Barnoldswick was the scene of a peaceful three-hour anti-nuclear protest last week when a 10-strong army of knitters took to the town square.
Four Barlickers were joined by others from Pendle and North Yorkshire for International Knit in Public Day on June 16th as they supported the Wool Against Weapons movement launched by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).
The vibrant bid is seeing campaigners from across the country knitting thousands of individual sections of material which will be weaved together this summer to make a seven-mile long pink scarf.
The scarf will then be unfurled on Saturday, August 9th between the Berkshire Atomic Weapons Establishments (AWE) at Aldermaston and Burghfield to mark the 69th anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki.
Bryony Pye, who co-ordinated the Barnoldswick knit, has called for the trident nuclear programme to be scrapped and its £100bn replacement to be cancelled, arguing that the money would be better spent on the NHS, job creation, green energy and education.
She said: “The day was a success. We must have at least 20 metres now stretched out. A lot more people will be needed to hold the scarf up than it has taken to knit it.
“The scarf was the idea of a woman from Stroud about two-and-a-half years ago and its gone from there. I’ve been involved with CND since I was 15 so nearly 20 years now.
“It’s something I feel strongly about. Nuclear is incredibly dangerous and incredibly expensive.
“The government is looking at replacing trident at a time then there isn’t enough money for essential services.
“The billions could be used to improve peoples’ lives rather than threatening peoples’ lives.”
Once the protest is carried out, the scarf will be taken apart again and the individual sections sent to those in need to be used as blankets for babies and children.