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Pity of War is a charity to raise awareness of the impact of war on civilians.
Aims
We aim to reach this goal in two ways:
1. We are raising money for a memorial statue in the National Memorial Arboretum, which we are commissioning from the sculptor Peter Walker. We are now close to our fundraising goal.
See an account of our recent site visit here and reflections on the year’s progress here.
2. The more important part of the project is that we plan to find and host resources to help educate people, especially young people, about the impact of war.
Origins
A Shropshire Quaker, Joyce Gee, lived through the Blitz as a young girl. Aged thirteen, she wrote of her experiences. This included the house next door but one sustaining a direct hit. The blast killed the two people who lived there.
As a much older person, she visited the National Memorial Arboretum near Lichfield, Staffordshire. She reflected that there were many military memorials, but nothing to honour the millions of civilians who had died or suffered, directly or indirectly, as a result of war. She raised a concern with her local Quaker meeting. Things kept growing from there. Joyce died in 2018, knowing that the NMA had accepted our application for a memorial and having seen the maquette (i.e. miniature model) of the statue.
This charitable trust has no religious or political affiliations, and we set it up in 2019 to achieve Joyce’s vision. People from many walks of life have found it reflects their feelings.
‘Is it only through suffering that men begin to question the ways of war and peace?’ Joyce Gee
Plans
This is an organic project, we are developing it as we learn, so why not come back from time to time to see what changes we have made!
Jeff Beatty, Kit Byatt and Linda Murray Hale, trustees.
Find a model near you…
Please look on the ‘The sculpture‘ page to see a list of the maquettes (bronze model replicas) on permanent display at seven sites around the UK, and world! Here’s a video of a maquette (model) of the sculpture, and a reflection about its meaning by Dr Johan van Parys, Director of Liturgy and the Sacred Arts at the Basilica of Saint Mary, Minneapolis.