Conscientious objectors' newspaper, Winchester prison

[Moonraker]

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BBC TV South

regional news last night.

Moonraker

[Magnumbellum]

The piece is not only about the Winchester Whisperer, but about its co-founder, my friend Harold Bing, who sadly died in 1975, a year after the IWM recorded interview from which the piece is largely taken.

Harold was a redoubtable man, not only being told at the age of 18 that he was too young to declare himself a conscientious objector (oddly, 18 was apparently not too young to be called up to be trained to kill), but at age 16 he walked with his father from Croydon to Trafalgar Square to hear Keir Hardie speak at the rally on 2 August 1914, while the Cabinet was debating in Downing Street whether to go to war, which they did two days later.

Harold's father had campaigned against the Boer War, and Harold's two sisters, Phyllis and Dorothy, joined in activity against WW1.