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Peace man! Calls for heritage plaque to be put on Blackstock Road building where international logo was first adopted

It was originally designed as the logo of for the first Aldermaston march against nuclear weapons, was quickly adopted by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and became an internationally recognised peace symbol.

But few people know that the original design was first shown to peace activists in a second-floor office in Blackstock Road, Finsbury Park, in 1958.

Almost 60 years on, campaigners gathered this week at the building that is now home to Fish and Cook stationers and John Ford solicitors to call for a commemorative plaque to be installed in memory of Gerald Holtom – the artist, Second World War conscientious objector and committed peace activist who designed it.


They included Guardian journalist Ian Jack, of Highbury, who launched the idea for a plaque in an article in November, veteran peace activist Bruce Kent and Rosie Holtom, the artist’s great-niece who lives in Holloway.

“It would be very fitting to have some kind of commemorative plaque above Fish and Cook,” said Mr Jack. “This part of the world was a hotbed of radicalism and peace activism in the 1940s, 50s and 60s.”

Finsbury Park resident George Barrow, who produced a large wooden version of Mr Holtom’s symbol for the occasion, added: “People affected by war from all over the world have come to Finsbury Park over the years, it’s a barometer of war if you like. It would be a good place for it.”

In spring 1958 artist and designer Mr Holtom, then aged 44, wrote to Hugh Brock, of the Direct Action Committee for the first Aldermaston March against nuclear war, to say he had an idea for a logo for the event.

The committee, which also included activists Pat Arrowsmith and Michael Randle, was centred on the pacifist weekly newspaper Peace News, based in Blackstock Road at the time. It is here that the artist was invited along to reveal his designs.

Mr Randle, now 82 and living in Bradford, recalled: “Gerald showed us his sketches and we were very taken with the idea, especially as they not only showed the symbol but also an explanation, including the letters N and D for nuclear disarmament, though there may have been other influences.

“So it started as a logo for the march. We used it on banners and posters and Gerald himself made these badges with the symbol on it.

“It was then adopted by the CND, which was a separate organisation, and it’s travelled around the world. We were just thrilled when the symbol seemed to really catch on. In the States it’s just known as the peace symbol. Greenpeace uses it, but it continues to have ideas of radicalism and peace attached to it.”

Mr Holtom remained committed to the cause for the rest of his life. He died aged 71 in Kent in 1985.

Writing in a 1973 letter to Mr Brock, he said of creating the symbol: “By 1957 life on Planet Earth was put at risk. I was in despair. Deep despair. I drew myself: the representative of an individual in despair, with hands palm outstretched ­outwards and downwards in the manner of Goya’s peasant before the firing squad.

“I formalised the drawing into a line and put a circle round it. It was ridiculous at first and such a puny thing and then suddenly horrifying, inadequate.”

Great-niece Rosie, 33, herself a motion graphic designer and photographer, and active in the anti-war movement, said the Holtom family is firmly behind the plaque idea.

“Having recently become more active in the anti-war movement, I understand that despair at humanity and longing for a conflict-free world more than ever now,” she said. “I’m proud that the symbol has become such a universal sign of hope and peace. Remembering its designer seems timely and right.”

The plaque initiative has also received the backing of John Ford, principal of the law firm that now occupies the offices above Fish and Cook. The building is located on the Hackney side of Blackstock Road.

A spokesman for ­Hackney Council said: “Hackney recognises the global significance of this symbol and we are looking at options of how it could be commemorated in the borough.”