Mayor to unveil peace plaque

Press, 5 August 1983, Page 4

Mayor to unveil peace plaque

The Mayor of Christchurch, Sir Hamish Hay, will tomorrow unveil a plaque with a script in English, Maori, and Japanese in memory of Japanese who died when in August, 1945, the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War 11. The ceremony, on the banks of the Avon River opposite the former Canterbury Public Library at the corner of Hereford Street

and Cambridge Terrace, will take place at 4 p.m. and will mark the start of a rally organised by the Christchurch Peace Forum to commemorate Hiroshima Day.

The plaque will be placed at the base of a cherry tree given by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in 1968.

The rally will then proceed to Cathedral Square, where the marchers will be

addressed by a Dunedin peace activist, Mr Peter Matheson, about 5 p.m.

The marchers will then walk back to the Avon River, where peace candles will be set afloat on the river opposite the Law Courts.

The rally will follow the floating candles along the Avon to Madras Street. From there the rally will go to the Trade Union Centre for documentary films and

a bring-your-own tea. One of the organisations in Peace Forum, Women for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament, will draw attention to the deaths at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in a graphic way this evening and tomorrow morning. Members of the group will parade in Christchurch city streets and suburban shopping malls dressed in burnt clothes and with painted faces.