[start of Side A]
Liz: So, when did you decide that you were definitely going to be a Conscientious Objector, I mean how long was it before you were called up and how long did you have to think about it?
Frank: I suppose I was brought up in a pacifist household, and therefore, it was inbred to a large extent. We were a Methodist family, and I worked within the Church, Methodist Church. At one point, when I was quite young, I’d been a Sunday School teacher for a while. And since the previous Superintendent of the Sunday School was called up, I was Superintendent of the Sunday School. So, a lot of it of course is Christian origin, and the fact we did grow up in the atmosphere of anti-war, I don’t think I would really have had any other course, I never thought of any other course.
Liz: You never questioned that you might actually…
Frank: No, not that I would ever go and kill, because this was the basis of it all, to inflict suffering on other people, is totally against upbringing.
Liz: And yet the Superintendent of the Sunday School prior to you, had gone.
Frank: He had gone. Yes.
Liz: Did that not make you think?
Frank: No, uhhm, perhaps what made me think more was that my, first, well adopted cousin really, who was 6 years older, with whom I had a very close bond, he was against fighting but he did, I don’t think he actually had to go before a Tribunal, maybe he did, I don’t remember that, but he did not go into the Armed Services, but went into the Royal Army Medical Corps. And, I thought well this was supporting it too closely. So I mean [??]
Liz: mmmh.
Frank: I’d be 18 when I got my Call Up papers, and that would be 1939. No wait a minute, it might have been a little bit later, because the war had been in operation for a while before I actually got the papers. I was working as a journeyman joiner, and this was, to some extent on house building but to a large extent on house repairs. And the, the boss of this small firm was, he accepted the fact that I was a Conscientious Objector, and didn’t make any fuss, until…
Liz: Ok, so the boss of building firm was somewhat sympathetic.
Frank: He wasn’t sympathetic, but he accepted it, and it was, his eldest son was, he’d gone to the Air Force, and then later I think it was after Call Up papers had been issued, that the youngest son also went into the Air Force. And when I finished my apprenticeship, I served that for 7 years, no 6 years, a 6 year apprenticeship, then, when I was 21 he said he couldn’t really accept me as an employee when both his sons were serving in the Forces. I got the push.
Liz: Was he quite nice about that?
Frank: Uhhm, reasonable, it was reasonable. It wasn’t warm.
Liz: Was it a surprise to you?
Frank: [pause] Not entirely, although, [laughs] to a large extent I’d been running the Timber Yard for him as well as doing the joinery work, because the Tipper Yard man had also gone into the Forces, so that, I suppose I felt a little bit disappointed that that wasn’t accepted that I’d been helping him out and that. But no, I wasn’t really surprised. And then of course I had to go along to the Employment Exchange, and, I don’t remember what the first job was that they offered me, but it was certainly something connected with working for the Forces, as a joiner, because I’d been given a conditional acceptance that I was a C.O., that I continue in my present occupation. And, uhhh, I turned down this job at the Employment Exchange
Liz: You can’t remember what it was?
Frank: I can’t remember what that one was. So, the immediate response to that is “oh well you don’t get any Employment Benefit for 6 weeks” and this happened on another occasion, then I was asked to go locally to fit out a Telephone Exchange. And I accepted that, worked on that. When I was nearing completion of that job, the man said “oh I would like you to come down and do similar work on a building at one of the Army Barracks down South”. So of course I turned that one down, and got the similar response from the Employment Agency, that, “oh well you’re out of benefit for another 6 weeks”.
Liz: So how many times did you lose benefit?
Frank: Three, or four, I suppose it was three. And then the next proposal was to go and work at Grimsby and Cleethorpes where they’d just had a bomb raid and they were wanting joiners to do work on repairs, so that was quite acceptable. When we’d finished all the repairs, there was a call, at that stage they’d just started sending the Flying Bombs over, V-2 and V-1, and we had a call for Volunteers, I suppose this went out all over the country, generally, and quite a number of the men on the firm I was working for, also volunteered. So we went down, as a unit.
Liz: And this was to rehabilitate following…
Frank: This was to build repairs and, yes, whenever there was an incident we were there the next morning, putting back doors, covering up windows, replacing roofs etc.
Liz: And the unit you went down with, were other people within that unit C.O.’s?
Frank: No. There was one. One was a Jehovah’s Witness. I’m afraid I didn’t really agree with him a lot [laughs] on a lot of things, but.
Liz: Bad luck, wasn’t it?
Frank: We didn’t [laughs], we didn’t get together at all, really.
Liz: How many were you, in the unit?
Frank: Uhh, it would probably be 15 to 20 men, something like that. This is builders and joiners.
Liz: What, so, the other men, how come they weren’t called up?
Frank: Most of them were over the age of Call Up. Part of them were Irish, who’d come over to work.
Liz: So they weren’t liable?
Frank: They weren’t liable for Call Up. One or two Medical Releases as well. Oh, I’m skipping, prior to the Grimsby job I was sent to work on a hospital, in the country just south of Lincoln. And this was, for a military hospital, but I really couldn’t quibble on that, and I did 15, 18 months on that. Quite a few of the men were accepting my objections, but there were one or two that didn’t. And, it was a very rough camp that we were living on. And it was suggested that we form a Committee, to improve the conditions on the camp. And they wanted one person from each room. So, none of the men in the room that I was in wanted to be on it, and they pushed me to go on to this Committee. And on one occasion, we were in the Canteen, and the food wasn’t much good, and we were taking it in turns to be on duty to take any complaints and see if we could get them rectified. And one man was “oh I’m not going to eat this, I can’t put up with this stuff”. I happened to be on duty at that time, I said we’ll have to take it back and see if we could improve it. And he threw it down on the floor, he wasn’t going to have any help from any so and so Conschie. And the Chairman of the Committee, who, he was on duty[?], came along and remonstrated with this chap, and backed me up considerably. I think that was perhaps the only verbal objection I got. There was quite often an atmosphere of non-acceptance but, he was quite abusive, […??…] he wouldn’t receive any help. That came in between the working near home, and going to Grimsby. So I was working down in London right through to the end of the war.
Liz: When you went down to London, there was no problems or anything? I mean to what extent did people realise you were a Conscientious Objector, you went down to London with a group of 10 or 15 men, some, the majority of whom weren’t Conscientious Objectors.
Frank: Oh, no they were mainly, there was only this one other person. The rest were supportive of the war, in their views.
Liz: Did you talk about it in the group much?
Frank: Very little. But I’d got an extremely nice Joiner’s Foreman, who was sympathetic. I think he was excused for Medical Reasons. But the fact that I got this support from, helped, and there was an older chap as well, who didn’t agree with me but we got on very well together even though he didn’t. And the person that I worked with for a lot of the time, came down from the North. And again, he didn’t agree, he didn’t disagree, and we actually worked extremely well together, as a pair. So that I had an easy time as far as that was concerned.
Liz: Do you think that the fact that you were in this group of men and had a sort of place, within the group, was sort of protective, protected you from the sort of onslaughts that you had with this guy in the Canteen?
Frank: Yes, probably. Yes, I think that helped.
Liz: What about, how long did you stay in London?
Frank: [pause] It must have been two and a half years.
Liz: Did you get home at all, during that time?
Frank: Oh yes, we had leave, a long weekend every 6 weeks, long weekend consisted of travelling on Friday, and travelling back on Monday morning[?].
Liz: And you didn’t have any sort of discussions or debates within that group?
Frank: No.
Liz: What kept you going, if you like, to some extent although you were insulated from abuse and so on, it still must have been quite an isolated position.
Frank: Well, no, it wasn’t, because prior to leaving home, I’d been introduced to, I suppose is the term, to a Woodcraft Group. No, let me go back a little bit further. Before I registered for Conscientious Objection, I had been going along to Peace Pledge Union, in Chesterfield, where there were quite a lot of Quaker members, and they of course gave me a lot of support. And at one of the meetings we had a lady come along to talk about the work of the Woodcraft Folk, and I was at that time Superintendent of the Sunday School, so I was interested in working with the children anyway. And I saw this as a very valuable way of dealing with children, and went along to a couple of the meetings of the Chesterfield Woodcraft, and started a fellowship in our local village. And so I had been working with children for probably 3 years, perhaps even a little bit longer, before going away from home. When I was in Grimsby I contacted the local group there, so I used to go along to their meetings.
Liz: This is Woodcraft…
Frank: This is the Woodcraft Folk. And when I was in East Ham I had a very close relationship with the Woodcrafters there, in fact we still continue to correspond
Liz: What, now?
Frank: Oh yes, yeah, yeah. That certainly helped to keep me going.
Liz: So you had
Frank: I had a lot of support
Liz: So you sort of had like-minded people on hand
Frank: That’s right, yes
Liz: So you didn’t feel the need. Did you have any contact with, I can’t remember what they’re called, Central Board for C.O.’s
Frank: Yes, Central Board
Liz: These are people helping C.O.’s.
Frank: No, no, I didn’t.
Liz: When you were staying particularly in London, the camp you talked about where the person threw the food on the floor, that was in Grimsby was it?
Frank: No, that was earlier, that was building the hospital.
Liz: In London, were you in digs, did you have problems getting
Frank: No, to start with we were billeted in a school, because all the children had been evacuated of course at that time. [laughs] I suppose it was rather strange. We went down by coach, and we were waiting to be sent to some accommodation, just outside the station, when the first siren went, that I had experienced, and it was a case of “what do we do now?” sitting here in the coach and Air-Raid sirens sounded. And we just looked outside, people were just walking about as per normal, and we thought [laughs] “oh well, if they take it like this we better do the same.” And we were billeted in Wembley Arena, […??…], it wasn’t the main stand but it was in the stands in Wembley Pool[?], for two or three days until we were allocated to a district. And of course we were sent out to a district as a unit, this was to East Ham, we were billeted in Manor Park schools
Liz: Oh right!
Frank: for quite a while.
Liz: And were you there for all of the war, or just part of it?
Frank: No, after so long, children were beginning to drift back. I think this would have been after the first onslaught of the rockets, because we got Flying Bombs coming over regularly to start with, and whenever there was an incident in our local areas we had to go out and do repairs. Then there were these loud noises which nobody would explain, and they set up a barrage of firing practice. I suppose it was over at Woolwich, to try and mask the sound of the bombs so that people weren’t thinking that all the noise was coming from the Germans and in fact it was noise from the Woolwich Arsenal. They were trying to cover.
Liz: This was the V-2’s?
Frank: This was the V-2’s. Of course it soon became common knowledge that after the worst beginnings of the V-2’s children began drifting back, so they wanted the schools back in operation. So we were then sent down to a camp in Canning Town. I don’t know what it had been a base for. It was one big hut with beds set out all along the hut. And I hadn’t been there more than a few months, when the two people around the Woodcraft Fellowship said it must have been rough down there, would I like to go and lodge with them? So I was in clover then of course, that was really
Liz: Yeah because then you had got like-minded people, and comfortable, physically comfortable
Frank: That’s right, yes
Liz: … more physically comfort…
Frank: So there’s no wonder we kept in touch.
Liz: Yes. Are they still involved in the Woodcraft Folk?
Frank: Well Wally died a few years ago, and Renee’s still involved, she’s supportive rather than actually taking an active part. Don’t forget your tea!
Liz: No I’m not! What, when you went to, you said you were sent to Lincoln and sent to
Frank: yeah
Liz: Is that by the Employment Exchange?
Frank: yeah.
Liz: So they sent you.
Frank: We were what they called Designated Craftsmen. The Designated Craftsman was somebody who was a specialist in one particular branch of building work, but if there wasn’t any of that kind of work available at the time, you were put to anything that came up
Liz: [… ?…] labour
Frank: Oh yes, a lot of labouring. I didn’t mind, I didn’t think that mattered at all, because I’ve never been fussy in feeling that I’m a cut above doing rougher work.
Liz: When you said you registered as a C.O., can you talk a bit about the legal procedures you went through. You got your Call Up papers, would be the start of any legality, yeah?
Frank: Then I had to, I supposed I had to get a form to apply to be registered as a Conscientious Objector, I don’t remember a lot about this. Certainly I had to fill in details, and write a letter with my application, and then just wait for the call to the Tribunal.
Liz: And so, you went in front of the Tribunal in Derby?
Frank: In Derby, yes. As I say the local Minister, I asked him if he for support. I wrote to him to ask if he would support me at the tribunal.
Liz: So what preparations did you make for the Tribunal. You knew the Tribunal was coming, you had a date for it, so, and obviously you knew that you weren’t necessarily going to get…
Frank: [laughs]
Liz: … a sympathetic hearing.
Frank: yes, oh yes
Liz: So what preparations did you make, both in terms of preparing yourself for it, and in terms of ok contacting the Minister, talking to other people who’d been, what did you do?
Frank: I don’t think I did very much, I suppose these sort of things had been discussed in the Peace Pledge Union meetings, so some extent, not very much, and I had firm views on the fact that I was prepared to go to prison, if it came to that, but
Liz: Did you think it would?
Frank: Well, I didn’t think there was as much likelihood, I think that the Conscientious Objectors in the First World War had a lot more difficulties, a lot more verbal abuse from, and also much harsher interviews before they registered, and I was aware that things were easier in the Second World War. But I don’t remember doing any particular preparations
Liz: Other than…
Frank: Well, mentally thinking it through
Liz: and speaking to the local Minister
Frank: yes, but there wasn’t much said there [laughs] because he wasn’t sympathetic.
Liz: So, why did you ask the local Minister for support, if you knew he wasn’t sympathetic?
Frank: Well I didn’t really know anyone of sort of social standing, that would [pause] be the sort of person that a Tribunal would want to listen to. I think when Dad was Objecting, they’d got this little core within the village, which, where they supported each other. Which I hadn’t got, I was rather more on my own, except when I went down to Chesterfield, but of course that was at a distance, it wasn’t
Liz: So you were the only person in your village?
Frank: No, a friend of mine who was younger, and also went before a Tribunal, he was already at College at Nottingham
Liz: So at the time you were the only one, but there were others before, and after?
Frank: I didn’t know anyone who’d been
Liz: So you were the first one as far as you knew, from your village. And then as far as you knew, there was only one after you.
Frank: Yeah.
Liz: Is this the same village as your father had previously
Frank: Yes.
Liz: So there’s an interesting contrast between the two.
Frank: That’s, oh yes. I wouldn’t really know a lot.
Liz: So ok the Minister wasn’t sympathetic, but this was the only person that you felt was going to, that you were going to be able to ask to stand up in front of a Tribunal.
Frank: Yeah. It was really a case of somebody who knew the sort of things I was doing, because as I say I was working in the Sunday School, and also they had this Youth Club[?], and he was able to vouch for that, and he did vouch for the sincerity of my opinions, and that was really the purpose of that
Liz: So he was willing at least..
Frank: oh yes
Liz: to go and say this man has done these things
Frank: that’s right
Liz: and I believe him to be sincere even though I disagree with him
Frank: yes, that was exactly right.
Liz: And so did he say very much?
Frank: Not a lot.
Liz: Was he asked very much?
Frank: No, it was mainly just as you’ve expressed it.
Liz: And what about you, did they question you very much?
Frank: Not a lot.
Liz: And then, did they ask you, they would ask you all the questions about whether you were prepared to accept Designated Work.
Frank: Yes.
Liz: But apart from that, was there anything that sticks in your mind from the Tribunal, that was unexpected maybe?
Frank: No, I’d not expected a sympathetic group of people [… ??…] and, they were, they were cold questions really. There was obviously no sympathy for my point of view.
Liz: Were there any other problems that arose from being a C.O., other problems other than, I thought about Employment and I thought about Housing, but was there anything else?
Frank: I don’t think so.
Liz: Was having to be away from home a particular problem, or was that an adventure itself in some ways?
Frank: At that stage, I had never felt that I wanted to be away from home. But I accepted it as a necessity, and I realised quite soon after that, that it was actually a good thing for me to have to go away, and stand on my own two feet. I think I’d always been a fairly independent person, a bit of a loner I suppose, but I was always quite shy, which didn’t help a lot. But yes, it did me good to be away, to not have to depend on the support.
Liz: How many brothers and sisters have you got?
Frank: Just one, my sister.
Liz: Have you got any documents or records from that time at all? I mean you could probably, there will be a transcript somewhere of your hearing
Frank: the Tribunal, yes, I hadn’t realised that until this one cropped up about
Liz: It would be interesting to see
Frank: yeah
Liz: I don’t know how you do it but…. And you haven’t got any letters or anything like that, from that. Did you write home?
Frank: Oh yes, yeah. In fact most of the time, I used to send a parcel of washing home every week and received one back again. I didn’t have to do my own washing [laughs].
Liz: And you sent it by the ordinary post?
Frank: Oh yeah.
Liz: Did a lot a people do that?
Frank: I suppose so, I don’t even know. But Mum had provided some denim[?] material which wrapped it up quite nicely, I could make a very firm parcel with this, which withstood quite a long time, with washing going backwards and forwards.
Liz: [laughs]
Frank: I think another thing that helped was that when I started doing the Woodcraft Folk, I’d never done any camping before, and I quickly learned how to camp, how to take youngsters camping, with the strong support of my sister I must say, and the fact that I knew how to look after myself and camp, certainly helped looking after myself when I was working away.
Liz: One of the things was, that I came across a lot in the stuff in the Imperial War Museum, was debates begins Absolutists and Alternativists, was the, these Alternativists these were the people who were Designated Workers, yes?
Frank: Well not necessarily, this was only in the Building Industries, the Designated Craftsmen, but they were the ones who were willing to accept Alternative Service.
Liz: Right, yeah.
Frank: yeah
Liz: And a lot of this, a lot of the references and a lot of the stuff in the Imperial War Museum’s private letters and diaries, from Alternativists who are trying to sort out their own ideas about what they felt was appropriate work, and what was the distance that they could make from the War Machine if you like
Frank: yeah
Liz: Can you remember thinking about this very much?
Frank: Yes [pause] I was quite aware of that. I had been taking “Peace News” regularly for quite a while, and of course these sort of things came up quite frequently
Liz: I take “Peace News” now
Frank: Yes? I’ve not seen it for a long time [laughs]
Liz: When we go I’ll show you that [laughs]
Frank: Because there were discussions as to whether one should be Absolute in one’s Objections, or whether it was compromising your own ideas to have some kind of alternative work. But you couldn’t, in my view, you couldn’t separate yourself from society to that extent. And I suppose it made it easier that I was told that I was to continue in the occupation that I was already doing, which I loved doing, so, that of course made it easier.
Liz: Yeah, I think there was somebody in the First World War actually, in one of the papers, who was working on the railways, and who had a terrible debate of conscience. Because he was working on the railways, he was allowed, he didn’t even have the question of declaring himself
Frank: yeah, yeah
Liz: as a Conscientious Objector, he had this big debate of conscience as to whether he should be hiding behind that, or whether he should be declaring himself. Which is an inversion
Frank: Of course, yes, because there were quite a lot of people at that time, who went into agriculture, in fact the two men with whom I worked at the joiner’s shop, they both went, one had a smallholding and went to work on that, the other one was a farmer’s son, and he went to work on his father’s farms and so of course
Liz: they were exempt
Frank: they were exempt.
Liz: What was the attitude toward, I mean Conscientious Objectors potentially, certainly Absolutists were risking a certain ignominy
Frank: oh yes
Liz: in contemporary society. What was the attitude generally within the circles of Conscientious Objectors, to those people who sought exempt occupations without going down the Conscientious Objector route, was there any debate about that, or not?
Frank: Not that I can remember. There might have been, but not that I was aware of, no.
Liz: Did you have any views about that though?
Frank: Not really, no. You see you certainly couldn’t condemn somebody for not going to fight, when you weren’t intending to yourself. Obviously within this area some went into the mines.
Liz: also exempt[?]. And, in terms of Absolutes and Alternativists, that you felt that you couldn’t separate yourself from society and from the daily life that people were living…
Frank: yeah
Liz: which meant that you felt comfortable with the Alternative path of Conscientious Objection. But you yourself, during that time you refused to do certain jobs
Frank: yes
Liz: so you were constantly having to kind of evaluate
Frank: that’s true, yes. The hospital that we were building, at Lincoln, I was perhaps slightly uncomfortable to start with, because I knew that it was going to be a military hospital, but there again I felt that I couldn’t refuse to do that sort of work, because of the necessity of it
Liz: the humanitarian
Frank: yes
Liz: Did you discuss these discomforts with different people? Or did you just think about them?
Frank: A little bit at home, I think, with Mum and Dad, but
Liz: What was their attitude? How did they, did they recommend things to you?
Frank: No, they accepted
Liz: They just let you talk your way through it
Frank: yes, yes. Strange, really, we didn’t do a lot of talking in depth at home. And yet we were quite a close knit family, and I was well aware of what my Dad’s attitude was, and when I think about it it was probably things that Mother had spoken of in earlier life, as to his objections and how he stood out […??…] really come through that[?]
Liz: The, at the time of the Second World War, certainly with hindsight there’s been a lot of arguments made that the fight against fascism made such a qualitatively different war. I don’t know how much that was realised that it was a fight against fascism at the time
Frank: oh yes, yes
Liz: but I think that certainly for people on the left, there was an awareness of fascism in Europe, through Spain earlier particularly, and the Volunteers going to Spain
Frank: That’s right, yes
Liz: and of course Italy. But did you know anybody who had volunteered to go to Spain?
Frank: No, but I was fully aware of the way in which a lot of left-wing people were giving their support by fighting for Spanish people against the Franco regeime.
Liz: What did you think about that?
Frank: very sympathetic
Liz: It’s quite a complicated issue.
Frank: I know
Liz: That is why I’m asking [laughs] I mean how did you feel about all that in relation to your own positions, and how you
Frank: Very sympathetic to their stance, but I still couldn’t justify taking up arms.
Liz: How did that, was there within Pacifist circles, I mean Conscientious Objection is another question really, but was there a notion of some kind of support for Spain, of how one could support people in Spain who were fighting against fascism, other than through force of arms? Was there any
[end of Side A]
[start of Side B]
Liz: So we’re talking about Spain, and how that, how old were you at the time of that – 1936, you must have been very young.
Frank: 1935
Liz: 36
Frank: [inaudible]. No, I hadn’t [?haven’t] resolved just how one reacts to [oppression?…], I’m afraid, I tend to come back to, well, if we are to use war as a means of sorting out conflict, then we should have sorted out some of the causes of war beforehand. But that’s not answering.
Liz: Were you, I mean I think in the letter that I’ve had a copy of, I don’t know if you saw the one from[?] A.A. Milne [?? – as heard]
Frank: yes
Liz: and in that he said that he stopped calling himself a pacifist, even though he was a Quaker, he started calling himself a Practical Pacifist, and he says “I believe war is a lesser evil than Hitlerism and that Hitlerism must be killed [? – or cured?] before war can be killed [? – or cured?]”. I mean that kind of debate must have been quite common in that circle.
Frank: yes
Liz: Did, to what extent did ordinary people in that circle see Hitlerism as being something special, or was it just seen as being another kind of imperialist war?
Frank: I think, in the early days, I don’t suppose I was really among left-wing thinkers very much, but a lot of young folk, a bit older than myself, used to see Hitler as a rather comic figure, and it was only very much closer to the beginning of the war, and in fact not until the war started that they realised there was so much that was sinister about it and him.
Liz: Is that to do with the sort of rhetoric, because obviously once war started the British Government was interested in portraying Hitler as a very sinister figure as well?
Frank: oh yes, yeah.
Liz: So how much is that to do with, if you like, any political analysis and how much is it to do with, just the influence of the press and change in the press generally?
Frank: I think it would probably be the latter [… ??…] as I say, I wasn’t concerned really within political circles, apart from the atmosphere at home.
Liz: And what about the whole question of the Jews in Germany, was that something that ordinary people knew about?
Frank: We only knew a little, we knew some. And, as far as people in the country, by country I mean in the rural surroundings are concerned, our society wasn’t very active thinking about folk in Germany. But, at the same time, I was aware that in East London there had been a lot of, even hatred of the Jewish communities in the East End and that they wished the Jews to be out of the way so there was sympathy for the Hitler treatment, at the same time.
Liz: So it was not only anti-Semitic but also jingoistic, also British jingoistic, were they also?
Frank: Oh yeah
Liz: So they were holding slightly contrary positions?
Frank: Yeah, yes, that’s true.
Liz: But [pause] the, I mean it’s quite difficult to get a hold of this whole sort of question, however many years on we are from the war, because of all, everything’s been stripped back
Frank: oh yes, yeah
Liz: and it’s like, you know, the whole thing of South Africa where sort of 30 years ago people were not uncomfortable to be designated as supporters of apartheid
Frank: yeah
Liz: whereas now everybody was outside the South African Embassy, and the same thing applies, so I’m trying to get into the sort of thinking at the time, and what impact that would have had on ordinary Conscientious Objectors, not the eloquent people who were involved in, not the A.A. Milne’s of this world, but ordinary people and how much they would have known, and how much that knowledge would have, whether they would have had enough knowledge to wrestle with their Conscientious positions or not, really.
Frank: I think we were, again this goes back to family, to a large extent, we were very much aware about the propaganda that was put out, and were very loath to accept as truth a lot of the things that were said, during the war. And, I suppose that helps one’s position. I mean if you were to accept all the things that are put into the papers
Liz: as propaganda
Frank: yes, then it would make it much harder to sustain your objections. I suppose we were very critical at that time.
Liz: Moving on, to [pause] looking now, the world as it is now, I mean we’ve talked about Conscientious Objection very much, because that’s linked inexorably to Pacifism in a broader sense
Frank: yes
Liz: but do you think that any of the moral issues that were raised by Conscientious Objection were made redundant with the ending of National Service?
Frank: I don’t think so, no. No, I think the same things would apply, even though one wasn’t expecting to be called to […??…] Armed Service, I would certainly still object to participation, as with this present situation. I don’t think war is the right way to go about solving problems.
Liz: I mean in a sense by Conscientious Objecting you’re making a very public statement about your position, which also would have, or one presumed you’d hope would have an example effect, that it was possible to object in this way
Frank: Yeah, mnnh hmmnh
Liz: And you were doing that by opting out of what was put forward as your duty.
Frank: yes
Liz: Now, if one wants to make a public statement about war, or against war, it’s almost as if that option isn’t there.
Frank: yes
Liz: So anybody wanting to make a public statement has to find other ways of making public statements. So, and certainly some of the more radical peace organisations equate Non-Violent Direct Action, with Conscientious Objection
Frank: yes, mmnh hmnh
Liz: because of the same risks on a personal level. Would you see that as being, can you make that relationship, do you think?
Frank: Yes, but I think probably by now, I’m taking the easy option and not doing anything very much about it. It would be when CND started marching and indeed during the end of the war. I was glad to join similar action and have retained support just by membership of CND, and sympathy to the action that had been taken. But not, I don’t know anything about it really.
Liz: No, but for instance what would you say if one of your older grandchildren got involved in, I don’t know, say attacks on Hawk missiles, these civilian attacks on Hawk missiles
Frank: yeah
Liz: where they’d be risking quite a lot, I mean certainly […??…]
Frank: yes , but they would be supported!
Liz: they would, would you feel proud of them, or would you feel nervous for them?
Frank: Well both! Definitely, yes. I’d feel nervous for what they’d have to go through, but I’d feel proud of the stand they were taking, yes.
Liz: Do you think that war is more prevalent, or less prevalent than it was at the time you were a Conscientious Objector, I mean it’s hard to say because you were in the middle of a World War at that time, but the tendency to move towards war?
Frank: Well, I think there have been a lot more, shall we say small wars. I don’t think there were the same, sort of limited conflicts, it all came in a big outburst, the First World War. Whether there were any, a lot of lesser things in between those wars, I’m not sure. But I think that peoples have felt that they have enough power today to revolt against intolerable[?] living conditions and I suppose there’s been the greater influence of being in contact with more of the rest of the world […??… ??…] and […??…] they are the ones that usually haven’t succeeded, but just resulted in a different dictatorship […??…]. I think it rather shows that war doesn’t very often achieve the object that it set out to achieve in the first place.
[end of Side B]