North London Peace Walk

Dinnegan family with Islington Council Leader Catherine West & supporters at St Mellitus Church

More than 80 people, toddlers, teenagers and pensioners alike joined in a three hour peace walk from St Mellitus Church, Tollington Park, north London, on the sunny afternoon of Saturday, 25 June. Catherine West, leader of Islington Council, Jean-Roger Kaseki, other Councillors and Police representatives all joined in.

The start was at the small peace garden and war memorial outside St Mellitus and the first stop was in Cornwallis Park. In that park there is a memorial to Martin Dinnegan murdered aged 14 four years ago this weekend - another young victim of knife crime. We gathered around his memorial to think of him and his too short young life. His parents, Jim and Lorraine Dinnegan, and many of his family and young friends were on the walk.

The next stop was Elthorne Park and the Philip Noel Baker peace garden. Lord Noel Baker was a Quaker and a tireless campaigner for good relations between countries and an end to the arms race. Winner of the Nobel peace prize, he was also an Olympic silver medallist (1920 for 1500m) and believed in sport as a road to peace.

Then we moved onto the peace park created and recently opened outside Holy Trinity Church on Granville Road - just over the border into Haringey. Joanna Bornat of Stroud Green Residents Association explained that it commemorates local people killed in 1944 by a flying bomb. Father Patrick Henderson and local residents gave us a warm welcome as well as tea.

Why this walk? It was a call for an end to violence, personal, local and international and a commitment by everyone to building peace between individuals, communities and nations.

Bruce Kent from the St Mellitus Justice and Peace group which initiated the walk said: "We could make a start by opposing the TV culture of violence which daily pours out from our screens on news and drama. Many young people now see it as a normal part of life."