Sheila Hancock. Photo: Photo courtesy of Jaine Rose.
Eye - 24 January 2014
Knit-ins and purls for peace
Knitting yarns Sheila Hancock is one of many Quakers to take up her knitting needles and purl for peace. Jaine Rose, organiser of the Wool Against Weapons campaign, paid her a visit: ‘She told us that she was on the original Aldermaston march in the fifties, as a young woman, and was very supportive of Wool Against Weapons, thinking it a grand idea, being a knitter herself.’ Wool Against Weapons (www.woolagainstweapons.co.uk) is a campaign that aims to knit a seven-mile pink peace scarf for use in a direct action protest in August, when it will be unrolled between the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) sites of Aldermaston and Burghfield in Berkshire.
Following the stir Oxford Quaker Knitters caused in their local newspaper (see ‘Knitting against nukes’ 11 October 2013), Friends around the country have been letting Eye know about their industrious contributions to the epic scarf. The garden lounge at Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre has been bedecked in pink and several Meetings have held ‘knit-ins’, including Hartshill Meeting.
Jane Carr wrote to tell us more about the event, which grew from Rae Ritchie’s suggestion ‘that we encourage local knitters to help Hartshill Meeting encircle the Meeting house in various shades of woolly pink.’ She said ‘it was wonderful how many lapsed knitters took up their needles again… age and distance were no obstacle – from nine to ninety they knitted.’ The day of the knit-in ‘surpassed all our hopes, with knitters coming from every part of our area; Quakers but, as importantly, others who were also anxious to make their own quiet protest then and there against the deployment of Trident.’
Jaine Rose told Eye that ‘Quakers have been absolutely marvellous in their support… I am so full of admiration and appreciation for the way in which [they] are networking the project, spreading the word and picking up their needles to knit for peace. I couldn’t have done without them over the last year’.
The campaign, already supported by Action AWE, has also gained the backing of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). Kate Hudson, CND’s general secretary, said they are ‘proud to support this vibrant and creative campaign’. They will be providing logisitical and media support, as well as awareness raising.
The day of the protest has been changed from 16 to 9 August. Kate Hudson explains: ‘The timing, which coincides with commemoration of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki on 9 August 1945, will provide a powerful and high-profile symbolic protest against the government’s plans to replace the UK’s Trident nuclear weapons system.’
The scarf won’t go to waste after the protest as it will be repurposed into blankets for hospices, emergency areas and war zones.
Jaine says: ‘We are not all front liners. But, in my experience, knitters can be a feisty bunch… By picking up our needles and crochet hooks we are directly engaging in the idea of protest. Of having a voice. Of saying “listen up people, this is not what I want. Let’s change it.”’
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