Pensioners stage peace vigil in memory of Hiroshima victims.
PENSIONERS held Honiton’s first peace vigil to mark the bombing of Hiroshima.
Pensioners for Peace gathered outside St Paul’s Church last Friday in memory of the victims of the 1945 attack.
The peace activists met at 8.16am, the exact time the bomb was dropped, and stood around a banner with John Lennon’s words ‘Give peace a chance’, which was followed by a short service conducted by Canon Richard Saunders.
Tony Simpson, a joint organiser of the event, said: “The peace vigil has been a great success.
“Many people visited including a lady who told us her brother had been in Hiroshima with the RAF after the bomb had dropped and she thought her brother had died because of the after effects of the atomic bomb as did 100,00 people who are called the Hibakushu in Japan.”
Visitors also used a peace notice board listing their own ideas for peace.
Retired Methodist minister Reverend Merfyn Temple said: “It’s time for ordinary people to stand up and be counted and say enough is enough.”
A peace pole is to be erected at Honiton Baptist Church.
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