Aldermaston Marches

The Aldermaston March Committee for the first march comprised April Carter, Hugh Brock, Pat Arrowsmith and Michael Randle from DAC; Frank Allaun MP and Walter Wolfgang from the Labour H-Bomb Campaign; and, Bayard Rustin from the War Resisters League (WRL). They appointed Michael Howard as Chief Marshall. The committee was assisted by nonviolent theorist Gene Sharp, though he never became a member of the committee itself. • Peggy Duff organised subsequent Aldermaston Marches 1959–1963. • Sidney Hinkes was involved in the first Aldermaston March, • Walter Wolfgang participated in the first Aldermaston March and led a revival of the march in 1972. • Reg Freeson was one of five Labour MPs on the first Aldermaston March. • Lindsay Anderson made the documentary March to Aldermaston (1958). • Eric Idle was a keen supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and participated in the Aldermaston March. • Rod Stewart took part in the Aldermaston Marches as a teenager. • Michael Rosen attended the marches on his own aged 13. • Actress Eileen Way and her husband, the psychiatrist Felix Warden Brown, took part in the Aldermaston Marches. ==Songs==

Music was a significant part of the march, at first symbolising the difference in attitude between the CND leaders, who wanted to march in silence, and the youth on the march led by Pat Carty, the first "Youth" Secretary for the CND, who wanted to sing and play guitars. John Brunner's song, ''The H-bomb's Thunder became the unofficial anthem of CND, . Songs associated with CND and the Aldermaston march were released on an EP record, Songs from Aldermaston (1960) and an LP, Songs Against the Bomb'' (Topic 12001) released at about the same time. It contained: "Brother Won't you Join the Line?" (McColl and Keir, 1958); "The Crooked Cross" (McColl and Seeger, 1960); "Strontium 90" (Dallas, 1959); "Hey, Little Man" (Dallas, 1959); "Doomsday Blues" (Dallas, 1958); "The Ballad of the Five Fingers" (McColl, 1959); "There are Better Things to Do" (Seeger, 1958); "The H-Bomb's Thunder" (Brunner, 1958); "Song of Hiroshima" (Kinoshita); "Hoist the Window" (trad. arr. Hasted, 1952); "That Bomb Has Got to Go" (McColl and Seeger, 1959); "The Dove" (trad. arr. Rosselson); and "The Family of Man" (Dallas, 1957). A new arrangement of H-bomb's Thunder was issued on a CD, Songs To Change The World (Peaksoft PEA012) in 2011. Ewan MacColl's English text of Song of Hiroshima was sung on the Aldermaston Marches by the London Youth Choir. An unofficial peace version of the national anthem of the United Kingdom was written in 1958 by Henry Young for the first Aldermaston March and is taken from Young's collection of poems From Talk to Action: The fight for peace. The marches inspired work from a number of other musicians, notably Matt McGinn's "On the Road to Aldermaston". ==See also==