13 Nov 2011

Hetty Bower, still fighting war at 106

At 106, Hetty Bower has lived through both world wars. And on the day the country remembers its war dead, Jon Snow reports that her militant anti-war conviction has survived with her.

Hetty Bower’s memories of the outbreak of the First World War are undimmed.

“I was very patriotic and waved to the men as they set off,” she recalls. “It was only when the first wounded started coming back that I have any really, really vivid memory of thinking: ‘I don’t like this.'”

The conflict was the catalyst for her continued activism.

“I had already become interested in Czechoslovakia when Hitler broke his word. You know, he was told if he was given German Sudetenland… That was as far as he wanted to go. And of course, he didn’t. He went further. And that animated me – I must do something about it.”

What sane person could be pro-war? As long as my legs can take me, I will partricipate in anti-war activity. Hetty Bower

And she has not stopped since. Just last month she took part in a Stop the War coalition demonstration.

“What sane person could be pro-war?” she asks. “As long as my legs can take me, I will be participating in anti-war activity.”

Asked what Remembrance Sunday means to her, she replies: “The futility of war. The waste. The money spent on arms research.”

On the subject of Nato’s engagement in Libya, which resulted in the fall of Colonel Gaddafi, she suggests it is important to address the causes that give rise to someone like the former Libyan leader.

“It’s the reasons for a war starting that I want tackled,” she says