Crewe and Nantwich Friends were grateful for the opportunity to join with other Quakers to explore Manchester’s peace history and thank Gill Alcock for organising the trip.
Joan Sharples writes:
It was a short - ninety minute - walk from a second-hand statue of Engels to Manchester’s Peace Garden, but it introduced us to many aspects of Manchester’s history, highlighting connections with the struggle for peace and social justice.
Steve, our guide, a long-standing CND activist, enthralled us with stories of individuals and movements.
There were stories of local people: a bust - made from weapons - of Black woman, Ermina Bell, recognised for her work on combatting gun crime in the city; Elizabeth Raffald, eighteenth century writer on cookery and midwifery; and Yomi Mambu, the first Black Lord Mayor of an English city.
It was at the Peterloo memorial that I found my personal connection with history: people from Irlam and Eccles had walked to Manchester in August 1819 to ask for the right to vote. My mum was born in Irlam. Her parents had married in Eccles.
Many national and international figures had had links with Manchester: Ghandi, Abraham Lincoln, Karl Marx, Alan Turing, John Bright, the Pankhursts and many more. The library housed a memorial to the people of Manchester who had served in the International Brigade. At the cenotaph, I noticed recently laid flowers honouring Polish dead in the Second World War. The legacy of violence continues.
Walking past the edge of a protest for ceasefire in Gaza brought us sharply back to the present, as did the sculpture of the homeless Jesus outside St Ann’s church.
So many different contexts. So many examples of people trying to change the world: putting peace into practice. ‘When we plant trees, we plant the seeds of peace and seeds of hope’: words of Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Wangari Maathai, which form part of the Peace Garden. The ginkgo trees grown from seeds given to Manchester by Hiroshima inspire and challenge me in my own walk of peace.
More information on Manchester Peace Trail at www.discoverpeace.eu
