.