In the beginning...
Mabel Pratt is one of BPEC’s founding members. She was interviewed for this special edition of the newsletter to tell us how it all came about.
Mabel has a long history of peace campaigning – she is a Quaker and has been a member of the Peace Pledge Union (PPU) and the Fellowship of Reconciliation “since the year dot”. At the age of 15 she sold the Peace News, the PPU’s publication, at Brighton Station. She remembers others from her class at school walking past with their noses in the air. However, her most successful place for selling the paper was on the seafront where she would offer it to people sitting in the shelters who couldn’t get away!
In 1982 Mabel arrived back from Australia, and visited the Give Peace a Chance shop in Kensington Gardens for information on a demo. She found 2 or 3 people squashed into one tiny first floor room. She realised this wasn’t an adequate place from which to run peace campaigns and so set about searching for a more suitable property. After much hunting she found a place in Trafalgar Street. It wasn’t an ideal location at that time, but it had double-fronted windows, a good amount of space in the shop, and a basement. Mabel went back to tell the others (members of groups including CND and the Quakers) what she had found. They decided to take the property and run it as a joint venture – the Brighton Peace Centre. It opened in 1984, giving the various peace organisations in the town a public face and a much needed outlet for their material.
Mabel remembers that at the opening ceremony, attended by Bill Oddie, the newspaper reporters were late so the ribbon was cut without them. When the photographer finally arrived, they had to hold the two ends of the ribbon together while Bill pretended to cut it again!
They found two people to staff the shop and turned the rear into a kitchen. The basement meanwhile was being used for storage and was littered with boxes and papers. Mabel soon identified this as her next project. She and others worked tirelessly to clear it out, clean it up and get carpet and shelves fitted.In 1986, the Peace Centre Library was opened. It was fully stocked including magazines from abroad and books from America and other countries making up an international section.
The photo shows Mabel cutting the cake to celebrate the occasion. This is Mabel’s favourite memory of her years at BPEC. It is a fine achievement and something she is rightly proud of. She went on to write a history of the Peace Centre library - still available to read in the current Centre library.
At 88, she is understandably no longer involved with the Centre, but remains passionate about the importance of the role of peace organisations in the world today.