ACTIVISTS who have been campaigning to ban the bomb for six decades joined with younger campaigners to celebrate a peace movement’s major milestone.

On Saturday Bradford’s Kala Sangam arts centre hosted a celebration event marking the 60th anniversary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament - which has strong links with the city.

An article published in the New Statesman by J. B Priestley, one of Bradford’s most famous sons, sparked an outcry leading to him and others organising that first CND meeting in February 1958.

Over 5,000 people including many prominent intellectuals of the day attended that launch of CND and the organisation went on to become the largest single-issue campaign organisation in Europe.

Some of the people who attended that first meeting were at Saturday’s celebration, including Michael Randle of Shipley.

Other people to attend and speak at Saturday’s celebration, organised by Yorkshire CND, were women who were part of the Greenham Common protests in the 1980s, including Kath Cripps of Sheffield, whose role as a magistrate was ended after the discovery of her support for CND.

Guest were invited to bring banners, newspaper cutting and other CND artefacts to go in a “bring your own museum” display, organised by the city’s Peace Museum.

The event was opened by Lord Mayor of Bradford, Councillor Abid Hussain, and as well as the numerous talks there were displays of archive films and music from the Commoner’s Choir and brass band the Peace Artistes.

Members looked at the history of the movement, and spoke about how nuclear fears are more prevalent than ever due to the war of words between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un.

Matt Fawcett, campaigner for Yorkshire CND said around 150 people had attended the event. He said: “It has been a great day. We’ve had a lot of people come and share their experiences of the movement, and they’ve all really enjoyed themselves.

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“I think recent statements from Donald Trump have really highlighted the idea that there are no safe hands for nuclear weapons. There has been this idea that it is OK for ‘responsible’ nations to have nuclear weapons, it has been the CND’s goal to overturn that idea. You can’t say ‘we need these weapons for defence, but it is bad for anyone else to have them.

“We have our office in Bradford and the city has very strong links to the movement, that is why the Peace Studies department was set up at the University of Bradford.”

He said other events to mark the anniversary would be held later this year.