The sound of bagpipes played by kilted Scotsman Murdo White rang out at Leominster Station on 24 October as Mayor Jenny Bartlett joined local well-wishers to welcome “the Peace Train.”
Members of Hereford Peace Council rode the train along the Welsh borders collecting letters and petitions at each station demanding the UK joins international moves to ban nuclear weapons.
Last year 122 countries called for nuclear weapons to be made illegal and for a diplomatic process to begin to universally eradicate them.
ICAN (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons) received the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for its work in getting this overwhelming majority of United Nations countries to agree to The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
However, the UK did not and does not intend to sign this treaty.
On the train, as the carriage doors opened at Leominster, leading UK peace campaigner Rebecca Johnson (pictured) held up the Nobel peace medal she received. It was a perfect day – Wednesday, October 24 – United Nations Day, part of Disarmament Week. The clear message of the letters and petitions being taken on to London, to the House of Commons, was “It’s time to get peace back on track.”
Said Jenny Bartlett: “It was all too brief but Leominster gave the Peace Train a great welcome – thanks to Leominster’s own piper Murdo White and all those who turned out including rector Rev Mike Kneen and town crier Richard Brookman.”