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Gone but not Forgotten

• Eva Batt
• Serena Coles
• Kathleen Jannaway
• Arthur Ling
• Jack Sanderson
• Elsie Shrigley
• Donald Watson

SERENA COLES, 1910 – 2005

Serena Coles became active in The Vegan Society from very soon after its inception in 1944, and remained active in it until 1987.

In 1953, she was organising the “Vegan Baby Bureau”, and by 1956 she was a member of the Society’s Committee, in which she was to serve in various capacities for the next thirty-one years. Across the years she has served as Distribution Secretary for The Vegan, as Honorary Treasurer, on the Editorial Board and on Council, and as Deputy President and President. She was for a short time the Hon. Treasurer of the Society and was a member of the editorial board of The Vegan magazine for several years. After her active time on the committee ended, she was made an Honorary Vice-President for the rest of her life.

But Serena’s service to the Society was not only in committee meetings, she would travel anywhere to speak about veganism, perhaps 'preach veganism' would be a better description. Many people knew her from her heartfelt and authoritative discourses on various aspects of the vegan lifestyle, delivered at meetings, festivals and congresses across the world. However she is probably best known from the BBC programme Open Door from 1976, in which she and others spoke to their biggest ever audience, resulting in a flood of almost 9,000 letters from people wanting to know more about veganism.

When the first ever International Vegan Festival was being planned for Denmark in 1981, as soon as she heard about it she promised to attend it. That was the start of a long friendship with Kirsten Jungsberg, the organiser of the Festival.

In her latter years, Serena had to be looked after in a care home. Her care home was changed several times, and the Society lost touch with her. It was through the detective work of her friend, Kirsten Jungsberg, that she was finally located in a care home in Croydon. Her friends were dismayed to discover that she had withdrawn into herself and was no longer being given vegan food. However, the Croydon vegans 'adopted' her, made sure that she received vegan food and visited regularly, drawing out some of the old cheery personality, so Serena’s last months were happy ones.

As she inspired so many people, not just to become vegan, but to spread the word to others – one of whom even named her daughter after Serena – there is no doubt that her work lives on. It is also certain that it is due, in no small part, to the trails blazed by vegan pioneers such as Serena that the modern-day vegan lifestyle is possible.

DONALD WATSON 1910 – 2005

Donald Watson was the founder of The Vegan Society.

After witnessing the killing of a pig on his uncle’s farm, the 12 year old Donald made a New Year Resolution never again to eat meat. At that time he did not know anything about vegetarianism, but he did become active in the vegetarian movement as an adult, and came into contact with other vegetarians, some of whom also avoided the use of dairy products and eggs. He soon came to share this philosophy and tried to set up a non-dairy section within the Vegetarian Society, but only met with hostility from those who still enjoyed their cheese omelettes.

By this time, World War Two was under way, but the vegetarian movement continued, run by the older generation, those medically excused from military service, and conscientious objectors. Donald Watson was a CO, but had to do war service as a firewatcher and firefighter in addition to his day job as a woodwork teacher.

By 1944, Donald had given up trying to form a non-dairy section within the Vegetarian Society, and decided, along with a few like-minded pioneers, to form a totally new society for “non-dairy vegetarians”. The question arose of what to call it. One evening, he and his fiancée, Dorothy Morgan, were chatting at a social event when they had a moment of inspiration and thought up the word “vegan” – “the beginning and end of vegetarian”, so the new society, formed in November 1944, was called “The Vegan Society” from its inception. At first this was only a provisional name until someone came up with a better one, but the word “vegan” caught on and has now entered, not only the English language, but many other languages as well.

For the first two years, Donald ran The Vegan Society single-handedly from his home in Leicester. He produced a newsletter, Vegan News, which he posted out to 500 readers, he answered countless letters, he lobbied the Ministry of Food for special rations for vegans, like the extra cheese allowed to vegetarians in place of the meat ration. All on top of his teaching work and wartime duties!

As life got back to some kind of normality after the war, The Vegan Society formed a committee to share the work which Donald had done. Donald was on the committee himself for a while, until he married Dorothy, secured a teaching post in the Lake District, and moved to Keswick, where he spent the rest of his very long life. He never again took a very active part in running The Vegan Society, but he and Dorothy were active in the Cumbrian Vegetarian Society for many years, and Donald kept in touch with his many vegetarian and vegan friends and was an avid reader of the magazines “The Vegetarian” and “The Vegan” until his death at the age of 95.