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A woman in a blue dress stands to the left of the memorial and a man in black trousers, jacket and shirt on its right. The background is woodland.
Katy and Peter Walker stand by the unveiled memorial.

STOP PRESS: The memorial has been installed and officially unveiled!

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 have now installed a memorial statue in the National Memorial Arboretum, commissioned from the sculptor Peter Walker. The Lord-Lieutenant of Staffordshire, Ian Dudson, unveiled the sculpture memorial at the formal opening ceremony on 24 June 2024.

2. Now, what is in many ways the more important part of the project can start. We plan to find, develop and host resources to help educate people, especially young people, about the impact of war on civilians. Sadly, there are currently in the media all too many examples around the world of civilians either being killed or suffering from the impact of wars.

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.

We established this charitable trust in 2019 in order to deliver Joyce’s vision. The trust has no religious or political affiliations, and 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

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 on permanent display at 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.