Hiroshima Day in London: Most years when I’m in London on August 6th, Hiroshima Day, I go to the annual commemoration in Tavistock Square, and that on 6th August 2011 was memorable, with an address by Hetty Bower along with speeches by others including Tony Benn, Bruce Kent and others as well as poetry and song.
The ceremony on 6th August is organised by London Region CND and takes place at noon close to the Hiroshima Cherry Tree planted by then Mayor of Camden Millie Miller “in memory of the victims, past and present, of the atomic bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki“. Everyone is welcome to come today.
That tree has had to be replaced after being killed by fungus, and last year I took part in the planting of its replacement, a new Prunus ‘Kanzan’ cherry tree planted on the 80th anniversary of the first nuclear attack.
As well as the bomb which devastated Hiroshima on August 6th 1945, three days later a second bomb was exploded over Nagasaki.
There will be a Pax Christi Ecumenical Service at 4pm on Sunday August 9, 2026 at Holy Redeemer Catholic Church, Cheyne Row for the 83rd anniversary of the death of Blessed Franz Jagerstatter who was executed in 1943 for refusing to serve in Hitler’s army. After this there will be a peace walk at 5pm to the London Peace Pagoda in Battersea Park for the annual Nagasaki Day commemoration ceremony, beginning at 6pm.
Hosting the commemoration will be Reverend Gyoro Nagase of the Nipponzan Myohoji Buddhist order.
At a moment when countries across Europe including the UK are increasing spending on arms and Russia is still at war with Ukraine it seems more important than ever to remember the dangers of nuclear war.
You can read more detail about the ceremony in 2011 on My London Dairy and much more about the terrible events both in other posts here and on My London Diary. If you’ve never read John Hersey’s Hiroshima, first published in August 1946 as a complete issue of New Yorker magazine and here 3 months later as a Penguin paperback, it remains a compelling read and has never since been out of print. Hersey insisted all copyright fees were donated to the American Red cross.
Here I’ll just repeat one paragraph from what I wrote in 2011 about the remarkable Hetty Bower (1905-2013):
“Hetty Bower started her anti-war campaign in 1914 when she was almost nine. She got an extra holiday from school when the premises were used as a recruiting centre, but at she said “it didn’t take this young schoolgirl very long for the reality of war to become evident. This child saw men with one trouser leg rolled up because there was no human leg to go in it…” She held up a photograph of her great grandchild, one year old on Tuesday (Nagasaki Day) and said that she wanted “him to grow up and live in a world of peace.” It was a remarkably powerful performance for a 105 year old who still takes part in every major anti-war march.”
Much more on My London Diary at Hiroshima Day in London.
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