The ‘Peace Tree’ – part of East Budleigh’s 2023 Christmas Tree Festival

Salem Chapel, a former Dissenters’ place of worship, lies on the edge of East Budleigh, the village where Roger Conant was born. For many years, the building has hosted a Christmas Tree Festival. 

The first Festival proved so popular that the tradition grew rapidly, progressing from around a dozen trees to over 50 in 2016.  

The 2023 Festival included a ‘Peace Tree’ in recognition of Roger Conant’s role as a peacemaker. Given the Chapel’s name, meaning ‘Peace’ it was a fitting location for the exhibit. 

Created by the village’s Roger Conant Club, the ‘Peace Tree’ was decorated with baubles together with many flags from all over the world, drawing attention in many cases to areas of conflict between pairs of nations.  

On one bauble was a quote from the History of the World written by Sir Walter Raleigh, who was also born in East Budleigh. 

The photo shows a local family at the ‘Peace Tree’.

If you are interested in the history of early America, and Roger Conant as a peacemaker in troubled times you can join the Devon Peacemaker Festival Facebook group at 

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Sculptures for Peace: ‘Non-Violence’, also known as ‘The Knotted Gun’

‘Non-Violence’, also known as ‘The Knotted Gun’, is a bronze sculpture by Swedish artist Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd of an oversized Colt Python .357 Magnum revolver with its barrel tied in a knot. It was unveiled in June 1988 at the United Nations HQ in New York City.

Reuterswärd, a friend of John Lennon, made the sculpture after the singer’s murder on 8 December 1980. He later produced a range of replicas of ‘Non-Violence’ for about 30 places around the world, including Belfast in the UK.

Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary General, described the sculpture ‘a powerful symbol that encapsulates the greatest prayer of man: that which asks not for victory, but for peace’. Photo from Wikipedia 

If you are interested in the history of early America, and Roger Conant as a peacemaker in troubled times you can join the Devon Peacemaker Festival Facebook group at 

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A visitor to Budleigh: pacifist or appeaser?

While King Edward VIII is famous for abdicating the British throne, he is also remembered as a celebrated visitor to East Devon Golf Club in Budleigh Salterton, where he played a round of golf in 1921.

The visit must have been one of the highlights of his two-day trip as Prince of Wales to Devon and Cornwall, during which he wrote to his mistress Freda Dudley Ward of feeling 'so
lonely and bored and fed up and depressed’. A low point during the royal tour was meeting the crowds of well wishers, and dignitaries such as the Bishop of Exeter, of whom the Prince wrote that he ‘looks quite mad and is anyway revolting with a scraggy beard’.

Later, as Duke of Windsor following his abdication, he and his wife, the former Wallis Simpson, embarked on a ten-day private tour of Nazi Germany in October 1937. His supporters saw him as a potential peacemaker between Britain and Germany, but the British government refused to sanction such a role, opposed the tour and suspected that the Nazis would use the Duke's presence for propaganda.

The Windsors dined with high-ranking Nazis such as Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Göring, Joachim von Ribbentrop and Albert Speer, and had tea with Adolf Hitler in Berchtesgaden. The Duke had a long private conversation with Hitler, but it is uncertain what they discussed, as the minutes of their meeting were lost during the war.

On 8 May 1939, a few months before the outbreak of World War II, the Duke recorded a radio broadcast during a visit to the World War I battlefields of Verdun, his first since abdicating in 1936. In it he appealed for peace. These are his words:

‘I am deeply conscious of the presence of the great company of the dead, and I am convinced that, could they make their voices heard, they would be with me in what I am about to say. I speak simply as a soldier of the Last War whose most earnest prayer it is, that such cruel and destructive madness shall never again overtake mankind. There is no land whose people want war.’

The broadcast was heard across the world by millions. It was widely regarded as supporting appeasement, and the BBC refused to broadcast it. It was heard outside the United States on shortwave radio and was reported in full by British broadsheet newspapers.

Pictured are Sir William Orpen's portrait of Edward, Prince of Wales, and the photo of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor meeting Adolf Hitler in 1937, from Wikimedia

You can hear the Duke of Windsor's broadcast at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pG4bu5LJUTo

If you are interested in the history of early America, and Roger Conant as a peacemaker in troubled times you can join the Devon Peacemaker Festival Facebook group at 

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East Budleigh's 'Roger Conant Duck Race'

East Budleigh’s Scarecrow Festival would not be the same without the ‘Roger Conant Duck Race’. Hundreds of little yellow ducks take part in this fierce competition on Budleigh Brook, racing  from ‘East Budleigh’ to ‘Salem’ to win a cash prize for their owners. Profits from the event go to help maintain the fabric of the village’s All Saints’ Church. And if your little duck doesn’t make it on Saturday, don’t worry, another little duck might win you the prize the next day!

Among the visitors to East Budleigh’s 2025 Scarecrow Festival on 7/8 June was a figure from the distant past. Born in the village over four centuries ago in 1592, a generation later than its other historic figure Sir Walter Raleigh, Roger Conant was very different from Queen Elizabeth I’s favourite courtier. Sailing across the Atlantic to America in around 1623, he founded the Massachusetts city of Salem.  Today, he is seen as a more modest and peace-loving character than many of the country’s European pioneers. 

And so, ‘Roger Conant’ had come to the 2025 Scarecrow Festival to preside over its Duck Race, now named after him. Many visitors to the American city are struck by the sight of Roger Conant’s statue with its tall hat and long cloak, sited next to the American city’s Witch Museum. Understandably they think that its founder must have dabbled in the black arts. Some of East Budleigh’s visitors at the weekend probably thought the same. 

So ‘Roger Conant’ was keen to tell his own story. To some of them he voiced his concerns about the present state of the country of which he is seen as one of the Founding Fathers. And beside the village brook at the start of the Duck Race he addressed the crowds, revealing his role as a peacemaker in troubled times:

 

The Salter’s Song

In sixteen hundred and twenty-three,  

A yeoman’s son from East Budleigh  

Did wish his family ‘Au revoir!   

I’m off to find America.’

 

In London town he’d learnt his trade:  

As salter he had made the grade. 

Now Roger Conant was his name; 

We think he needs a bit more fame.

 

His wife called Sarah joined the ship 

With baby Caleb on the trip.

They sailed across the ocean deep. 

I don’t suppose they had much sleep.

 

And finally at Plymouth Bay, 

Where previous Pilgrims showed the way,  

The Conant family came ashore. 

The year was sixteen twenty-four. 

 

Now Roger’s skill was salting fish  

To make a decent kind of dish.

For, just in case you have forgotten, 

No fridges meant your food went rotten.

 

Just north of Plymouth is Cape Ann. 

West Country merchants had a plan  

To make the Cape a fishing port,  

And maybe even build a fort. 

 

And Roger was named supervisor.  

They said of him ‘There is none wiser!’  

It was of course a job promotion  

With splendid outlook on the ocean.

 

A major problem did occur,  

For Plymouth’s Pilgrims furious were.

Their Captain Standish did arrive.  

The year was sixteen twenty-five.

 

This man was noted for his ire. 

‘Be gone!’ he said. ‘I’ll open fire!

That fishing stage is ours by right.  

We will not hesitate to fight!’

 

The fishermen denied access.  

It could have been a bloody mess.

But hero Roger saved the day.  

His words of peace made all ok. 

 

Conciliation, then and now,   

Is always better than a row.

Diplomacy, a path to peace,  

Will cause all stupid wars to cease. 

 

In Massachusetts he’s renowned,  

For this East Budleigh man did found

A city, which has earned a name

Which matches Roger’s statue’s fame.

 

It’s also known, I’ve heard it said,

And in biographies I’ve read,

That Roger Conant’s peaceful vibe

Impressed the Massachusett tribe.

 

So Roger Conant, worthy chap,  

Deserves, we feel, a special clap.

These verses do indeed attest:  

‘Peacemakers are most surely blest.’

 

PS. If you go to All Saints’ Church in East Budleigh you can see local artist John Washington’s painting of the scene in 1625 which shows the celebrated confrontation between Roger Conant and Captain Myles Standish. The painting is entitled ‘Blessed are the Peacemakers’.

PPS. Salem’s terrible ‘Witch Trials’ took place many years after Roger Conant’s death.

PPPS. There is no connection between East Budleigh’s Salem Chapel and the city of Salem. The word simply means ‘Peace’, as in Hebrew ‘Shalom’ and Arabic ‘Salaam’.

Photo of ‘Roger Conant’ at the start of East Budleigh Scarecrow Festival’s Duck Race. 

If you are interested in the history of early America, and Roger Conant as a peacemaker in troubled times you can join the Devon Peacemaker Festival Facebook group at 

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More photos at https://www.eastbudleigh.org/scarecrows.htm

To conform or not to conform? The case of Richard Conant (1622-1688)

That was the big question for 17th century English people in matters of religion, including the inhabitants of the village of East Budleigh, if they wished to avoid being persecuted for their beliefs.  

Whether to accept the ritual and beliefs of the Established Church of England, or to follow a non-conformist route and be known as a Dissenter. Such was the route chosen by the separatist Plymouth Pilgrims of 1620 when they sailed away from England to America on board the Mayflower.

The historian Clifford K. Shipton wrote that in his religious beliefs Roger Conant, baptized at East Budleigh’s All Saints’ Church in 1592, was far from being a non-conformist like the Plymouth Pilgrims.

Roger would have found ‘the simple ceremonies at Plymouth lacking in the religious consolation he had experienced in the ritual of the old church at East Budleigh’, wrote Shipton in his biography of Salem’s founder. ‘He would have been deterred by their radical religious tenets which were foreign to his upbringing in the church.’

So the case of a 17th century vicar of that East Budleigh church is interesting, especially as this was Richard Conant, Roger’s nephew. Born in 1622, the son of Richard Conant and his wife Jane, née Slade, he studied at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, famous as a hotbed of religious non-conformity. In 1644, during the English Civil War between the King and Parliament, he replaced the royalist vicar of Otterton, Richard Venn, ejected by parliamentary officials.

With the restoration of the English monarchy in 1660, it was the turn of Richard Conant the non-conformist to be ejected as vicar. However, from 1672 until his death in 1688, we find him as vicar of East Budleigh. He had apparently agreed to conform to the Established Church.

But had he really? Two books from his study, entitled A Saint or a Brute and The Life of Faith and mentioned in his Will, stand out as indicating perhaps that his religious sympathies still lay with Dissenters. The author was the English theologian Richard Baxter, who, having been expelled from the Church of England, became one of the most influential leaders of the non-conformist movement. Nowadays he is commemorated by the Church of England on 14 June.

Interesting for American descendants of the Conant family is that the bequest of both books was made to his ‘dear sister Mrs Mary Veren of Salem in New England’. Both Mary Conant and her sister Jane had followed Roger Conant to New England, crossing the Atlantic in 1635.

A further point of interest is that Richard Conant’s appointment as vicar of All Saints’ Church had been supported by Richard Duke, the MP and lord of the Manor of Otterton who held the advowson of East Budleigh – the right to appoint Anglican clergy. He has been described by historian Eveline Cruickshanks as a possible Dissenter, and has been noted as providing stone for the building of Salem Chapel, a place of worship for non-conformists on the outskirts of East Budleigh.

By the time of the 1744 Episcopal Visitation Returns – the process by which bishops of the Church of England gathered information about their diocese – East Budleigh seems to have had more than the average number of dissenters. The vicar, Matthew Mundy declared that there were ‘About a Hundred Families in the Parish; thirty of which, or near that Number, are Dissenters of the Presbyterian sort’, along with ‘one woman in the Parish supposed to be a Roman-Catholick’. 

Pictured here is a page from Richard Baxter’s A Saint or a Brute alongside the list of East Budleigh’s vicars.

If you are interested in the history of early America, and Roger Conant as a peacemaker in troubled times you can join the Devon Peacemaker Festival Facebook group at 

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Budleigh Lions and World Peace Day

Every year on 21 September, the United Nations invites the world to mark the International Day of Peace – also known as World Peace Day.

The Day was first established in 1981 by the United Nations General Assembly, in a resolution sponsored by the United Kingdom and Costa Rica.

The date initially chosen was 11 September. Two decades later, that day in 2001 saw a series of four coordinated attacks launched by the militant Islamist al-Qaeda group against targets in the US, including the World Trade Centre close to the UN headquarters. The General Assembly unanimously voted to choose 21 September as a new fixed calendar for the International Day of Peace, designating it as a period of non-violence and global cease-fire.

Lions clubs all around the world, including Budleigh Salterton’s, promote peace through activities including the Club’s Peace Poster and Peace Essay competitions.

Find out more about Budleigh Lions at https://www.facebook.com/Budleighlions

Information about the Lions' Peace Essay is at https://www.victa.org.uk/victa-calendar/lions-peace-essay-2024/

If you are interested in the history of early America, and Roger Conant as a peacemaker in troubled times you can join the Devon Peacemaker Festival Facebook group at 

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Pacifist thoughts from an army chaplain during World War I

‘It is usually very difficult to find much to say which will not offend the vigilant eye of the censor,’ wrote Kenneth John Best to his family in May 1915, while serving as an army chaplain during World War I. Even so, he managed to say much about the horrors of war. 

In December 1914, while still safe in Egypt and yet to be posted to the front he had expressed his frustration with humanity in a letter to his father. ‘The question always occurs to me, why do men try to reach justice by the sword?’ he asked. ‘Brute force seems to have no connection that I can see with Justice. In this particular case, it may turn out all right – but I hope there will after this be some better means found for settling disputes.’ 

Later, from the bloodbath of Gallipoli, he wrote: ‘What a mad world this is! I suppose we shall soon come to our senses and settle the matter which might just as well have been settled without the carnage. How much wiser were the Israelites and Philistines when they settled their dispute by single combat of David and Goliath.’  

Paradoxically, even though he was a non-combatant, he shared a kind of fascination with the violence while revolting against it: ‘I am able to spend most of my time with the boys in the trenches,’ he told his family on 28 June 1915. ‘The only time I cannot go with them is when they charge. I should love to go with them then, but I could be of no use so I wait ‘til they have got into their new position and then join them as soon as it is possible. It is then that one sees the real horrors of war. The trenches are full of dead and dying Turks, Germans and our own boys. Their moans and cries for help are simply heartbreaking. I hope to goodness we shall soon be relieved for the sake of these poor lads. They are played out. The ghastly sights and foul smells on top of incessant work day and night have overtaxed their endurance.’  

Invalided out the following month, he wrote from the General Hospital in Alexandria of his regret at being away from the action, missing the concert of battle: ‘I began to loathe the peace and quiet. I listen for the roar of naval gun. The shell from the howitzer singing overhead. The mighty crackle of the rifles and machine guns.  Distinguishing the slow dull rattle of Turks from quick metallic rattle of our own, and deducing the proportion of Turk rifle shots to our own by the stray whistling over our heads and so concluding what is happening. It is all very fascinating and now it is gone. I long to be in the thick of it again.’ 

He admits to the strange delight of battle, but is under no illusion about the appalling casualty rate. ‘As I see these soldiers climbing over the parapet for a charge, I know that just only about 400 out of 1,000 will come back untouched. The life is glorious for its excitement but its ghastliness outweighs it.’ 

Convalescing in Cyprus in August 1915, he concludes on a gloomy but philosophical note: ‘Wars will never cease so long as selfishness is one of the strongest powers in the world. Only self-sacrifice in everyday life will make wars cease.’  

Kenneth Best continued his war service in France and was awarded the Military Cross on 1 January, 1918. He retired to Budleigh Salterton, where he died aged 93, on 19 April, 1981. 

The image of his headstone in St Peter’s Burial Ground in Budleigh is shown alongside a photo of Kenneth Best with his parents, the Rev and Mrs J.D. Best on the day of his award at Buckingham Palace. Copyright Imperial War Museum 

The above extracts from Kenneth Best's wartime letters are reproduced from https://www.grandadswar.org/war-diaries/letters-of-rev-john-kenneth-best/

If you are interested in the history of early America, and Roger Conant as a peacemaker in troubled times you can join the Devon Peacemaker Festival Facebook group at 

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Filming for Peace: The Burmese Harp (1956)

Leading film critic and writer Tim Robey, pictured here, was asked to choose the ten best anti-war films, and kindly offered a list, not in any particular order. 

‘There are some obvious ones I've left off (e.g. Platoon, Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket) but I thought you might want to direct people towards fresh discoveries,’ he told us. ‘These are all pretty amazing films in my opinion.’   

Here’s the first: The Burmese Harp (1956), noted as among the first films to show the losses of the war from a Japanese soldier's perspective. Directed by Kon Ichikawa, and based on a children's novel of the same name written by Michio Takeyama, it tells the story of Japanese soldiers who fought in the Burma Campaign during World War II.  

When a Japanese platoon surrenders to British forces in Burma in 1943, the platoon's harp player, Mizushima, is selected from the prisoners of war to deliver a request for surrender to a Japanese regiment holed up on a mountain. Mizushima fails to convince the soldiers to accept defeat, and a last stand commences. 

Traumatized by the bloodshed of his fellow countrymen, Mizushima disguises himself as a Buddhist monk and begins a journey toward peace of mind amid the chaos. You can read more about the film by clicking on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Burmese_Harp_(1956_film)

Tim Robey was born in Hertfordshire in 1978 and educated at Beechwood Park School, Oundle and Oxford University, where he read classics. Since 2000 he has reviewed films, written features and conducted interviews for the Daily Telegraph's arts pages. He appears regularly on Radio 4's Front Row and Monocle FM Radio, contributed to R4's now-defunct Film Programme, and appeared as a sofa guest on BBC Film 2015-2017. He gave Cats zero stars, but has now seen it four times.

1956 poster of The Burmese Harp by Nikkatsu

If you are interested in the history of early America, and Roger Conant as a peacemaker in troubled times you can join the Devon Peacemaker Festival Facebook group at 

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The Roger Conant award at Drake’s School, East Budleigh

On 22 July 2025, the Vicar of Budleigh, the Revd Martin Jacques, presented book tokens to five children from Drake’s School in East Budleigh, chosen by their teachers as the first recipients of the annual Roger Conant award at their end of term leavers’ service. 

A gift of £500 from the village’s Roger Conant Club to enable the awards was made earlier in the year to the Parent, Teacher and Friends Association (PTFA) of Drake’s School, and the money will be awarded as prizes over the next few years to pupils who best represent the School’s values. 

Drake’s Church of England Primary School, pictured here, is named not after the Tudor explorer Sir Francis Drake but after Joan Drake. She was the first wife of the father of Sir Walter Raleigh, Queen Elizabeth I’s favourite courtier who, like Roger Conant, was born in East Budleigh.  

You can read about Drake’s School at https://www.drakes.thelink.academy/web/

If you are interested in the history of early America, and Roger Conant as a peacemaker in troubled times you can join the Devon Peacemaker Festival Facebook group at 

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Peacemaker pale ale from Massachusetts

Back in 2018, Budleigh Salterton’s Fairlynch Museum marked the 400th anniversary of the death of Sir Walter Raleigh, born like Roger Conant in the little village of East Budleigh. 

Many toasts were drunk in Raleigh sparkling wine which is produced by Lily Farm Vineyard just a mile or so from the village.  

There was also Raleigh 400 ale, specially made by Dartmoor-based Black Tor Brewery which was honoured with a visit by ‘Sir Walter’ himself. 

So, you might ask, how might we toast Roger Conant at a Peacemaker Festival? In Warwickshire UK, Napton Cidery makes Peacemaker cider.  

Across the Atlantic, in the state where Roger Conant is celebrated, it’s great to discover the award-winning Stoneman Brewery in the small town of Colrain, where founder and owner Justin Korby, pictured here, brews Peacemaker pale ale. 

It’s one of the original recipes created using Valley Malt's grain and Northeast grown hops, is bottle conditioned, unfiltered and unpasteurized. ‘Pour slowly into a glass and leave yeast behind - sediment is normal,’ we’re told.

Stoneman Brewery’s website is at https://growbeer.com/

You can read about the visit to Black Tor Brewery made by ‘Sir Walter’ in his own words at https://raleigh400.blogspot.com/2018/05/a-merrie-tale-about-ale.html

Peacemaker cider is in what Napton Cidery describes as its award-winning signature range. https://www.naptoncidery.co.uk/

Lily Farm Vineyard’s website is at https://www.lilyfarmvineyard.com/ 

If you are interested in the history of early America, and Roger Conant as a peacemaker in troubled times you can join the Devon Peacemaker Festival Facebook group at 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/700424602802079

 

The International Cross of Nails Award (ICONS)

What can schools do to promote peace and reconciliation? Well, in September 2024, Farway Church of England Primary School, near Colyton in East Devon, was awarded the International Cross of Nails Award (ICONS) by Coventry Cathedral for pupils’ work on peace and reconciliation.

‘We believe that initiatives such as the Cross of Nails project provide valuable opportunities for our students to engage in conversations about peace, reconciliation, and the importance of building bridges across differences on a national scale,’ said a spokesperson for the School.

In 1940, during World War II, salvaged nails which were found in the ruins of Coventry Cathedral’s bombing were formed into a cross. The nails found in the ruins represent the wounds and the destruction of the war, and the cross formation signifies both forgiveness and healing after conflict. As part of a special service, Farway School was given its own Cross of Nails, made in Germany and blessed in Coventry Cathedral, before being presented. The German city of Dresden suffered similarly from bombing during the war, and is now twinned with Coventry, in Warwickshire, England.

The Archdeacon of Exeter, the Venerable Andrew Beane, said: 'What was most impressive was how the children used what they learnt about Coventry as a framework for working for peace and reconciliation in their own lives and friendships.'

Roger Conant, celebrated as a peacemaker, would have been delighted by the news. Colyton, just five miles away from Farway Church of England Primary School, is the town which gained its independence thanks to the efforts of one of its leading merchants, the grandfather of Salem’s founder.

John Clarke travelled to London in 1546 and successfully petitioned King Henry VIII, allowing Colyton a measure of self-government by its councillors, or feoffees as they are still known today.

You can read about the award to Farway Church of England Primary School by clicking on 

https://exeter.anglican.org/inspiring-a-generation-of-peacemakers-church-school-in-devon-awarded-for-its-work-on-peace-and-reconciliation/

More about the International Cross of Nails Award (ICONS) at 

https://coventrycityofpeace.uk/icon-schools/

Image of the Cross of Nails from Wikipedia

If you are interested in the history of early America, and Roger Conant as a peacemaker in troubled times you can join the Devon Peacemaker Festival Facebook group at 

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The Breaking of the Shell by Hanneke Coates

The hamlet of Yettington, just a mile or so from East Budleigh, was the birthplace in 1608 of Roger Conant’s nephew, the eminent theologian and vice-chancellor of Oxford University, Dr John Conant.  It is also the home of Hanneke Coates, whose story of peace and reconciliation was published in Fairlynch Museum’s magazine The Primrose.

Hanneke was born just before WW2 on the island of Java in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), where her father was a tea planter. After the invasion of Java by the Japanese in 1942, she was forced to spend three and a half years of her childhood in one of over 300 concentration camps based around the Archipelago. After the war, as was the practice with many colonials, Hanneke’s parents remained abroad whilst she and her siblings returned to Holland to be fostered out to a number of Dutch families. Later Hanneke moved to England, settling in Yettington.

‘After the invasion all European women and children were advised by the Japanese forces to move to protection camps for their own safety,’ she explained. ‘So we left our homes voluntarily expecting to be protected, but as soon as the camps were filled, they put barbed wire around us. In the meantime husbands and fathers were sent to work on the Burma railway line or placed in concentration camps in and around Japan.’

‘We were constantly moved from one camp to another, often transported in boarded up train carriages without seating, lavatories, food or drink. My final camp was the notorious Tjideng camp (now part of Jakarta) which housed around 11,000 women and children.  The camp was one of many set up to intern European civilians, mainly Dutch, as ‘Guests of the Emperor’ during the period 1942 to 1945.  Those of us who ended up there experienced what can only be called ‘hell on earth’.

‘Food was in short supply and we survived on a starvation diet of half a coconut shell with rice and water-lily soup once a day. Water and sanitation were almost non-existent and medical supplies very scarce as all Red Cross parcels were withheld by the Japanese. We all suffered from tropical diseases such as Cholera, dysentery and malaria.

‘The most lasting effect of those three and a half years in captivity was the relentless and total humiliation the Japanese inflicted on us. We were day and night screamed at, publicly disgraced and punished by having our hair hacked off with blunt knives and regularly lashed with long whips. Many times a day we were herded on to the parade ground to stand for hours in the burning tropical sun and to bow to our captors. One of my earlier memories is from when I was four years old when we were made to witness the hanging of two Dutch soldiers. By the end of the war many hundreds of thousands of women and children had died through malnutrition, tropical diseases and lack of medication. I was one of the lucky ones.’

In time, Hanneke was able to come to terms with her grim experiences. Her book, The Breaking of the Shell, was published in 2018 as part of The Forgiveness Project, a UK-based charity that uses real stories of victims and perpetrators of crime and violence to help people explore ideas around forgiveness and alternatives to revenge. With no political or religious affiliations, The Forgiveness Project's independent and inclusive approach ensures its core message – that everyone has the potential to change their perspective and break the cycle of vengeance – resonates across all cultures.  

You can read the full story as published at https://www.theforgivenessproject.com/stories-library/hanneke-coates/

If you are interested in the history of early America, and Roger Conant as a peacemaker in troubled times you can join the Devon Peacemaker Festival Facebook group at 

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‘The Petition, 1673’ by John Washington

In his painting entitled ‘The Petition, 1673’, British artist John Washington, a resident of Budleigh Salterton, has imagined the scene where Roger Conant in old age is surrounded by his family in Beverly, the Massachusetts community in which he settled and where he would die in 1679 at the great age of 87.

Roger Conant is composing a petition to change the name of the town of Beverly to Budleigh, a request which was rejected by the magistrates of Salem despite the fact that he was one of the city’s founding fathers. Being of a peaceable nature, and respectful of the wishes of the majority, he accepted their decision.

Roger Conant's petition is mentioned on the blue plaque erected in 2023 on the Church Hall in East Budleigh. In his request to the magistrates of Salem he wrote of his neighbours in the town of Beverly who disliked the name because 'it hath caused on us a constant nickname of “beggarly”'. Along with his neighbours, he, 'being all from the western part of England, desire this western name of Budleigh, a market town of Devonshire and near unto the sea as we are here, in this place and where myself was born'.

Perhaps his request was turned down because of religious prejudice against these settlers from the West of England; strict 'separatist' Puritans of the time tended to come from Eastern England. Conant himself is said to have found the 1620 Mayflower Puritans too intolerant for his liking.

Painting ©John Washington. Photo by Peter Bowler.

For more about John Washington's work, click on his website  at https://www.johnwashingtonartist.com/

If you are interested in the history of early America, and Roger Conant as a peacemaker in troubled times you can join the Devon Peacemaker Festival Facebook group at 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/700424602802079

A pacifist in Budleigh: George Gissing (1857-1903)

Not too many Budleigh people know that a great Victorian literary figure, considered in the 1880s as one of the three greatest novelists in England, stayed in the town. Even fewer know of him as a pacifist, for Budleigh Salterton was renowned in the past as a favourite retirement place for military types as well as a health resort. 

And yet, at around the time he was writing his novel The Crown of Life, a desire for peace was in the news. On 29 August, 1898, Czar Nicholas II of Russia issued an invitation to all nations to confer over the limitation of armaments, observing that ‘the intellectual and physical strength of nations; labour and capital alike, have been unproductively consumed in building terrible engines of destruction’. In a letter that Gissing wrote the following year to his German friend and writer Eduard Bertz, he described the novel as containing ‘a rather vigorous attack on militarism’.

According to Gissing’s biographer Jacob Korg, these radical ideas were derived from the author’s reading of Russian writers such as Leo Tolstoy, whose sympathy with the dissident Spiritual Christian group of militant pacifists known as Doukhobors is well known.  Gissing felt that Russian spirituality could serve as an antidote to British Imperialism. 

Gissing and his sister Margaret had spent the spring of 1897 staying at 4 West End Villas – now 14 West Hill – in Budleigh, a town which he had discovered in February 1891 when living in Exeter. They would be joined there by the author, journalist and fellow-pacifist H.G. Wells and his wife. No doubt Czar Nicholas’s invitation would have been one of their subjects of conversation, perhaps contributing to Gissing’s thoughts as he composed The Crown of Life, which was published in 1899.

The novel attacks the role of the press as a fomenter of war. It is notable for its character Lee Hannaford, an inventor of destructive munitions, described by one expert on Gissing as ‘a grotesque, a ludicrous demon’ with ‘near mad Strangelovian inclinations’. Hannaford is used by the author to fix attention upon ‘a sinister aspect of industrialisation at the end of the nineteenth century’.

Here is Gissing’s depiction of the sanctum in which Hannaford works: ‘hung about with lethal weapons of many kinds and many epochs, including a memento of every important war waged in Europe since the date of Waterloo. A smoke-grimed rifle from some battlefield was in Hannaford’s view a thing greatly precious; still more, a bayonet with stain of blood; these relics appealed to his emotions. Under glass were ranged minutiae such as bullets, fragments of shells, bits of gore-drenched cloth or linen, a splinter of human bone – all ticketed with neat inscription. 

'A bookcase contained volumes of military history, works on firearms, treatises on (chiefly explosive) chemistry; several great portfolios were packed with maps and diagrams of warfare. Upstairs, a long garret served as laboratory, and here were ranged less valuable possessions; weapons to which some doubt attached, unbloody scraps of accoutrements, also a few models of cannon and the like.’

By contrast, the novel’s character John Jacks yearns for the day when a new world statesman appears: ‘I want someone to talk about Peace – and not from the commercial point of view,’ he tells us. ‘The slaughterers shan’t have it all their own way… civilization will be too strong for them, and if old England doesn’t lead in that direction, it will be her shame to the end of history.’

Sadly for the idealistic Gissing, it was a time of growing militarism and eventually a bloody war which consumed one of his two sons. Rifleman Walter Gissing died in a hail of shellfire on the first day of the Battle of the Somme at Gommecourt, aged 24; his body was never identified or buried in a marked grave in the ensuing chaos.

Photo of Gissing c.1880, from Wikipedia

If you are interested in the history of early America, and Roger Conant as a peacemaker in troubled times you can join the Devon Peacemaker Festival Facebook group at 

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Sir Karl Jenkins’ The Armed Man: A Mass For Peace

Looking for music suitable for a Peacemaker Festival, it’s clear that the work of a modern composer with strong pacifist convictions is an obvious choice. 

‘Benedictus’ by the Welsh musician Sir Karl Jenkins CBE, from his 1999 work The Armed Man: A Mass For Peace, is a powerful and moving work. Commissioned by the Royal Armouries to mark the transition from one millennium to another, it reflects on the passing of ‘the most war-torn and destructive century in human history’ and looks forward in hope to a more peaceful future. 

The Armed Man is dedicated to the victims of the Kosovo conflict, whose tragedy was unfolding as it was being composed. It was first performed in 2000 by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the National Youth Choir of Great Britain, conducted by Jenkins himself. 

A later composition The Peacemakers, described as ‘a work extolling peace’, was first performed in January 2012 at Carnegie Hall in New York. 

Jenkins’ words on the subject of conflict in today’s world reflect his bitterness. ‘The Peacemakers is dedicated to the memory of all those who lost their lives during armed conflict: in particular, innocent civilians,’ he wrote. ‘When I composed The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace for the millennium, it was with the hope of looking forward to a century of peace. Sadly, nothing much has changed.’  

The photo of Carl Jenkins in 2017 is from Wikipedia. 

Click on the link at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKN9ubD54n0 below to hear the remarkable performance of ‘Benedictus’ by 14-year-old treble Malakai Bayoh.

If you are interested in the history of early America, and Roger Conant as a peacemaker in troubled times you can join the Devon Peacemaker Festival Facebook group at 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/700424602802079

An Upham connection

Just a few miles north of Budleigh is an area of Woodbury Common known as Uphams Plantation. 

When Matthew and James Upham recently moved their antiques business from London to Budleigh Salterton, taking over the town’s old post office building on the High Street and renaming it Upham House, local historians wondered whether there was a connection. 

Matthew and James are indeed well aware that they have returned to the land of their ancestors. With a keen interest in family history they also know that one particular ancestor, around a dozen years after Roger Conant, left our area of East Devon to cross the Atlantic, founding the community of Malden in Massachusetts. 

Known as Deacon John Upham, he was born some seven years after Roger Conant in the hamlet of Bicton, in the same parish. With his wife Elizabeth, their three children and two other members of the family, he sailed for America in March 1635, settling first in Weymouth before moving to Malden. 

Between 1620 and 1640, in a time known as the Great Migration, some 20,000 people left England to settle in New England. Many towns and cities have recently celebrated or will soon celebrate their 400th anniversaries, including Plymouth (2020), Weymouth (2022) Chelsea (2024), Quincy 400 (2025), Salem (2026), Beverly (2026), Boston (2030), Barnstable (2030) and Malden (2040). 

Both Roger Conant and John Upham founded dynasties which number thousands of American citizens. The late 19th century, in 1887 and 1892 saw the publication of two massive volumes, of 639 and 573 pages respectively, recording the history and genealogy of the Conant and Upham families. 

Sir Walter Raleigh is more prominent in Budleigh’s story than the Conant and Upham families, but back in 2013, George and Agnes Martin from Chicago made a special visit to Budleigh Salterton’s Fairlynch Museum. They were keen to discover any trace of Robert Martin (c.1587-c.1660), who married Joane Upham (c.1591-c.1668) in Ottery St Mary on 16 November 1618 before leaving for New England.

Agnes and George Martin are shown here with Fairlynch Museum volunteer Sheila Jelley, above an illustration of the grave of Deacon John Upham, reproduced from the online research journal Anne’s Family History.

If you are interested in the history of early America, and Roger Conant as a peacemaker in troubled times you can join the Devon Peacemaker Festival Facebook group at 

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Author Joseph Bolton on Roger Conant

Today, in America, there are thousands of admirers of East Budleigh-born Roger Conant, with many of them researching his life and writing about him and his fellow-settlers in 17th century New England. 

Joseph Bolton, pictured here, is a US Army veteran from Massachusetts, author of the illustrated series Old Grandmother’s Tree — a celebration of French-Canadian folklore and intergenerational wisdom. 

In this section from his Augustine’s Alley blog he writes of Roger Conant and his contemporaries, including John Oldham and Roger Williams, both of whom incurred the enmity of leaders of the Plymouth Colony who had travelled to America on the Mayflower in 1620: 

‘Plymouth’s colonists, under pressure from starvation and uncertain leadership gave in to fear and that fear lead to fanaticism and intolerance,’ he writes. ‘The slightest offense was punished with beatings, the most infamous being when John Oldham was compelled to run a gauntlet of his fellow Plymouth neighbors hitting him with their muskets. 

'Roger Conant, much like his philosophical fellow traveler Roger Williams, found the fanatical intolerance of his fellow Puritans distasteful. Like Roger Williams, he chose not to add to the civil strife by confrontation but instead left to start a new colony built on peace and nonviolence. 

'For Roger Conant, it was a move north along the shore to Nantasket and Cape Ann. There he and his fellow settlers found a community based on civil cooperation, not confrontation. It also was where everyone was free to worship as they pleased.’

If you are interested in the history of early America, and Roger Conant as a peacemaker in troubled times you can join the Devon Peacemaker Festival Facebook group at 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/700424602802079