Maisie Carter was born in Bermondsey in 1927 at a time when it was a poor working-class district and Dr Alfred Salter and his wife Ada were active in the area working to improve the health and well-being of the local population. Maisie remembered Dr Salter and his tireless work. She, too, went on to become a tireless campaigner for social justice and peace all her life and was involved in many organisations including the Communist Party, the Labour Party, the NUT, Merton and Sutton Trades Council, Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, and CND right up until the end of her long life. Maisie taught for many years at The Priory, C of E School in Queen’s Road, Wimbledon and combined her professional life with campaigning and her family, bringing up two boys, Mick and Stephen.
Maisie, with Joanna Bazley, was a founder member of Wimbledon Disarmament Coalition/CND in the 1980s during the Cruise missile crisis, which brought a resurgence of peace activity nearly everywhere. Maisie was involved in all the activities of the group and was a longstanding member of the committee, for many years as the Chair. The meetings at her cosy flat in Raynes Park were always accompanied by tea and biscuits.
She and Joanna were very much the driving force behind the annual fund-raising event, the Fete of the Earth. Maisie would arrive with her car so full of bric a brac it was impossible to think we could possibly get rid of it all. She was often to be found selling raffle tickets or latterly behind the stall selling CND merchandise often supported by her daughter-in-law, Melody. After she was no longer able to attend the Sidmouth Folk Festival, where she had been instrumental in setting up an annual Hiroshima Day commemoration, she joined our annual gathering by Rushmere Pond on 6th August, and, with great effort and help from friends, was there in August 2022. She attended our weekly Vigil for Peace outside Wimbledon Library handing out leaflets and engaging with passersby, from its inception after 9/11 in 2001 until the pandemic finally brought it to an end in 2020. She was also to be found each month on the Peace Table.
In the early 1990s, the then WDC/CND committee organised the planting of a Japanese cherry tree in Cannizaro Park, to commemorate those who died in the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A replacement tree was planted in 2015, and when Maisie appealed to the Arboriculture department at Merton Council a new plaque was put up in 2019, to replace the original which had been stolen. She always took part in the annual Remembrance Day commemoration and after the main event would read a suitable piece of poetry to a small gathering of local CND members.
Maisie had many interests outside of campaigning for good causes. Among other things she enjoyed trips to the theatre and cinema, reading and poetry. Although in the last few years she was dogged by ill-health, she would still turn out for leafleting or the Peace Table, often looking rather fragile, but this was deceptive: she could still vigorously engage members of the public in discussion and stand up powerfully for the ideals in which she believed. Her contribution to the local peace movement was immense and her influence was felt far beyond Wimbledon. Maisie was a wonderful person and will be much missed by all of us.
- Wimbledon Disarmament Coalition -
