Ban the Bomb!. Martin Levy

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СКАЧАТЬ year. However, to avoid a confrontation I didn’t tell my dad. I just gave in my notice and left. Then I took on another job as an orderly in a children’s hospital in the Banstead Heath area.

      Every morning I would go through this pantomime of leaving the house for the London train at the usual time, but walk instead to the hospital. But then, eventually, he found out. Talk about the shit hitting the fan. My God!

      Then, when that one finished, I applied for a job at Tribune and then for another one with a local newspaper. But I was very naive. In the latter case, I didn’t even sign the letter. I remember receiving this very snotty reply, something along the lines of thank you for your unsigned letter, but we’re sorry to tell you that there’s no vacancy here [laughs].

      But, anyway, I suppose that what I really wanted to be was a writer. I used to go home in the evenings and write a bit. I even published an article in a magazine for young people. But then other things took over.

2. The Birth of a Satyagrahi

       Michael, you mentioned in our last conversation that like many young people you wanted to be a writer. Any favourite authors after Sir Walter Scott and Henty?

      Aldous Huxley. I read several of his books and really liked them.

       Why?

      Well, for starters I liked Huxley’s style. Then, he put forward a quite radical view of politics and life which I found sympathetic.

      Did any particular books appeal to you? One title that I have in mind is Ape and Essence, his post-nuclear apocalypse novel of 1948.

      I don’t remember reading that. I did, however, read Brave New World, but some time later. No, the Huxley book that I read then and which stuck with me wasn’t a novel at all, but an anthology of readings from the mystics. It was called The Perennial Philosophy. I was profoundly influenced by it.

       On the subject of religion, were you still a Catholic at this point? I take it that you’d been confirmed.

      I’ve mentioned already my father’s return to Anglicanism. Well, as time went by I too became very critical, not just of the clericalism, but also of the hierarchical side of Catholicism. In part I came to these opinions myself, but then I was also hugely influenced by a very good friend of my father’s, a Dr Errington Kerr, who came from somewhere in the West Indies and practiced as a GP in North Cheam. Dr Kerr had also had a Catholic upbringing, but he had become a convinced atheist. I remember him saying that though he was still attracted to the ritual and to the music, he didn’t believe in God. And I think that that was more or less where I ended up. Even today, I’m moved by plainchant and other choral religious music. So, I suppose, at that level only, once a Catholic always a Catholic!

      Anyway, yes, I was confirmed, and at that time and for some time after leaving school I remained a Catholic.

       What made you decide to be a conscientious objector?

      There were a number of things. But certainly talking to Dr Kerr was one of them. Kerr was a conscientious objector himself. He was also a vegetarian.

       What about your father’s influence? Wasn’t that also important?

      Yes indeed. In fact, it was my father who encouraged me to talk to Dr Kerr in the first place. And then my mother too played a role. I particularly remember having a conversation with her about the use of flamethrowers that set your enemy on fire. She said, ‘You can’t possibly agree to that.’ But it was Dr Kerr who was the main influence.

       Did your parents join the Peace Pledge Union (PPU) or any of the other pacifist organisations?

      No, I don’t think either of them ever did that. Neither of them were really joiners. But on the matter of conscientious objection my father certainly had strong views as he had registered as a conscientious objector himself. I would say that my mother was anti-war on moral and humanitarian grounds.

       I used to think that your pacifism stemmed from your feelings about the bomb.

      Well, yes, that was a central consideration. In fact, in the first draft of my statement applying for recognition as a conscientious objector I did not take a totally pacifist position but argued that nuclear weapons were indiscriminate and contravened just war principles. But, really, I think it was discussing the matter with Dr Kerr that was the tipping point on the issue. When the A-bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki I was in Ireland and I was hardly aware of what had occurred. On my return to England I did speak about it to one of my aunts, my father’s sister, Margery, who told me how it had destroyed a whole city. But only later on did I think, ‘Oh, my God’. And then, of course, I had another reason to think a lot more deeply about pacifism and conscientious objection. The Cold War had begun and there was a lot of talk of war with Russia.

       Let’s go back a bit now. Surely there must have been some discussion of conscription at school?

      No, I can’t say there was. We knew, of course, that at a certain age you were expected to go into the army or into one of the other services for eighteen months or two years or whatever it was. But, really, I was very naive. In fact, one of the other boys told me he didn’t think it was possible to be a conscientious objector in peacetime.

       You discussed political and moral issues more generally though?

      Of course, we were Catholics after all. Morals were a very important part of the curriculum. I remember when the 1950 elections came up—this is about politics now—, I took part in a school debate with a boy called Pat Chambers, who went on to work for The Daily Telegraph. He spoke from the top table and I spoke from the floor, but both of us for the Labour Party. As was the custom, there was a vote both before and after the debate and the only boy to vote with us at the beginning changed his vote at the end! Then I remember one master saying to me, ‘You, Michael, could argue the hind legs off a donkey’, because I was always getting into these long discussions. Another teacher, a priest, Father Dean, ‘Dixie Dean’, used to call me Karl Marx, so you could say that I had quite a reputation.

       Do you have any regrets now that you didn’t join up? After all, it wasn’t all bull and the real possibility of fighting in Korea or somewhere in the empire. I’ve spoken to others of your generation who have described their National Service as amongst the best years of their lives, not least for exposing them to people from different backgrounds.

      Not in the least. Arthur did his National Service though. He was deferred whilst studying at the London Polytechnic, and then joined the army. I remember receiving a very friendly letter from him in which he said that he was finding the life that I’d rejected very interesting and how amused he was at all the nonsense of shouting sergeant majors and so on and at how the tears would well up in the young lads’ eyes. But, of course, he’d been to public school, so he’d been well prepared! If I remember rightly, he reached the rank of sergeant himself.

       You did join the PPU didn’t you? Was that before or after you registered as an objector?

      I don’t know for certain, but I think that it was probably a little earlier. I registered, I think, sometime late in 1951. Yes, I think it would have been before that.

       What about the Central Board for Conscientious Objectors, Fenner Brockway’s outfit? Did you receive any advice from that?

      Yes, СКАЧАТЬ