The Crane's Story

Amongst my collection of little household gods is this origami crane. It was folded by Kate, one of the people on the course that I attended at Woodbrooke in September. Over the three days of the course she made one for each of us and gave them to us at the end of it - a beautiful reminder of all that we shared together.

And she told us the story of Sadako Sasaki, a little girl who was two years old when the atomic bomb was dropped near her home in Hiroshima. When she contracted leukaemia as a result of this, she used her time in hospital to fold paper cranes, remembering the ancient Japanese story that promises that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish. To this day she is a symbol of innocent victims of war, and a statue of Sadako holding a golden crane stands in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. At the foot of the statue is a plaque that reads:

"This is our cry. This is our prayer. Peace in the world."