Peace March

I have cheated today and given Mum an extra blip for her birthday yesterday.

When she visited Australia in 1984, we went on the Palm Sunday Peace March in Sydney. These ecumenical marches have been held for decades now. I can’t find a figure for 1984, but in 1985, 170,000 people marched in Sydney and 300,000 around Australia. (As the extra shows, we got a bit tired!)

Mum held very strong pacifist beliefs. Shortly before she visited us in 1984 she had become a Quaker, reflecting her abhorrence of war and especially her opposition to the Falklands War which took place under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1982.

Today that march seems particularly appropriate as a blip subject. We are hoping that the shaky ceasefire between Israel and Hamas will hold, after eleven days of insanity. Mum would say, I think, that war is never an answer, and the world doesn’t learn.