(1) Elaine Robson-Scott was a schoolteacher in Wales during the Second World War. She wrote about her war experiences in Jonathan Croall's book, Don't You Know There's A War On (1989)

One day, shortly after the fall of France in May 1940, the headmistress came into the common room where the teachers were assembled, and said that the local authority had given her a document for each of us, which she then distributed, and asked us to read. I thought I had never read anything so crazy in all my life. The document consisted of three questions. The first was, 'Are you a member of the Peace Pledge Union?' The second was, 'Are you likely to be a member of the fifth column?' And the third was, 'Are you in favour of the successful prosecution of the war?' I thought to myself, 'Well, if one is a member of the Peace Pledge Union, they will have a list of members somewhere,' so there would be no point in disguising the fact. If one was a member of a fifth column, the last thing one would do would be to say, 'Yes, I am a member of a fifth column.' And of course even-one there was anxious that the war should be brought to a successful end.

So, in the quiet of my place in that common room, I decided that I would refuse to sign. We were all given time to look at the document, and the headmistress asked us to bring them signed to her study at the end of the afternoon. She went out of the room. There was a long silence, and then I said to the woman sitting next to me, who I suspected might have feelings similar to mine, 'I'm not going to sign it.' I didn't give any explanation, I just said, 'It seems to me the most ridiculous document I've been presented with in my life.' And then, out of a staff of about forty, five of us refused to sign. One was a member of the Peace Pledge Union, but the others were not, and they all had varying reasons for refusing. I felt that we should offer no explanation for our refusal, but there was one very intelligent woman, who taught history and who had studied in America, and who was very articulate. She said that we ought to sum up our reasons, and say that one of the reasons why we were refusing to sign was that this kind of investigation of the political and religious views of any member of a teaching staff in Britain had been finished long ago. So we did that. Against my will, we did draw up some small statement of that kind, and the five of us took our unsigned documents to the headmistress.

Though I had never thought of her as very liberal, she was in sympathy with us. She didn't reveal whether she was presented with the same document herself, but she accepted our unsigned ones, and said that she would notify the local authority that she had five members of staff w ho were not going to sign. And I think the five of us w ho refused to sign were her most valued members of staff, and this must have struck her, so she was in greater sympathy than I had expected. She did inform the local authority, and the one woman who did belong to the Peace Pledge Union was suspended, I think on full pay, for about two months, while they sorted out the position. There were I should say ten or twelve men and women in the town who belonged to the Peace Pledge Union, and they were all suspended.

 

(2) Sidney Greaves was a member of the Quakers in Sutton Coldfield. A conscientious objector, he was sentenced to six months in Wormwood Scrubs Prison after refusing to serve in the armed forces.

It was while I was working in London that I had to spend six months in Wormwood Scrubs, for refusing to accept a condition. I went up to Bow Street, which was the top joint. I had a rather benign but stern little magistrate called Sir Bernard Watson. I made my statement as to why 1 thought war was incompatible with Christianity, and why I refused to accept a condition, that I felt conscience should be respected. He listened to it, and then sent me down. At both my tribunal and appeal, I felt that the authorities were going through the motions, I don't think there was any attempt to discuss my point of view with me, or probe. They just listened and said, 'Nothing doing.'

My sentence was hard labour, which was supposed to involve sleeping for the first fortnight on bare boards. But they forgot to take my mattress away, so it wasn't anything but in name. We were locked up in the early evening, about half past five, and let out again about seven in the morning. There were the usual appalling unsanitary conditions, with a bucket in the cell. Slopping out in the morning was a dreadful experience, faeces and urine everywhere.

The warders on the whole were hostile to COs. People who were in for robbery with violence got much more respect from them. They made it very clear that we were regarded as the scum. There was a subdued patriotic bias. One or two of the screws were better, but by and large that was the attitude.

 

(3) Vera Brittain, Testament of Experience (1979)

Ever since Armistice Day 1918 had found me alone, with my young and dear contemporaries gone, I had been trying to understand why they died. Was not the unthinking acceptance of an aggressive or short-sighted national policy, followed by mass-participation in sociable war-time activities, one of the ingredients which created a militant psychology and made shooting wars possible? I had studied their consequences too, and knew how rapid a deterioration of civilised values followed the initial nobility and generosity, until the Christian virtues themselves came to be regarded with derision.

Surely the path which I had trodden for two decades now summoned me to struggle against that catastrophic process? Though I still underrated the cost of such a stand, I knew that the routine performance of dangerous duties would be stimulating and congenial compared with the exhausting demands of independent thought and the task of maintaining, against the deceptive surge of popular currents, a conscious realisation of what was actually happening.

And where, apart from the usual writings and speeches, could I newly begin? An idea suddenly came from my endeavours to answer the daily quota of letters from unknown correspondents which had increased so rapidly since the outbreak of war. Some wanted to help others to be helped; all were eager to stop hostilities. One correspondent hopefully suggested that the women of the world should immediately unite, and call a truce.

By means of a regular published letter I could not only reply to these anxious, bewildered people, but seek out and rally such independent-minded commentators as the author who wrote to deplore the lack of vision among Britain's rulers.

A periodic word to similar correspondents, if based on determined research behind the news, could elucidate vital issues for the doubting, galvanise the discouraged, and assure the isolated that ' they were not alone. Its title, I thought, might be Letter to Peace Lovers, for the group that I hoped to reach was much wider than the small bodies of organised war-resisters.

 

(4) Circular sent out to people considering subscribing to Letters to Peace Lovers (1939)

What I do want is to consider and discuss with you the ideas, principles and problems which have concerned genuine peace-lovers for the past twenty years. In helping to sustain the spirits of my readers (and through writing to them to invigorate my own). I hope to play a small part in keeping the peace movement together during the dark hours before us. By constantly calling on reason to mitigate passion, and truth to put falsehood to shame, I shall try, so far as one person can, to stem the tide of hatred which in wartime rises so quickly that many of us are engulfed before we realise it.

In a word, I want to help in the important task of keeping alive decent values at a time when these are undergoing the maximum strain.

My only object is to keep in close personal touch with all who are deeply concerned that war shall end and peace return and who understand what Johan Bojer meant when he wrote: "I went and sowed corn in mine enemy's field that God might exist".

 

(5) Vera Brittain, Letters to Peace Lovers (25th October, 1939)

Even supposing that we do destroy Hitler, we shall not again be confronted by a Europe agreeably free from competitors for power. The disappearance of Herr Hitler will probably lead instead to a revolutionary situation in Germany, controlled by puppets who own allegiance to another Power. We, the democracies, will still be faced by totalitarianism, in a form less clumsy but no less aggressive, and even more sinister in its ruthless unexhausted might.