Forever striving for peace (From Stroud News and Journal)

Forever striving for peace

MORE than 100 people, including many from Stroud, attended the funeral earlier this month of peace activist Judith Dawes who lived in the Five Valleys for more than 20 years.

The green woodland burial took place at Headington Cemetery earlier this month when a silver birch tree was planted in her memory. Judith who died in February, aged 73 left Stroud to work in Oxford in the early 1990's.

Born in Australia in 1931, she was a devout Christian and spent the early part of her married life, with husband Brian, in Berlin where they were actively involved in peace issues.

They later moved to live in Whitehall, Stroud and when the marriage broke down, Judith moved into a caravan in Slad. Her three children, Joe, Jonathan and Ruth went to Wynstones School, Brockworth and also Archway School

Judith's lifelong involvement with the peace movement included serving on the Christian Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CCND) and taking part in protests at Aldermaston, Greenham Common and at the Nevada Desert nuclear test site.

In 2003, wheelchair-bound, and in failing health, she took part in a Grandmother's Blockade at Fairford, at the beginning of the Iraq War.

Originally a Quaker, Judith was received into the Catholic Church and during a trip to America, became inspired by the Catholic Worker Movement, with its focus on community work, peace and social justice. Back in Oxford, she helped to set up St Francis House, a Catholic Worker community, where she lived-in for several years.

Her most fervent support in later life was given to the plight of the Palestinians. After visiting Palestine, she came back to England and regularly demonstrated alone, in Oxford's Cornmarket, calling attention to the situation in Gaza and the West Bank.

Friends speak of how she ran a weekly stall in the Market, selling her own produce, which she grew on an allotment, to raise money for the Palestinians. She was a small, slight woman, but nevertheless, travelled to and from the allotment on the bus, carrying all her spades, buckets and forks.

Judith was an individualist; she acted out of instinct, deep faith and compassion, believing always in the power of prayer. She frequently put herself in danger, but she believed in taking personal responsibility to create a more just world.

Veteran Stroud peace campaigner, Roger Franklin who attended the funeral read the following aloud at the service at Judith's request.

In the Middle East there is a legend about a spindly little sparrow, lying on its back in the middle of the road.

A Horseman comes by and dismounts and asks the sparrow what on earth he is doing lying there upside down like that. "I heard the heavens are going to fall today," says the sparrow.

"Oh" says the horseman, "I suppose your puny little legs can hold up the heavens?" "One does what one can," says the sparrow, "One does what one can."

Judith is survived by her former husband, her twin sister Gwen Evans, two sons, a daughter and three grandchildren.