Ch: You can bring on your marching bands, put on your uniform,
Buttons and boots gleaming bright in the sun
I see you dreaming of victory with hopes for a better world
You say you’re fighting for your country, family and friends.
I stand here in the dock in April 1917
To witness the injustice and futility of war
Your Law has no moral ground, and Orders can’t bind me
I am not a soldier and so plead ’not guilty’.
No-one should be forced to fight against their will
Armies allow fear and distrust to build their walls
Then those with proud ambition and self-seeking interest
Crawl from the shadows and send you to war
Ch:
I know in my heart that every living person
Has a better self that will respond to love
Do you imagine you have the authority
To give me the power to take that life away.
Some call me a coward and show the white feather
And I know I face time in a prison cell
But I will not fight for your trade rivalries
To feed your lust for power and financial gain
Ch:
By taking this attitude as a Conscientious Objector
I believe I do more than I could in any other way
To bring about my hopes for the brotherhood of man
And to federate the world
based on my Grandad’s statement
prepared for his Court Martial 25 April 2017
…
White Feather Diaries“Memorials do not remember valour and loss alone. This memorial bench was donated by the Local Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), Hastings, to mark the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War.”