Childermas: the Feast of the Holy Innocents ~ the Fourth Day of Christmas

Christingle at Canterbury Cathedral, December 28th, 2019

  
The fourth day of  Christmas commemorates the Feast Day of the Holy Innocents, or to give it its Old English name, Childermas.

Childermas, which has been part of the church year since the 5th Century, remembers the story found in Matthew's Gospel (2: 16-18) that, at the time of Jesus' birth, & fearing a challenge to his own power, King Herod of Judea ordered the massacre of all male children under two years old in the vicinity of Bethlehem.

Some estimate that between 6,000 and 14,000, or even 144000, children were murdered, although when considering the size of Bethlehem and surrounding settlements, it is more likely to have been a few dozen, if the event happened at all. Whether it is historical fact is debated, especially as it echoes Pharoah's attempted murder of the Israelite children in Exodus when he is warned that the birth of Moses will become a threat to his crown.

The beautiful but haunting 16th Century 'Coventry Carol' refers to the massacre of the innocents, and is a lament by a mother for her doomed child.

In the Middle Ages, Childermas was taken as an opportunity for role reversal, with teachers and pupils changing places and church services being presided over by 'boy bishops'. And it was once the custom to refrain from work on Childermas day and to avoid work on that day of the week for all of the following year; being taken as an opportunity to play perhaps. This playfulness is echoed in Spain where the Feast Day of the Holy Innocents is a time for pranks, much like our April Fool's Day.

And at Canterbury Cathedral the Feast Day of the Holy Innocents is a day for their annual Christingle. This service raises funds for the Children's Society which works to support vulnerable children in England and Wales. It brings shame on us all that so many children in this country, the fifth richest in the world, are living in poverty and peril.

Canterbury Cathedral Christmas tree, 2019

In March, 2019, the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) estimated that there were 4.1 million children living in poverty in the UK from 2017-18 (9 in a classroom of 30). By 2022 this is expected to have risen to 5.2 million. 43% of children living in a family with three or more children are living in poverty. 45% of children from minority ethnic families are living in poverty, so too are 47% of children from lone parent families. 70% of children living in poverty are in working families. When a Government minister was recently asked about these appalling figures he replied that we could 'argue about the definition of poverty'. We might shudder when reminded that, in 2016, the Government abolished their own child poverty unit.

But then to keep children in poverty suits our Government because it provides fodder for their lucrative war machine. In Britain, 16 year olds can’t vote, drive a car, or drink alcohol, but they are able to join the army. No other country in Europe recruits at such a young age. Only 17 other countries in the world allow it, including Zambia, El Salvador, and Iran.

Between January and October 2017 more than 19,000 under 18 year olds applied to join the army folliwing the controversial 'This is Belonging' campaign, which was run in partnership with private recruitment agency Capita & designed to attract young people from working class and poor backgrounds, targetting children from deprived areas particularly; they are more desperate you see, more compliant.

In addition, thousands of schools across the UK invite in the military. This despite the UN committee on the rights of the child informing the UK Government in June to “reconsider its active policy of recruitment of children into the armed forces and ensure the recruitment practices do not actively target persons under the age of 18 and ensure that military recruiters’ access to schools be strictly limited.”

And, of course, the army may provide these young people with many good things but statistics show that, although children can’t be deployed on the front line before the age of 18, when they are those who are recruited from 16 are twice as likely to die.

St Martin's Chrustingle, 2019

And children from other lands fare no better. One of the Boris Johnson Government's first acts after the December 2019 election was to "tear up” a government hard-won pledge, known as the Dubs Amendment, to protect child refugees in Europe seeking to reunite with family in the UK post-Brexit. These are children who are alone asking to join their families who are already here. To deny them is monstrous. Máiréad Collins, Christian Aid's Senior Advocacy Advisor on Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, said: "There is a grim irony in this decision being made a few days before Christmas, when two billion people around the world mark the birth of a Middle-Eastern child who became a refugee, and found sanctuary abroad." On 21st December, 2019, The Guardian reported that the Home Office had rejected 1,400 offers from local councils, one third Conservative led, to house child refugees and that numbers of arrivals are "pitifully low."

All Soul's, Cheriton, nativity, 2019

It's estimated that more than 200 children, many who are eligible for settlement in the UK, remain living in terrible conditions in Northern France, with thousands more trapped in Italy and Greece. Clare Moseley, founder of Care4Calais, said: “It’s become absolutely horrible, I do not understand how it can be this hostile, how our country can behave like this, how they keep saying no to this.”

Matt's Bible Blog comments that, "Herod’s shadow still stalks the land. Only that’s not true, is it? Because Herod’s not our shadow, he’s our mirror." May we all be grateful to the mirrors that show us who we are, not who we wish ourselves to be. And, if we can't bear our own reflection, let us change something.

This is relentlessly heartbreaking, bewildering, and dispiriting I know, and Christmas is so much about joy. But it also unfolds at the darkest time of the year, and it too has its dark side. If anything, Christmas teaches us how to negotiate the tension that we must increasingly learn to hold well if we are to keep our hearts open and be any use; gratitude in one hand and grief in the other, joy and despair, and discounting neither.

But how might we do that? Matthew 2 tells us that, after Herod had made his pronouncement, "what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: “A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more”, echoing the same words found in Jeremiah 31:15.

Here, Rachel is remembered as the archetypal mother who mourns and intercedes for her children. It feels significant too that her weeping is for her descendants' suffering in exile from the land of their birth. So many are in exile now, or feel unwelcome in this, their own land. And that is worthy of tears.

Childermas is a reminder to offer love, gratitude, and support to all those who work to make the lives of children better, but also brings an invitation to look deep into the mirror and to mourn, not a tale found in the Bible but the ways in which we fail to protect and love our children now. We must guard against hardening our hearts, and we must honour our tears as strength, not as weakness. Let our tears be the medicine that unlocks the door of compassion for all the world's children.

If you would like to offer prayers for our children I have added some links below. Both relate to the situation in the US where children are being forcibly removed from their parents at the border with Mexico and then detained in inhumane conditions, or returning from school to find their parents who had found a home in the US deported. It is horrific that these prayers are so very easily adapted to our own circumstances here in the UK.

I end with a slightly adapted version of my own prayer, written as part of our Novena for the Fallen Through in December 2017. You can read the full piece here.


Novena for the Fallen Through: Peace on Earth.

Blessed Mari, Hallowed Mary,
Holy Mothers of Peace,
Sisters of Reconciliation,
Singers of the Mending Song.

We stand in solidarity with you at the gates of Birth.
We seek Light in the luminous beauty of Darkness, in the depths of winter cold.

With you, we follow the silver thread of starlit Hope,
in the midst of anguish and despair.
We seek a Revolution of Love.
We expect Justice.
We speak for Peace.
We will not be shut out.
We will be heard.
Room will be made.

We ask for nothing less than Peace on Earth.
We cling to the stubborn hope of light in the darkness.
We allow our waiting to become a prayer.

Mary, singer of wild songs, mother of the Light, Mari, drummer of the wild hills, companion of Stars,
we ask for your help in the protection of our children,
suffering in poverty; cold and hungry, even now at Christmas time,
for the protection of our children,
called to war from a life of lack;
of opportunity, of wealth, of hope.
Kept poor to become prey.

We ask for power to come to the peaceful,
for love to come to the lost,
for hope to come to the hopeless.

Blessed Mari, Hallowed Mary,
Holy Mothers of Peace,
Sisters of Reconciliation,
Singers of the Mending Song.

We stand in solidarity with you at the gates of Birth.
We seek Light in the luminous beauty of Darkness, in the depths of winter cold.

With you, we follow the silver thread of starlit Hope,
in the midst of anguish and despair.
We seek a Revolution of Love.
We expect Justice.
We speak for Peace.
We will not be shut out.
We will be heard.
Room will be made.

We ask for nothing less than Peace on Earth. We cling to the stubborn hope of light in the darkness.
We allow our waiting to become a prayer.

Mary, singer of wild songs, mother of the Light,
Mari, drummer of the wild hills, companion of Stars,
We ask for bright paths to be illuminated for our children, for lanterns to lead their way to futures filled with possibility.

We pray for the day when the Feast of the Innocents becomes truly that;
a celebration of the child,
of the innocence of the young and the innocence in us all.

We pray for a time when our innocence is not taken by the things we have seen and what we know. When we need not stand guard to protect our babies from the machine of war, power, and greed, but can lean back and be supported by the sweet waters of life knowing that they are safe to explore the world in freedom.

We listen for the hoofbeat of the Mari Lwyd, we listen for the revolutionary Magnificat of Mary,
we look to the Star fallen to earth,
sing the Spirit in,
gather up the pieces of broken hope,
weave starshine in our hair,
stand with the saints with starlight at their brow, knowing that we also shine.

Like all that is born, Sun and Son, vulnerable and new in the midst of this deepest dark, May we be undefended and undefeated, bright with possibility and hope reborn.

Blessed Mari, Hallowed Mary,
Holy Mothers of Peace,
Sisters of Reconciliation,
Singers of the Mending Song.

We stand in solidarity with you at the gates of Birth.
We seek Light in the luminous beauty of Darkness, in the depths of winter cold.

With you, we follow the silver thread of starlit Hope,
in the midst of anguish and despair.
We seek a Revolution of Love.
We expect Justice.
We speak for Peace.
We will not be shut out.
We will be heard.
Room will be made.

We lift the shard of a shattered star.
We hold the vision of a shining light of protection around our children, allow innocence to be reborn.

We allow the wild hope of Peace on Earth to sink into our bones, and for our very bones to shine.

The lights ARE going on.

For this we pray.

References:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_the_Innocents

https://billpetro.com/history-of-childermas

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/childermas-day-1.229056?mode=amp

https://harpers.org/blog/2007/12/the-terrible-fourth-day-of-christmas/

https://mattsbibleblog.wordpress.com/tag/childermas-day/

Child Poverty ~

https://cpag.org.uk/child-poverty/child-poverty-facts-and-figures

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/dec/20/fears-after-government-abolishes-civil-
services-child-poverty-unit

Child Army Recruitment ~

http://radicalhoneybee.blogspot.com/2017/12/novena-for-fallen-through-our-third.html?m=1

Child Refugees/the Dubs Amendment ~

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/boris-johnson-withdrawal-bill-brexit-child-refugees-dubs-amendment-a9253841.html 

https://www.indcatholicnews.com/news/38578

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/21/home-office-ignore-offers-of-uk-homes-for-child-refugees

Prayers for Children ~

https://reformjudaism.org/blog/2018/06/19/3-prayers-children-our-borders

https://parisbooksandcats.wordpress.com/2019/06/28/a-prayer-for-the-children-at-the-border/

http://radicalhoneybee.blogspot.com/2017/12/novena-for-fallen-through-our-third.html?m=1

Novena for the Fallen Through ~ our third prayer for Peace on Earth

Mari Lwyd image by Flying Viper on DeviantArt

“It’s immoral for adults to use children in war.” ~ Child Soldiers International

Here is the third of our December Novenas for the Fallen Through, which for this month are devoted to Mary and Mari Lwyd and to Peace on Earth. If you would like to read more about this month’s novena you can read our first prayer here.

In our first Novena we lifted a prayer for peace in many aspects; the end of arms trading, for an end to loneliness and poverty, to the Boxing Day hunt and to driven grouse shooting, and for peace on the West Bank. As this cycle of prayers continues we will explore these themes in greater depth. In our second prayer we turned to homelessness and the growing number of people both sleeping rough and in temporary accommodation, recognising that those among us who are rootless, unsafe, without ground or a roof, or just poor in a world that is so rich (in ‘stuff’, rather than spirit), can so easily become prey. With this in mind, today’s prayer will be a heartfelt cry against the recruitment of children into the armed services, children who disproportionately come from working class and poor families.

Midwinter festivals, including Winter Solstice, Yule, and Christmas are so much about the rebirth of the light, as we journey through the shortest day and longest night to see the sun’s light begin to grow a little more each day. For those of us who celebrate Christmas we turn our minds and hearts to the birth of a baby, for some the ‘Light of the World’. It is the tenderest of stories in so many ways, filled with hope and joy; Mary, ‘meek and mild’, giving birth to her baby in a stable and laying him in a manger. And yet Mary was neither meek nor mild.

(Ben Wildflower. Find him on Etsy https://www.etsy.com/shop/BenWildflower)

In our first prayer I mentioned that Mary’s ‘Magnificat’, the longest set of words spoken by any woman in the New Testament’, is considered by many to be deeply subversive. The Magnificat was Mary’s spontaneous response to being declared ‘blessed’ by Elizabeth, who at that time was pregnant with John the Baptist. One might suggest that it was subversive enough for two such strong women to take centre stage in such deeply patriarchal times! But Mary’s song is not one of simple joy. It is threaded through with fear; the fear of a young girl, unmarried and pregnant at a time when to be so risked social ostracism and humiliation. Indeed, under Jewish law, she was at risk of stoning for adultery. And, in that context, she sings for hope, defiant in the face of danger. It is this defiance which caused the Magnificat to become a “radical resource for those seeking to honour the holy amongst the conflicts and suffering of real life.” (Rev. Carolyn Sharp). It has often become a source of strength for those on the margins who have struggled for liberation.

During British rule of India the Magnificat was banned from being sung in church. Dietrich Bonheoffer, who was executed by the Nazis in 1945 having worked for the German resistance movement, was deeply devoted to Mary. In a sermon given at Advent in 1933 he said,

“The song of Mary is the oldest Advent hymn. It is at once the most passionate, the wildest, one might even say the most revolutionary Advent hymn ever sung.”

In Guatemala in the 1980s the Government banned its recitation considering it to be ‘too dangerous’. Mary sings of the ‘world turned upside down’, of a time when the “rulers will be brought down from their thrones”, “the humble will be lifted up”, and “filled with good things” as the “rich are sent away empty”. These are themes which often rise in our midwinter traditions. I have written before about the Mari Lwyd and our wassailing traditions allowing the sharing of resources from rich to poor, but we also have customs such as the ‘Lord of Misrule’, who was often a peasant chosen by lot to preside over Christmastide festivities ~ a reminder that the social hierarchy was maintained by consent, rather than by right. During Argentina’s ‘war’ against political dissidents, the ‘Mothers of the Disappeared’ placed Mary’s challenging words on posters all over the capital plaza and the display of her song was subsequently outlawed by the military junta. And, of course, Mary too understood the pain of the loss of a child.

And, even before the final scapegoating, she had to fight to keep him. The Sunday after Christmas is the ‘Feast of the Holy Innocents;, which commemorates the baby boys murdered in Herod’s desperation to rid himself of the threat to his Imperial power, causing the Holy family to gather up their newly born baby boy and take flight as refugees across the Sinai desert.

These are not tender stories filled with hope and joy. They are far too real for that and how they echo our own struggles to keep our lost baby boys alive. Some would challenge the historical accuracy of stories such as the ‘Massacre of the Innocents’ but I think that that is missing the point. We need only open a newspaper to see that this story is being relived in one form or another in our world everyday; in stairwells in South London, in refugee boats in the Mediterranean Sea, in our armed forces, innocents and innocence are dying over and over again. No wonder that the Star of Bethlehem broke into a thousand pieces.

('Child Soldier', Simon Rawles, https://simonrawles.photoshelter.com/image/I0000M120GOn9QtE)

In 1870, American poet and author, Julia Ward Howe, wrote ‘A Mother’s Day Proclamation’ calling for peace, and which includes the words..

“Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,

For caresses and applause.

Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn

All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.

We, the women of one country,

Will be too tender of those of another country

To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

In Britain, 16 year olds can’t vote, drive a car, or drink alcohol, but they are able to join the army. No other country in Europe recruits at such a young age. Only 17 other countries in the world allow it, including Zambia, El Salvador, and Iran. The army insists that under 16s are not recruited and yet they host a website called ‘The Camouflage’ which is directed at 14 to 16 year olds. It includes pages entitled, ‘You Can Run But You Can’t Hide’, which asks us to imagine the “might of a metal-mashing javelin missile mangling a tank from 2km away”. It doesn’t mention of course that anyone might be in it. Other pages, such as ‘Bring Out the Big Guns and ‘How to be a Sniper’ tell us that the AS90 gun has “awesome stats” and can “target an area 19 miles away, destroying a 100m2 area with highly explosive shells. No wonder that its nickname is ‘The Nasty’.” A sergeant tells us that, “When they give the order, I press the fire button.” What more telling description of the ways of war than that? The ‘how to be a sniper’ page explains that a successful sniper must be a ‘master of concealment’. They make it sound like a game. When I read these pages I had to stop writing to weep for what we have done. Oh, and then there is the talk of how much money a 16 year old might hope to make…

Between January and October 2017 more than 19,000 under 18 year olds applied to join the army following the controversial ‘This is Belonging’ campaign, which was run in partnership with recruitment agency Capita and designed to attract young people from working class backgrounds. A spokesperson from the charity Child Soldiers International suggested that the army wanted young people to sign up because they are “more psychologically malleable” and so can be, “manipulated into unquestioning loyalty” and to, “submit unquestioningly to what they are told to do.” She also explained that, because these young people haven’t developed a ‘civilian identity’ of their own to return to when they leave the army, they struggle to reintegrate into society. It was noted that this campaign particularly targeted poorer working class areas in northern England, as well as Birmingham, Belfast, and Cardiff.

In addition, thousands of schools across the UK invite in the military. This despite the UN committee on the rights of the child informing the UK Government in June to “reconsider its active policy of recruitment of children into the armed forces and ensure the recruitment practices do not actively target persons under the age of 18 and ensure that military recruiters’ access to schools be strictly limited.”

The army claim that they visit schools in order to ‘forge a relationship with the society which they represent’. However, ForcesWatch, which seeks to challenge military presence in education, is sceptical saying that these visits, “market and drip-feed a lifestyle of opportunity and thrills”, pointing out that they santise and glamourise conflict, whilst focusing on adventure.

Although children can’t be deployed on the front line before the age of 18 there is evidence that those who are recruited from 16 are twice as likely to be killed when they do fight because they have been channelled into the more dangerous roles; more ‘exciting’ I suppose. There is also evidence that the military targets in particular schools in deprived areas and from where children from low-income families so often struggle to progress in life through academic means. Recruits must spend two years in college if they join up at 16 but receive a ‘military exemption’, which means that there is no guarantee that they will receive a good academic or vocational experience. In 2007, the head of the army’s recruitment strategy said, “It starts with a seven year old boy seeing a parachutist at an sir show and thinking, ‘that looks great’. From then the army is trying to build interest by drip, drip, drip.” But then what are the children of the poor for if not to work until they drop or fight in wars not of their own making?

(Child Soldier International)

Novena for the Fallen Through

Peace on Earth

Blessed Mari, Hallowed Mary,

Holy Mothers of Peace,

Sisters of Reconciliation,

Singers of the Mending Song.

We stand in solidarity with you at the gates of Birth

seeking Light in the luminous beauty of Darkness,

in the depths of winter cold.

With you, we follow the silver thread of starlit Hope,

in the midst of anguish and despair.

We seek a Revolution of Love.

We expect Justice. We speak for Peace.

We will not be shut out. We will be heard.

Room will be made.

We ask for nothing less than Peace on Earth.

We cling to the stubborn hope of light in the darkness.

We allow our waiting to become a prayer.

Mary, singer of wild songs, mother of the Light,

Mari, drummer of the wild hills, companion of Stars,

we ask for your help in the protection of our children,

called to war from a life of lack; of opportunity, of wealth, of meaning.

Kept poor to become prey.

We ask for power to come to the peaceful,

for love to come to the lost,

for hope to come to the hopeless,

for the military machine to be seen for what it is,

so often the vehicle of Colonial and Capitalist might

masquerading as good.

Blessed Mari, Hallowed Mary,

Holy Mothers of Peace,

Sisters of Reconciliation,

Singers of the Mending Song.

We stand in solidarity with you at the gates of Birth

seeking Light in the luminous beauty of Darkness,

in the depths of winter cold.

With you, we follow the silver thread of starlit Hope,

in the midst of anguish and despair.

We seek a Revolution of Love.

We expect Justice. We speak for Peace.

We will not be shut out. We will be heard.

Room will be made.

We ask for nothing less than Peace on Earth.

We cling to the stubborn hope of light in the darkness.

We allow our waiting to become a prayer.

Mary, singer of wild songs, mother of the Light,

Mari, drummer of the wild hills, companion of Stars,

We ask for other paths to be illuminated for our children,

for lanterns to lead their way to brighter futures

filled with possibility,

and for the marsh light, the will-o’-the-wisp, the ‘foolish fire’

of a military career not to tempt young travellers from safe trackways

in a life so often hard to negotiate for those without resources.

Let the false flame of the military dim,

the glamour of war tarnish,

be seen for what it is.

Let adventure come from lives lived wildly and well

in a world of peace.

And if this is truly the path that they wish to walk

let them choose older when they know who they are

and will not become someone else’s loaded gun.

Blessed Mari, Hallowed Mary,

Holy Mothers of Peace,

Sisters of Reconciliation,

Singers of the Mending Song.

We stand in solidarity with you at the gates of Birth

seeking Light in the luminous beauty of Darkness,

in the depths of winter cold.

With you, we follow the silver thread of starlit Hope,

in the midst of anguish and despair.

We seek a Revolution of Love.

We expect Justice. We speak for Peace.

We will not be shut out. We will be heard.

Room will be made.

We ask for nothing less than Peace on Earth.

We cling to the stubborn hope of light in the darkness.

We allow our waiting to become a prayer.

Mary, singer of wild songs, mother of the Light,

Mari, drummer of the wild hills, companion of Stars,

We pray for the day when the Feast of the Innocents

becomes truly that; a celebration of the child,

of the innocence of the young and the innocence in us all.

We pray for a time when our innocence is not taken

by the things we have seen and what we know.

When we need not stand guard to protect our babies

from the machine of war and greed

but can lean back and be supported by the sweet waters of life

knowing that they are safe to explore the world in freedom.

We pray for all those who have died in wars not of their making,

who have hoped to do good and been broken by what they have found,

who have seen through the lies and spoken out,

or who remain, silent or unseeing.

Let power come to the peaceful

and love to the lost.

No more children called to war.

We listen for the hoofbeat of the Mari Lwyd,

we listen for the revolutionary Magnificat of Mary,

we look to the Star fallen to earth, sing the Spirit in,

gather up the pieces of broken hope,

weave starshine in our hair,

stand with the saints with starlight at their brow,

knowing that we also shine.

Like all that is born, Sun and Son,

vulnerable and new in the midst of this deepest dark,

May we be undefended and undefeated,

bright with possibility and hope reborn.

Blessed Mari, Hallowed Mary,

Holy Mothers of Peace,

Sisters of Reconciliation,

Singers of the Mending Song.

We stand in solidarity with you at the gates of Birth

seeking Light in the luminous beauty of Darkness,

in the depths of winter cold.

With you, we follow the silver thread of starlit Hope,

in the midst of anguish and despair.

We seek a Revolution of Love.

We expect Justice. We speak for Peace.

We will not be shut out. We will be heard.

Room will be made.

We lift the third shard of a shattered star.

We hold the vision of a shining light

of protection around our children,

allow innocence to be reborn.

We allow the possibility of belonging,

of home, to sink into our bones.

We allow the wild hope of Peace on Earth to shine.

The lights are going on.

For this we pray.

Aho mitake oyasin, amen, blessed be. Inshallah.

References:

The Magnificat ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnificat

Mary’s Subversive Magnificat ~ http://enemylove.com/subversive-magnificat-mary-expected-messiah-to-be-like/

The Manger’s Revolt ~ http://www.prayerandpolitiks.org/articles-essays-sermons/2015/12/10/the-mangers-revolt.1789524

Feast of the Holy Innocents ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_the_Innocents

Dietrich Bonhoeffer ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Bonhoeffer

The Lord of Misrule ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_Misrule

Will-o’-the-wisp ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will-o%27-the-wisp

The recruitment of children into the armed forces ~

Army recruitment at 16 should stop ~ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22259982

Why do the British Armed Forces still allow 16-year-olds to enlist? ~ https://www.theguardian.com/uk/shortcuts/2013/apr/23/british-armed-forces-16-year-olds

Charity criticises British Army campaign to recruit under 18 year olds ~ https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/nov/29/charity-criticises-british-army-campaign-to-recruit-under-18s

Campaigners fight to keep the military away from UK schools ~ https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/aug/30/fight-keep-military-from-schools-enlist-under-16

Children have no place in the British army ~ https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/22/children-british-army-recruit-16-year-olds

The Camouflage ~ http://www.army.mod.uk/camouflage/default.aspx

‘This is Belonging’ campaign ~ https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/army-appeals-human-need-belong-new-integrated-recruitment-campaign/1419994

‘A Mother’s Day Proclamation’ by Julia Ward Howe (1870) ~ http://themoderatevoice.com/a-mothers-day-proclamation/

Julia Ward Howe ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Ward_Howe

Child Soldiers International ~ https://www.child-soldiers.org/

ForcesWatch: challenging military presence in education ~ https://www.forceswatch.net/