the man who drew the peace sign said it was a picture of himself, in despair. gerald holtom (1914–1985), an artist and a pacifist, made it in 1958, as britain tested hydrogen bombs, for a march against them: four days at easter, from london to the atomic weapons research centre at aldermaston. he explained it as two letters in semaphore, the flag code: n and d, for nuclear disarmament.
it was also a man. fifteen years later he wrote: i was in despair. deep despair. i drew myself: the representative of an individual in despair, with hands palm outstretched outwards and downwards in the manner of goya’s peasant before the firing squad. i formalised the drawing into a line and put a circle round it.
(in goya’s painting, the third of may 1808, the man before the firing squad has his arms raised, not lowered.)
he made five hundred placards for the march, half in black and white for good friday and saturday, half in green and white for easter sunday and monday: from despair,
he wrote, to a belief in humanity and life.
so many marchers came on the first day that every placard went out at once.
by then it was a sign for peace all over the world. in time he came to regret the despair in it; peace, he thought, should be celebrated. upside down, its flags read u and d, and he once turned his own badge round to ud
: unilateral disarmament. in his will he asked for the sign on his gravestone to be carved upside down, the man with his arms raised. he died in 1985. on his stone, in spring lane cemetery, hythe, for reasons unknown, the sign was carved the usual way up. below the signs, the stone says: may he find peace.
