Sadler Story
Amber Films (Current Affairs Unit) 1985
Made by Amber’s Current Affairs Unit, as part of its engagement with the peace movement, the film chronicles the life of the Tyneside pacifist Jack Sadler, who was born in 1887 and died in 1960. Refusing to fight in either of the two world wars, his principled stand led to his imprisonment as a conscientious objector, in 1916, and again in the 1939-45 war. Between those periods, Jack Sadler helped organise a number of pacifist initiatives on Tyneside, as the world moved rapidly from a shaky armistice in 1918 and a period of hope through the League of Nations, to localised wars and eventually World War II.
The programme explores the peace movement to which Jack Sadler devoted his life, through his daughter Dorothy, who joined her father in opposing all forms of war in the 1930s as Hitler began his conquest of Europe. Jack Sadler’s legacy was a pacifism that held out socialism as the hope of the world, and preached a Christianity that was bitterly opposed to the Church establishment.
Location
Gateshead, Newcastle upon Tyn
Credits
Amber Current Affairs Unit, including Richard Grassick and Elaine Drainville
Cast
Members of Jack Sadler's family + other left wing and peace activists