Peggy Attlee obituary (original) (raw)

My mother, Peggy Attlee, who has died aged 99, began a career as a peace activist when other people would have been retiring in the 1970s and 80s. She campaigned for east-west understanding during the later stages of the cold war, protested against nuclear weapons and helped to establish an annual ceremony to honour conscientious objectors.

On Ash Wednesday 1988, Peggy took part in a protest against nuclear weapons at the Ministry of Defence, and was arrested and fined. She later wrote With a Quiet Conscience (1995), a biography of her father-in-law, Tom Attlee (brother of Clement Attlee, the Labour prime minister), who was imprisoned as a conscientious objector in the first world war. In 1994 she helped to establish an annual ceremony in Tavistock Square to honour conscientious objectors.

Peggy was born in Dublin. Her father, Jerry Brennan, had died in France four months earlier, during the first world war. Until the age of seven, Peggy and her mother, Florrie (nee O’Neill) lived with her grandmother. Florrie then married Tommy Kilner, an Englishman, and moved to London, where Peggy gained a stepbrother and two half-brothers.

After boarding school at Mayfield, Sussex, she read philosophy, politics and economics at St Anne’s College, Oxford. Through rowing – Peggy won a blue coxing the women’s team – she met Patrick Attlee. They were married in 1941 while Patrick was on leave from army service, having been wounded and evacuated at Dunkirk. Three children arrived but Peggy managed to complete her degree, train as a social worker and become a Labour councillor for Oxfordshire.

Patrick joined the Foreign Office and for 20 years Peggy was a diplomat’s wife. Two more children arrived. After postings in Greece, Turkey, Uruguay, Venezuela and the US, Patrick retired and they moved to Cornwall. Peggy busied herself with the affairs of St Piran parish, the Women’s Institute and Oxfam.

When Patrick died, in 1975, Peggy moved back to London, becoming involved in various social justice groups. She joined Pax Christi, a Catholic peace movement whose blend of faith and politics matched her beliefs.

During the 1980s, Peggy’s efforts went into furthering understanding between east and west, through the informal dialogue conducted between Pax Christi International and the Russian Orthodox Church. She started a group in which academics, journalists and others discussed the tensions confronting the world, wrote a pamphlet looking at the history and outlook of Russia from a Christian perspective, and organised visits to peace-minded contacts in Russia.

Peggy’s daughter Helen died in 2015. She is survived by four children, Jeremy, Margaret, Thomas and me, 12 grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren.