Hetty Bower

Hetty Bower, a veteran campaigner presented the Take Action Award at the 2011 SMK Campaigner Awards Ceremony. At the time of presenting the award, Hetty was 105 years old!

We have created this page about Hetty because we were so moved and inspired by her speech at the awards ceremony that we wanted to share it.

Hetty Bower is an indefatigable campaigner, marching regularly for peace and against nuclear weapons, the Iraq wars and Israel’s attacks on Gaza, amongst various other campaigns.

Born in Dalston in 1905 Hetty grew up surrounded by figures who were to influence her life; her father and sister.  Clearly interested in politics she joined the Labour Party in 1923 and the Independent Labour Party in 1924.  In the period leading up to Word War II Hetty worked for Kino Film, a progressive film documentary production company.  During the war she ran a Czech Refugee Hostel in North London for Trade Unionists, Socialists, Communists, Jews and anyone else they could get out of Czechoslovakia during that period.  After the Second World War she worked for more than 20 years as a secretary at a secondary school near Finsbury Park.

When CND was founded in 1957 Hetty became a founding member and has remained a key figure ever since. (She is widely known and respected in activist communities and spoke out again for peace at the annual Hiroshima Day Commemoration in Tavistock Square on 6th August 2011).  Recently she was the star guest at the 2011 International Women's Day celebrations held on March 8th and hopes to be at the Antiwar Mass Assembly in Trafalgar Square on 8th October.  Hetty has marched on every Stop the War Coalition demonstration over the past ten years.

Another passion of Hetty’s is music, which stems back to WWI when music was used to block out the noise of raids.  In particular Hetty enjoys MANA (Musicians Against Nuclear Arms) and attends their concerts as much as she can.