'War cannot be ended by war nor any situation improved by it....Millions are secretly against war.'

These are the words of a young pacifist minister, part of an article printed in his local newspaper as the Second World War loomed. His preaching and public promotion of pacifism got him into trouble. Although Christian teaching of peace is rooted in the New Testament, some of the minister's church officials told him that the church pulpit wasn't the place to talk about it; it was too 'political': 'you are bringing us into disrepute'. Being opposed to war was indeed a kind of secret: few people had the courage or conviction to speak out against it - particularly when there was aggressive Nazism to face. It was sometimes forgotten that pacifists didn't like Nazism either; it was just that, for them, war wasn't the way to oppose it.

Although the experiences of conscientious objectors (COs) in the First World War meant that they were treated more humanely in the Second, their views were still often misunderstood and scorned, and their families (and careers) suffered. 'We were called names at school and people in our street wouldn't speak to us,' one CO's daughter remembers, 'and the landlord said he wouldn't repair our house after it was bombed, because my father wouldn't fight. I'm afraid it always seemed to be my mother who suffered because of it.'

What hadn't changed was the courage and dedication shown by the new generation of men - and, this time, women - who were prepared to face prejudice and prison in making their stand against militarism and murder. In the First World War there were over 20,000 of them. In the war that followed a mere 20 years later, there were 61,000: the idea was taking hold.

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