1.5 The Aldermaston Marches with Stuart Evers, Michael Randle and Mai Chatham

The Comma Press Podcast

Hosted by Ra Page of Comma Press, a Manchester-based independent publisher specialising in the short story. Stuart Evers is the author of a number of novels and short story collections, and writes about books regularly for The Guardian, The Independent and The Observer. Michael Randle has been involved in peace work as an activist and academic since registering as a conscientious objector to military service in 1952. He was a member of the Aldermaston March Committee which organised the first March at Easter 1958. He has a PhD in Peace Studies from the University of Bradford. Mai Chatham was born in London but now lives in Manchester. She joined CND in 1957, influenced by her parents who were founder members of the Chingford branch. She joined them on the first Aldermaston march & subsequently founded the Chingford YCND group & was on the YCND national committee. She has been involved in non-violent direct action & arrested several times and also served a very short prison sentence. She’s still active in my local peace group & a member of CND. Published in 2017, Protest: Stories of Resistance assembled twenty authors to re-imagine key moments of British protest from the last eight centuries. Written in close consultation with historians, sociologists and eye-witnesses - who also contribute afterwords - these stories follow fictional characters caught up in real-life struggles. Notes: 1) Gandhi’s Salt March https://www.history.com/news/gandhis-salt-march-85-years-ago 2) The CND Logo https://cnduk.org/the-cnd-logo/ 3) Peace News https://www.peacenews.info/ 4) Harry Mister https://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/feb/06/guardianobituaries.politics 5) Suez Crisis https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/suez-crisis 6) Partisan Coffee House https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/apr/22/cafe-cnd-new-left 7) New Left Review https://newleftreview.org/ 8) Hugh Brock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Brock 9) Children of Hiroshima (1952 film) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044497/ 10) Pat Arrowsmith https://cnduk.org/60-faces-pat-arrowsmith/ 11) Anti-Polaris demos at Holy Loch https://cnduk.org/peoples-history-of-cnd-protesting-on-holy-loch/ 12) ‘The Blind Light’ by Stuart Evers (single story eBook) https://amzn.to/2GewFwO 13) Spies for Peace http://www.bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/21cc/counterculture/civildisobedience/spiesforpeace/spiesforpeace.html 14) Committee of 100 https://cnduk.org/peoples-history-of-cnd-the-committee-of-100/ 15) War Resisters International https://www.wri-irg.org/en 16) March to Aldermaston (1959 film) http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/533592/index.html 17) Eliza Manningham-Buller https://www.mi5.gov.uk/eliza-manningham-buller-baroness-manningham-buller 18) Stansted 15 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/16/migrants-deportation-stansted-actvists 19) Faslane 365 https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/oct/02/nuclear.scotland 20) Youth protests against climate change https://www.theguardian.com/environment/live/2019/mar/15/climate-strikes-2019-live-latest-climate-change-global-warming 21) The Coming War on China by John Pilger (2016 film) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6197028/ Produced and edited by Becca Parkinson.