Anti-Nuclear Youth, 1957–1969

Chapter 5 examines young people’s perspectives on and involvement in anti-nuclear campaigning from 1957, particularly in association with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) which was founded that year. The involvement of hipster youth has received attention at the time and subsequently, but a much wider range of young people were involved in these developments, and sometimes nuanced or challenged media portrayals. I explore the positioning of young people (or youth) in anti-nuclear campaigns of the late 1950s and 1960s, rhetorically and in terms of an organisational space within CND structures. A second section discusses the emphasis on fear of nuclear weapons and testing as a central theme in texts produced by adults and by young people themselves, but one expressed in different ways (with humour alongside bleak portrayals), and with the potential for leading to hope and stimulating action. In a final section I examine in detail young people’s actions within CND, how they perceived what they were doing, and how these perceptions related to those of adults and those found in wider social debates and media reports. They emphasised aims of both education and protest, claiming responsibility while demanding societal change.