Welcome to Pity of War (draft)

Pity of War is a charity set up to raise awareness of the impact of war on civilians.

We aim to achieve this in two ways:
1) installing a statue in the National Memorial Arboretum
2) establising an educational programme for schools and young people

Origins
A Shropshire Quaker, Joyce Gee, lived through the Blitz as a young girl. Aged thirteen, she wrote of her experiences, including next door but one’s house sustaining a direct hit, killing the two occupants.

When, as a much older person, she visited the National Memorial Arboretum (NMA) near Lichfield, Staffordshire, she reflected that there were many military memorials, but nothing to honour the millions of civilians who died or suffered, directly or indirectly, as a consequence of war. She raised a concern with her local Quaker meeting, and things inexorably grew from there. Joyce died in 2018, knowing that the NMA had accepted our application for such a memorial and having seen the maquette for the statue.

We are raising money for the memorial and to establish educational resources to help educate people, especially children, about the impact of war.

‘Is it only through suffering that men begin to question the ways of war and peace?’  Joyce Gee

Jeff Beatty, Kit Byatt and Linda Murray Hale, trustees.