Novelist speaks on Quaker aid in Spanish civil war

'Maggie Brookes described how ‘a tiny handful of dedicated British Quakers saved the lives of countless children during the Spanish civil war.'

The novelist Maggie Brookes discussed her new book about Quaker aid in the Spanish civil war in Friends House last week.

Launching her novel Acts of Love and War, Maggie Brookes talked to historian and professor Farah Mendlesohn, whose PhD inspired the novel. Together the two discussed methods of research for academic work and fiction, as well as the bravery of men and women who set off into a dangerous war zone to save the lives of children on both sides of the war. Their actions contributed to the Quakers being given the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1947, and set precedents for many humanitarian aid missions since.

Writing in the Friend last year (see ‘Milk and human kindness’, 11 August 2023) Maggie Brookes described how ‘a tiny handful of dedicated British Quakers saved the lives of countless children during the Spanish civil war. They stepped in during the autumn of 1936 as refugees began to trek north, escaping the advance of Franco’s fascist army. Madrid was under heavy bombardment, and trainloads of women and children headed towards Barcelona’.

The event took place on 25 January.

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