Beveridge and the nuclear-free movement
The campaign to declare New Zealand nuclear free in the 1980s began at the local level throughout the country. In September 1983 Nelson City was declared a nuclear-weapon-free zone. This is the story of this historic decision and the notable events and characters involved. In March 1976, Mike Beveridge and Darryl Kennedy, the owners of the Everyman Bookshop in Hardy Street (later also a record store known to Nelsonians as 'the Everyman' and a Nelson institution) launched a petition to ban nuclear warships from NZ ports. They challenged other shopkeepers to have the petition in their stores for people to sign. In only three months, in July 1976, the petition was presented to parliament with over 20,000 signatures. Mike Beveridge was a poet ('Poems for Remembering' 2022) and Frank Sargeson Fellow, and had been a schoolteacher at Nayland College prior to opening the Everyman. Read more at: https://www.theprow.org.nz/society/nuclear-free-nelson/ March for peace (anti-V...