CND: Cat Lovers Against the Bomb

The Cat Lovers Against the Bomb badge is an iconic bridge between animal welfare and nuclear disarmament.

Purring for peace

The Cat Lovers Against the Bomb badge is one of the most enduring and affectionately remembered icons of the peace movement. Created in the early 1980s, it captured a moment when humour, compassion, and clear graphic design combined to spread an anti-nuclear message far beyond traditional activist circles.

What began as a small badge from West Yorkshire soon became an international phenomenon, inspiring an annual calendar project and helping to define the visual language of 1980s peace culture. The badge’s crossover appeal — linking care for animals with concern for global survival — helped it reach audiences who might otherwise have ignored political slogans.

The badge that started it all 🧷🐾

The Cat Lovers Against the Bomb badge was designed by Alasdair Beal at the request of his friend Helen Jenner of West Yorkshire, who had created a peace group called Cat Lovers Against The Bomb and wanted a badge for members to wear. The circular design usually printed in black and white (with some later colour variants) paired a contented cat image with the unmistakable slogan. Its simplicity, warmth and wit made it an immediate favourite on stalls, lapels and at rallies.

Beal’s graphic approach was economical and bold: clear typography, spare imagery and an instantly legible message. An architect by profession and a committed peace campaigner, he produced a number of “Against the Bomb” badges (Real Ale Drinkers Against the Bomb; Special Branch Against the Bomb; Ageing Hippies Against the Bomb, among others). The Cat Lovers design stood out for deliberately linking domestic affection with political conscience.

About the designer 🧠

Alasdair Beal combined professional skill with a gentle activist sensibility. Working in and around West Yorkshire, he became known within CND circles for witty, well-drawn badges that were cheap to print and easy to recognise at a distance. His work helped define the “classic” 1980s CND badge style: compact, often monochrome, visually bold and readily reproducible.

Beal’s designs were effective because they married humour with clarity; the cat badge in particular showed that a domestic motif could carry a serious political message without sacrificing approachability. That quality made the badge appealing to people outside conventional activist networks.

From Yorkshire to the world 🧭

The Cat Lovers badge circulated quickly through Leeds CND networks, peace camps, stalls and activist visits. Passed hand to hand, it became a quiet symbol of cross-border solidarity: a domestic image used to signify global concern. Its link to animal welfare — care for ordinary creatures — broadened the moral frame of nuclear disarmament, inviting people who loved pets to see the issue in personal terms.

Because it married the familiar with the urgent, the badge attracted attention in places where more combative slogans might not. In this sense, Cat Lovers Against the Bomb was arguably the first widely distributed badge to explicitly link animal welfare and nuclear disarmament, a pairing that explains a great deal about its mainstream appeal.

From badge to calendar 📆

When the design reached the United States it inspired Esther Cope, DeCourcy Squire and Bill Waters to create the Cat Lovers Against the Bomb calendar in 1984 to benefit Nebraskans for Peace. Edited initially by Betty Olson and later stewarded by Loyal and Mary Alice Park, then Caryl Guisinger (and now Roy Guisinger), the calendar became an annual fixture pairing cat photographs with gentle political messaging.

The calendar helped keep the badge’s spirit alive while expanding its reach: what began as a local novelty became a fundraising and awareness project with an international audience. Over decades the calendar added themed editions (colour contemporary versions, LGBTQA+ rights editions, and even a Pups for Peace variant), but it always retained the core idea that everyday affection can link to broader concerns.

A classic of the vintage peace badge era 🕊️

In the visual history of peace activism, the Cat Lovers badge marks a notable shift. It helped move peace imagery beyond the formal (doves, logos) and into the domestic and humorous, showing that effective protest can be gentle and personal. The badge’s black-and-white clarity — and occasional colour variants — set a template that other designers adopted through the 1980s.

Forty years on, the badge endures because it embodies a simple truth: compassion and care for ordinary creatures are part of the same ethic that opposes mass destruction. Worn on a lapel or pinned on a bag, the Cat Lovers Against the Bomb badge remains a small, persuasive ambassador for peace — still purring for peace.

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