Thanks to Linda for sharing this report from last Monday’s Hiroshima memorial day. In her own words, Ed
To mark Hiroshima memorial day, 6,000 peace cranes, a cherry stone from the peace tree at Coppins Bridge, Newport (where a memorial was held by CND for Hiroshima on Saturday), were taken along to Ryde sands where the thoughts of healing and peace imbued in the cranes could be carried out to sea.
Rain clouds held off and the morning warmed, a quiet spot in front of Harcourt Sands was chosen.
The tractor driver working along the beach took a break, and dogs and their owners drifted along.
An inquisitive pug trotted across one of the large mandalas made up of 1,000 cranes spreading sand into all the tiny folds of paper. Some of the more flimsy cards holding the cranes were caught by the wind and carried tumbling across the beach.
Two South African ladies stopped to take a closer look and find out more, taking photos and kindly offering to share their picnic before moving along the beach.
Another lady walking her two dachshunds told us about her life and peace work; helping at a leper colony and supporting the women protesters camped at Greenham common nuclear site.
Now a pensioner her peace activism has had to take on a more local form. We held a minutes silence, and a short reading was given.
Although the time didn’t correspond with when the Atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima (8.15am) when many families in Japan would have been eating breakfast, it did have its own poignancy as it was the same time as the second Atomic bomb fell on the 9th August on Nagasaki just after 11am.
We left to walk back along the path through Appley Park and saw someone had been out drawing their own commemoration of Hiroshima in chalk on the walkway.
Younger generations may not be aware of what happened in Japan on those fateful days in 1945, it’s often excluded from coverage of world war two. However they will probably be aware of the Fukushima disaster, and the deadly legacy nuclear accidents and nuclear bombs leave, and the importance of promoting peace, not harm.
For more information on the events of 6th and 9th of August 1945, and of peace efforts see www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp
