# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
With more than 130 million girls out of school today, she needs your help breaking down the barriers that hold girls back.

Your gift today is an investment in Malala Fund programmes that help girls around the world go to school.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learn how Malala began her fight for girls - from an education activist in Pakistan to the youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate - and how she continues her campaign through Malala Fund.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
With more than 130 million girls out of school today, she needs your help breaking down the barriers that hold girls back.

Your gift today is an investment in Malala Fund programmes that help girls around the world go to school.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learn how Malala began her fight for girls - from an education activist in Pakistan to the youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate - and how she continues her campaign through Malala Fund.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
One year ago schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by Taliban gunmen - her "crime", to have spoken up for the right of girls to be educated. The world reacted in horror, but after weeks in intensive care Malala survived. Her full story can now be told.

She is the teenager who marked her 16th birthday with a live address from UN headquarters, is known around the world by her first name alone, and has been lauded by a former British prime minister as "an icon of courage and hope".

I didn't want my future to be imprisoned in my four walls and just cooking and giving birth
Malala Yousafzai

She is also a Birmingham schoolgirl trying to settle into a new class, worrying about homework and reading lists, missing friends from her old school, and squabbling with her two younger brothers.

She is Malala Yousafzai, whose life was forever changed at age 15 by a Taliban bullet on 9 October 2012.

I have travelled to her home town in Pakistan, seen the school that moulded her, met the doctors who treated her and spent time with her and her family, for one reason - to answer the same question barked by the gunman who flagged down her school bus last October: "Who is Malala?"

The Swat Valley once took pride in being called "the Switzerland of Pakistan". It's a mountainous place, cool in summer and snowy in winter, within easy reach of the capital, Islamabad. And when Malala was born in 1997 it was still peaceful.

Just a few hours' driving from Islamabad brings you to the foot of the Malakand pass, the gateway to the valley. The winding road up to the pass leaves the plains of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province, far below.

I remember it well from childhood holidays in Pakistan. But my latest trip felt very different - the BBC crew made the journey with a military escort. Although the Pakistan army retook control of Swat from the Taliban in 2009 and it is arguably now safer for foreigners than some other areas, the military clearly didn't want to take any chances.

Historically, the north-west has been one of Pakistan's least developed regions. But Swat, interestingly, has long been a bright spot in terms of education.

Find out more

Watch Mishal Husain's Panorama special on Malala on Monday 7 October at 20:30 BST on BBC One
Malala: Shot for Going to School
Until 1969, it was a semi-autonomous principality - its ruler known as the Wali. The first of these was Miangul Gulshahzada Sir Abdul Wadud, appointed by a local council in 1915 and known to Swatis as "Badshah Sahib" - the King. Although himself uneducated, he laid the foundation for a network of schools in the valley - the first boys' primary school came in 1922, followed within a few years by the first girls' school.

The trend was continued by his son, Wali Miangul Abdul Haq Jahanzeb, who came to power in 1949. Within a few months, he had presented the schoolgirls of Swat to the visiting prime minister of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan, and his wife Raana. As his grandson Miangul Adnan Aurangzeb says: "It would have been unusual anywhere else in the [North-West] Frontier at that time, but in Swat girls were going to school."

The new Wali's focus soon turned to high schools and colleges, including Jahanzeb College, founded in 1952, where Malala's father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, would study many years later. Soon, Swat became known across Pakistan for the number of professionals it was producing - especially doctors and teachers. As Adnan Aurangzeb says, "Swat was proud of its record on education... one way to identify a Swati outside of Swat was that he always had a pen in his chest pocket, and that meant he was literate."

Against this backdrop, the fate that befell the schools of Swat in the first years of the 21st Century is particularly tragic.

By the time Malala was born, her father had realised his dream of founding his own school, which began with just a few pupils and mushroomed into an establishment educating more than 1,000 girls and boys.

It is clear that her absence is keenly felt. Outside the door of her old classroom is a framed newspaper cutting about her. Inside, her best friend Moniba has written the name "Malala" on a chair placed in the front row.

This was Malala's world - not one of wealth or privilege but an atmosphere dominated by learning. And she flourished. "She was precocious, confident, assertive," says Adnan Aurangzeb. "A young person with the drive to achieve something in life."

In that, she wasn't alone. "Malala's whole class is special," headmistress Mariam Khalique tells me.

And from the moment I walk in, I understand what she means. Their focus and attention is absolute, their aspirations sky-high. The lesson under way is biology, and as it ends I have a few moments to ask the girls about their future plans - many want to be doctors. One girl's answer stops me in my tracks: "I'd like to be Pakistan's army chief one day."

Part of the reason for this drive to succeed is that only white-collar, professional jobs will allow these girls a life outside their homes. While poorly educated boys can hope to find low-skilled work, their female counterparts will find their earning power restricted to what they can do within the four walls of their home - sewing perhaps.

Malala's diary: 3 January 2009

I had a terrible dream yesterday with military helicopters and the Taleban. I have had such dreams since the launch of the military operation in Swat.

My mother made me breakfast and I went off to school. I was afraid going to school because the Taleban had issued an edict banning all girls from attending schools

Only 11 students attended the class out of 27. The number decreased because of Taleban's edict. My three friends have shifted to Peshawar, Lahore and Rawalpindi with their families after this edict.
Diary of a Pakistani schoolgirl Faces of the year: Malala and others Schoolgirls in Birmingham on Malala
"For my brothers it was easy to think about the future," Malala tells me when we meet in Birmingham. "They can be anything they want. But for me it was hard and for that reason I wanted to become educated and empower myself with knowledge."

It was this future that was threatened when the first signs of Taliban influence emerged, borne on a tide of anti-Western sentiment that swept across Pakistan in the years after 9/11 and the US-led invasion of Afghanistan.

Like other parts of north-west Pakistan, Swat had always been a devout and conservative region, but what was happening by 2007 was very different - radio broadcasts threatening Sharia-style punishments for those who departed from local Muslim traditions, and most ominously, edicts against education.

The worst period came at the end of 2008, when the local Taliban leader, Mullah Fazlullah, issued a dire warning - all female education had to cease within a month, or schools would suffer consequences. Malala remembers the moment well: "'How can they stop us going to school?' I was thinking. 'It's impossible, how can they do it?'"

But Ziauddin Yousafzai and his friend Ahmad Shah, who ran another school nearby, had to recognise it as a real possibility. The Taliban had always followed through on their threats. The two men discussed the situation with local army commanders. "I asked them how much security would be provided to us," Shah recalls. "They said, 'We will provide security, don't close your schools.'"

It was easier said than done.

By this time, Malala was still only 11, but well aware of how things were changing.

Malala's diary: 18 January 2009

My father told us that the government would protect our schools. The prime minister has also raised this issue. I was quite happy initially, but now I know but this will not solve our problem.

"Here in Swat we hear everyday that so many soldiers were killed and so many were kidnapped at such and such place. But the police are nowhere to be seen.

"Our parents are also very scared. They told us they would not send us to school until or unless the Taleban themselves announce on the FM channel that girls can go to school. The army is also responsible for the disruption in our education.
Diary of a Pakistani schoolgirl (ii)
"People don't need to be aware of these things at the age of nine or 10 or 11 but we were seeing terrorism and extremism, so I had to be aware," she says.

She knew that her way of life was under threat. When a journalist from BBC Urdu asked her father about young people who might be willing to give their perspective on life under the Taliban, he suggested Malala.

The result was the Diary of a Pakistani Schoolgirl, a blog for BBC Urdu, in which Malala chronicled her hope to keep going to school and her fears for the future of Swat.

She saw it as an opportunity.

"I wanted to speak up for my rights," she says. "And also I didn't want my future to be just sitting in a room and be imprisoned in my four walls and just cooking and giving birth to children. I didn't want to see my life in that way."

The blog was anonymous, but Malala was also unafraid to speak out in public about the right to education, as she did in February 2009 to the Pakistani television presenter Hamid Mir, who brought his show to Swat.

I was surprised that there is a little girl in Swat who can speak with a lot of confidence, but I was concerned about her security
Hamid Mir

"I was surprised that there is a little girl in Swat who can speak with a lot of confidence, who's very brave, who's very articulate," Mir says. "But at the same time I was a bit concerned about her security, about the security of her family."

At that time it was Ziauddin Yousafzai, Malala's father, who was perceived to be at the greatest risk. Already known as a social and educational activist, he had sensed that the Taliban would move from the tribal areas of Pakistan into Swat, and had often warned people to be on their guard.

Malala herself was concerned for him. "I was worried about my father," she says. "I used to think, 'What will I do if a Talib comes to the house? We'll hide my father in a cupboard and call the police.'"

No-one thought the Taliban would target a child. There were however notorious incidents where they had chosen to make an example of women. In early 2009, a dancer was accused of immorality and executed, her body put on public display in the centre of Mingora. Soon afterwards, there was outrage across Pakistan after a video emerged from Swat showing the Taliban flogging a 17-year-old girl for alleged "illicit relations" with a man.

Ziauddin Yousafzai must have known that Malala's high profile in the valley put her at some risk, even though he could not have foreseen the outcome.

"Malala's voice was the most powerful voice in Swat because the biggest victim of the Taliban was girls' schools and girls' education and few people talked about it," he says. "When she used to speak about education, everybody gave it importance."

By the time Malala was shot in 2012, the worst days of Taliban power in Swat had receded. A high-profile military operation had cleared out most militants but others had stayed behind, keeping a low profile.

"Life was normal for normal people, but for those people who had raised their voice, it was now a risky time," says Malala.

She was one of those people.

When I saw the blood on Malala, I fell unconscious
Fellow pupil Kainat Riaz

On the afternoon of 9 October, she walked out of school as normal and boarded a small bus waiting outside the gates. These vehicles are seen everywhere in Mingora - a little like covered pickup trucks, open at the back, with three lines of benches running the length of the flatbed. Each could carry about 20 people and would be waiting to take the girls and their teachers home at the end of the school day.

In Malala's case, it was only a short journey, past a small clearing where children played cricket, and along the canal bank to her house. Once she had walked, but then her mother, Tor Pekai, intervened. "My mother told me, 'Now you are growing up and people know you, so you must not go on foot, you must go in a car or a bus so then you will be safe,'" Malala says.

That day, she was in the middle of her exams, and had a lot on her mind. But there was still the usual after-school chat and gossip to share with Moniba, who was sitting next to her. But as the bus progressed along its route Malala says she did notice something unusual - the road seemed deserted. "I asked Moniba, 'Why is there no-one here? Can you see it's not like it usually is?'"

Moments later, the bus was flagged down by two young men as it passed a clearing, only 100 yards from the school gates. Malala doesn't recall seeing them but Moniba does. To her they looked like college students.

Then she heard one ask: "Who is Malala?" In the seconds between that question and the firing beginning, Moniba at first wondered if the men were more journalists in search of her well-known friend. But she quickly grasped that Malala had sensed danger. "She was very scared at that time,' she remembers. The girls looked at Malala, thereby innocently identifying her.

The two girls sitting on Malala's other side, Shazia Ramzan and Kainat Riaz, were also injured.

"I heard the firing, then I saw lots of blood on Malala's head," says Kainat. "When I saw that blood on Malala, I fell unconscious."

Moniba says the bus remained there for 10 minutes, before anyone came to the aid of the panic-stricken women and children.

When they reached hospital, it was assumed all four girls were wounded, because Moniba's clothing was drenched in her friend's blood.

News of the shooting spread quickly. Malala's father was at the Press Club when a phone call came to tell him one of his school buses had been attacked. He feared at once that it was Malala who had been targeted. He found her on a stretcher in the hospital.

"When I looked towards her face I just bowed down, I kissed her on the forehead, her nose, and cheeks," he says. "And then I said, 'You're my proud daughter. I am proud of you.'"

Malala had been shot in the head and it was clear to everyone, including the Pakistan army, that her life was in danger. A helicopter was scrambled to airlift her to the military hospital in Peshawar - a journey that would eventually take her not just away from Swat but away from Pakistan.

The Combined Military Hospital in Peshawar is the best medical facility in the region, treating not just military personnel but their families too. As he flew in with Malala, Ziauddin Yousafzai was braced for the worst, telling relatives at his family home in rural Swat to make preparations for a funeral. "It really was the most difficult time in my life," he says.

From the helipad, Malala was brought in by ambulance and placed in the care of neurosurgeon Col Junaid Khan.

"She was initially conscious, but restless and agitated, moving all her limbs," he says. The entry wound of the bullet was above her left brow. From there it had travelled down through her neck and lodged in her back.

Malala was treated as a severe head injury case and placed under observation. After four hours, she deteriorated visibly, slipping towards unconsciousness. A scan revealed a life-threatening situation - her brain was swelling dangerously and she would need immediate surgery.

"The part of the brain involved was concerned not only with speech but also giving power to the right arm and leg," Khan says. "So contemplating surgery in this very sensitive area can have risks. The person can be paralysed afterwards."

Malala's story is just the beginning in the BBC's 100 Women season.

More than a century after women began winning the right to vote, we want to find out what life is like for women today - and what might happen next.

We're planning a unique global event on Friday 25 October. Join in the conversation and tell us what you think on Twitter using #100Women.
Full coverage: BBC 100 Women
Nevertheless, he told Malala's father that surgery was vital to save her life - a portion of her skull had to be removed to relieve pressure on the brain.

The procedure began with shaving part of Malala's hair, and then cutting away the bone, before placing the portion of removed skull inside her abdomen in case it could be later replaced. Blood clots and damaged tissue were extracted from inside the brain.

Before that day, Khan says, he had never heard the name Malala Yousafzai, but he was soon left in no doubt that he was treating a high-profile patient. Camera crews besieged the hospital compound as a tide of shock and revulsion spread through Pakistan.

TV presenter Hamid Mir looks back on the attack and the country's realisation that the Taliban were capable of shooting a young girl as a defining moment. "It gave me a lot of courage and strength [a sense] that enough is enough, now is the time to speak against the enemies of education," he says. "If they can target a little girl like Malala, they can target anyone."

From Adnan Aurangzeb, so closely connected to Swat and its people, there was anger - not just at the Taliban but at the government of Pakistan, which he held accountable for failing to protect Malala.

"She should have been under the protection of Pakistan," he says. "Not left to go unescorted like any normal student in an area infested with militants and Taliban."

Inside the intensive care unit in Peshawar, Malala appeared to respond well to the surgery. Her progress was by now being followed not just in Pakistan but around the world. In Islamabad, the army chief General Ashfaq Kayani was taking a keen interest, but wanted a definitive and independent opinion on Malala's chances.

As it happened, his officers were looking after a team of British doctors at the time - a group from Birmingham who had come to Pakistan to advise the army on setting up a liver transplant programme. The multi-disciplinary team was led by emergency care consultant Javid Kayani, a British Pakistani who maintains close links with the land of his birth.

When the request for help came through, Kayani knew which one of the team he wanted to take with him to Peshawar on the helicopter that was standing by. Given Malala's age, paediatric intensive care specialist Fiona Reynolds was the obvious choice. Although she had her doubts about security in Peshawar, she had heard enough about Malala from news reports to feel the risk was worth taking. "She'd been shot because she wanted an education, and I was in Pakistan because I'm a woman with an education, so I couldn't say 'no,'" she says.

The quality of the intensive care was potentially compromising her final outcome
Fiona Reynolds

What the doctors discovered in Peshawar, though, was not encouraging. Although Malala had had what Reynolds calls "the right surgery at the right time", she was being let down by the post-operative care. A similar patient in the UK would have been having her blood pressure checked continuously via an arterial line - according to Malala's charts, hers had last been checked two hours earlier.

Reynolds' instinct told her that Malala could be saved, but everything depended on how she would be cared for.

"The quality of the intensive care was potentially compromising her final outcome, both in terms of survival and in terms of her ability to recover as much brain function as possible," she says.

That clinical opinion would be vital to Malala's future. An army intensive care specialist was sent to bolster the team in Peshawar, but when Malala deteriorated further, she was airlifted again, this time to a bigger military hospital in Islamabad.

In the first hours after her arrival there, Fiona Reynolds remained very worried. Malala's kidneys appeared to have shut down, her heart and circulation were failing, and she needed drugs to support her unstable blood pressure. "I thought she was probably going to survive, but I wasn't sure of her neurological outcome, because she'd been so sick. Any brain damage would have been made worse."

As Malala gradually stabilised, over the next couple of days, Reynolds was asked for her opinion again - this time on her rehabilitation. She asked what facilities were available, knowing that acute medicine is often far ahead of rehab. That was indeed the case in Pakistan. "I said that if the Pakistan military and the Pakistan government were serious about optimising her outcome... I said that everything that she would need would be available in Birmingham."

On 15 October 2012, Malala arrived at the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham, where she would remain for the next three months. She had been kept in a medically induced coma, but a day later the doctors decided to bring her out of it. Her last memory was of being on a school bus in Swat - now she was waking up surrounded by strangers, in a foreign country.

"I opened my eyes and the first thing I saw was that I was in a hospital and I could see nurses and doctors," she says. "I thanked God - 'O Allah, I thank you because you have given me a new life and I am alive.'"

Malala's parents and brothers were still in Pakistan but Javid Kayani was standing at her bedside.

"When she woke up she had this very frightened look and her eyes were darting back and forth," he says.

"We knew she couldn't speak because she had a tube down her throat to assist her breathing. But I knew that she could hear so I told her who I was and I told her where she was, and she indicated by her eye movements that she understood."

Malala then gestured that she wanted to write, so a pad of paper and a pencil were brought. She attempted to write, but she had poor control of the pencil - unsurprising for someone with a head injury. Instead, an alphabet board was found and Javid Kayani watched her point to the letters one by one.

"The first word that she tapped out was 'country'. So I assumed she wanted to know where she was and I told her she was in England. And then the next word was 'father' and I told her that he was in Pakistan and he'd be coming in the next few days. That was the limit of the conversation."

More "conversations" would take place with one of the few visitors allowed in - Fiona Reynolds, who brought Malala a pink notebook in which to write down her questions.

Malala showed it to me, It is a poignant reminder of her search for answers in that period, especially the page where she simply asks, "Who did this to me?"

For Reynolds, the fact that Malala was able to articulate her questions was a huge relief.

"I was hoping that her cognitive abilities would still be there. I was also hoping that she hadn't lost the power of speech. So the fact that she was mouthing words and writing - I thought she's not lost the ability to speak.

"And remember she was talking in her third language [Pashto is Malala's mother tongue, Urdu her second language], so her speech centre was pretty intact."

Malala would go on to make an outstanding recovery, a tribute not just to the quality of the care she received - but also, her doctors told me, to her own resilience and determination.

Once she was out of intensive care, doctors began to consider what could be done about the paralysis of the left side of her face, which had caused great distress to her parents when they were reunited with her in Birmingham. Malala's father felt she had lost her smile.

"When she used to try to smile I would look at my wife and a shadow would fall on her face, because she thought, 'This is not the same Malala I gave birth to, this is not the girl who made our lives colourful.'"

Malala's ear specialist Richard Irving thinks that in those early weeks, she was troubled by her new appearance.

"She was very reluctant initially to speak, she preferred to be photographed from the good side," he says. "I think it probably did have an emotional impact on her, which she didn't really voice to anyone, but it's very easy to understand in a 15-year-old."

After tests and scans, Irving's view was that the facial nerve was unlikely to repair itself, but without surgery, he couldn't be sure exactly what state it was in. The procedure would be a lengthy one, and this time Malala was herself able to weigh up the risks.

"She was in control," Irving says. "She would take advice from her father but she was making the decisions. She took a great interest in her medical care and didn't leave it to someone else."

During a 10-hour operation last November, he discovered that Malala's facial nerve had been entirely severed by the bullet and that a 2cm section of it was missing. For any movement to return to her face, the two ends of the nerve would have to be re-attached, but the missing section made it impossible to do this along the original route. Instead, Irving decided to expose the nerve and re-route it so it travelled a shorter distance.

In February this year, a further operation replaced the skull section removed by the surgeons in Pakistan, with a titanium plate. A cochlear implant was also inserted into Malala's left ear to correct damage to her hearing caused by the bullet. No further surgery is said to be required - her face should continue to improve over time, with the help of physiotherapy.

On 12 July, nine months after the shooting, came a major milestone - Malala stood up at the UN headquarters in New York and addressed a specially convened youth assembly. It was her 16th birthday and her speech was broadcast around the world.

"One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world," she said.

How did it feel to speak in public once again - this time on a bigger stage than she could ever have imagined?

Malala's speech to the UN

Speech delivered to 500 young people aged 12-25 from around the world

Malala called on politicians to take urgent action to ensure every child can go to school

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon also addressed the session, calling Malala "our hero"

The event, described by the UN as Malala Day, was organised by former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, now the UN Special Envoy for Global Education

Fanatics fear education, Malala says
"When I looked at 400 youth and people from more than 100 countries... I said that I am not only talking to the people of America and the other countries, I am talking to every person in the world," she says.

Ziauddin Yousafzai remembers it as the biggest day of his life. For him, Malala's speech was an assault on negative perceptions of Pashtuns, of Pakistanis and of Muslims.

"She was holding the lamp of hope and telling the world - we are not terrorists, we are peaceful, we love education."

Malala was introduced to the audience in New York that day by former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the UN's special envoy on global education.

He has no doubt about her power to focus attention on the bigger picture of nearly 60 million out-of-school children around the world. "Because of Malala," he says, "there is a public understanding that something is wrong and has got to be done."

There is even speculation she could be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

The girl from Swat has gone global, but she still believes she can and will return home to Pakistan. Few would advise her to do that anytime soon. There are still fears for her security and also criticism that she attracts too much attention, especially in the West.

But she seems sanguine about any criticism. "It's their right to express their feelings, and it's my right to say what I want," she says. "I want to do something for education, that's my only desire."

The danger for Malala is that the more time she spends away from Pakistan, the less she will be seen at home as a true Pakistani, and the more she will be identified with the West. But she has little time for distinctions between East and West.

"Education is education," she says. "If I am learning to be a doctor would there be an eastern stethoscope or a western stethoscope, would there be an eastern thermometer or a western thermometer?"

Still only 16, she has to balance being the world's most high-profile educational campaigner, in demand around the world, with the completion of her own schooling.

"I am still the old Malala. I still try to live normally but yes, my life has changed a lot," she tells me.

There are moments when she misses her old anonymity, but says it's "human nature" to want what you don't have.

She is an extraordinary young woman, wise beyond her years, sensible, sensitive and focused. She has experienced the worst of humanity, and the best of humanity - both from the medics who cared for her and the messages from many thousands of well-wishers.

I find one of those well-wishers in her own street in Swat, just outside the home that she never made it back to, on the afternoon she was shot. He is a young man called Farhanullah and he says the Taliban have blighted his life, destroying Swat's economic, social and educational fabric. Malala was "Pakistan's daughter", he says. "We should be proud that she has made such a big sacrifice for Pakistan."

I ask if he would like to send a message to Malala. Yes, he says. "She should continue her struggle. We are all with her."

The voice of the girl whom the Taliban tried to silence a year ago has been amplified beyond what anyone could have thought possible.

When I ask her what she thinks the militants achieved that day, she smiles.

"I think they may be regretting that they shot Malala," she says. "Now she is heard in every corner of the world."
Watch Mishal Husain's Panorama special You can follow the Magazine on Twitter and on Facebook Malala: Shot for Going to School on Monday 7 October at 20:30 BST on BBC One

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The girl who was shot for going to school

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
One year ago schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by Taliban gunmen - her "crime", to have spoken up for the right of girls to be educated. The world reacted in horror, but after weeks in intensive care Malala survived. Her full story can now be told.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
February 15, 1909

Hermine Santrouschitz is born in Vienna (Austria).

1918

End of the First World War.

December 1920

Hermine comes to the Netherlands with a group of Austrian children for convalescence. She lives with a foster family in Leiden and is given the name Miep.

1924

Miep moves to Amsterdam with her foster family.

1933

Miep becomes a secretary with the Opekta company.

July 16, 1941

Miep marries Jan Gies.

Jun 1942

Otto Frank asks Miep if she will help if he and his family go into hiding.

August 4, 1944

The people in hiding are arrested. Miep and Bep are not taken with them. They find Anne Frank's diary in the secret annex.

August 1944

Miep goes to the SD (Nazi security police) offices in Amsterdam to try to get the people in hiding released.

June 1945

Otto Frank has survived the war and comes to live with Miep and Jan Gies. When they hear that Anne and Margot have died, Miep gives Anne's diary to Otto Frank.

July 13, 1950

Miep and Jan Gies have a son, Paul. Miep stops working at Opekta.

1987

Miep writes a book: 'Memories of Anne Frank'.

January 26, 1993

Jan Gies dies.

February 15, 2009

Miep celebrates her 100th birthday.

January 11, 2010

Miep Gies dies at the age of 100.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Hermine Santrouschitz is born in Vienna (Austria). End of the First World War. Hermine comes to the Netherlands with a group of Austrian children for convalescence. She lives with a foster family in Leiden and is given the name Miep. Miep moves to Amsterdam with her foster family.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Kids learn about Mohandas Gandhi's biography. A great civil rights leader from India.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
WAYNE DAVID recounts the life of Morgan Jones, an ILP councillor and anti-war activist who emerged from the hardship of prison to become the first conscientious objector elected to Parliament.
Morgan Jones was born on 3 May 1885 in the village of Gelligaer at the foot of Gelligaer mountain. His birthplace was the small Rhos Cottages, close to the ancient parish church of St Catwg. The cottages were to remain his boyhood home.

Jones' father, Elias, was a local collier, born in the hamlet of Llanwonno, near Mountain Ash. He was known for his sobriety, his dependability and his hard work. His mother, Sarah Ann, originally from the village of Llanfabon, was a strong and formidable woman with an earthy sense of humour and bright blue eyes. It is said that Sarah Ann had worked as a young woman in Llancaiach Fawr, the local Tudor manor house. What is certainly true is that she had a far from easy life at her own home, tending livestock as well as carrying out her other domestic chores.

In the Jones household, Welsh was the language of the hearth, liberalism was its politics and Protestant non-conformity, of the Baptist variety, was its religion. Sarah Ann was especially devout and helped imbue in the young Morgan a strong religious belief. Indeed, of the seven children - two girls and five boys - it was Morgan who became the main focus of her attention and her encouragement. She recognised that of all the children it was Morgan who had the greatest ability and potential.

After attending Gelligaer and Hengoed Elementary Schools, Jones won a scholarship to Lewis School, Pengam. He matriculated from Lewis School in 1901 and began training as a pupil teacher in Gilfach Boys' School, Bargoed. From there he gained admission to Reading University and studied 'Education and the Arts'.

In 1907, Jones returned to the Rhymney Valley. He went back to Gilfach Boys' School as a teacher and continued the lay preaching which he had begun as a student in Reading. But if Jones' religious non-conformity had been reinforced by his university experience, his politics had now firmly moved to the left. In 1908 Jones joined the Independent Labour Party (ILP) and helped establish the Rhymney Valley's first branch.

In South Wales the political dominance of the Liberal Party and its working class offshoot, Lib-Labism, was now under threat from a new radicalism which was sweeping the South Wales coalfield. It was the ILP which was at the forefront of the challenge.

Municipal socialism

In March 1911, Jones threw his hat into the political ring and stood for election to Gelligaer Urban District Council (UDC), describing himself as a 'socialist'. With a majority of only 11 votes Jones was elected and soon proved to be an effective and committed councillor, making housing his pre-occupation. In fact, due largely to Jones' efforts, Gelligaer UDC became one of the most forward looking local authorities in South Wales, building quality council houses throughout its area, but especially in Bargoed.

On Gelligaer UDC Jones put municipal socialism into practice. His democratic socialism was firmly based on a materialist analysis of capitalism, combined with a strong sense of moral purpose, which drew much from his religious nonconformity. In essence, Jones was a Christian socialist.

Equally central to his beliefs was his conviction that nations and peoples ought to live in harmony with each other, respecting difference and celebrating diversity. For Jones it followed that international disputes must always be solved through diplomacy and dialogue rather than through armed conflict. As a pacifist he believed that warfare could never be justified.

World War I

When Britain entered the First World War in August 1914 Jones was in no doubt that this was a conflict which was wrong. Like many in the ILP, Jones believed that war generally, and this war in particular, could not be justified. True to his convictions, he argued that the disputes between the European powers should be resolved through discussion without resorting to arms.

From the beginning of the war Jones therefore linked up with the likes of Bertrand Russell and Fenner Brockway, and when the No Conscription Fellowship (NCF) was formed in late 1914 Jones was appointed to its national committee. He later became chairman of the South Wales Anti-Conscription Council.

During the first half of the war, until 1916, the army consisted entirely of volunteers. The country was awash with jingoism and the leadership of the South Wales Miners' Federation (SWMF) was amongst the most enthusiastic for the war effort. In Bargoed Labour Exchange alone there were 1,315 recruits in the first three months of the war. In such a climate, by opposing the war, Jones was seen by many as nothing less than a traitor.

By the end of 1915 there had been half a million British casualties and the horrors of the war were becoming increasingly clear. With the declining number of volunteers the government felt that it had to introduce conscription to maintain the war effort. Accordingly, in January 1916 the government introduced the Military Service Act. This meant that all unmarried adult men up to the age of 41 were regarded as being enlisted in the armed forces, even if they had not received their call-up papers, and therefore subject to military law. In May 1916 the measures were extended to cover married men as well.

Tribunals

A hierarchy of tribunals was set up to decide if an individual who was a conscientious objector to the war could be given 'alternative' employment or if they should be given a custodial sentence if they refused. Gelligaer UDC was informed by the Government in January 1916 that it would be expected to convene a local tribunal. At roughly the same time Jones received his call-up papers. It soon became clear that the Council Tribunal would be expected to consider the case of one of its own members.

At a full council meeting in February 1916, with Jones present, the council voted by only ten votes to eight to uphold the law and give the chairman and the clerk powers to convene a special council meeting as necessary. A special meeting was in fact called soon after, but it was inquorate; it seems that the 'Labour' councillors deliberately boycotted the meeting. But not to be thwarted, those councillors who did attend formed themselves into a 'committee', augmented by a local doctor and a Justice of the Peace, and this body became the local Tribunal.

Jones was summoned to appear before this tribunal after he refused to respond to his call-up. As happened throughout the country, after the war the government ordered that the records of the tribunals be destroyed. This was the case with the Gelligaer Local Tribunal and explains the gap in the otherwise unbroken minutes of Gelligaer UDC in the Glamorgan archives. However, the local press covered the meeting of the tribunal at which Jones appeared and provided an account.

In a packed courtroom in Bargoed, Jones told the tribunal that he was a "socialist" and was "resolutely opposed to all warfare". He went on to say that, in his view, the war was the product of "wrong-headed diplomacy". The local tribunal came to the conclusion that Jones could be excluded from military service, but not from alternative service. Jones was not prepared to accept this and therefore appealed to an Appeals Tribunal in Cardiff. His appeal was unsuccessful and on 29 May 1916 Jones was arrested at his parents' home in Bargoed.

At about 8:30am the local police inspector called and asked to see Jones. According to Jones, the police officer was "most courteous and polite" and made him feel "quite at home", although Jones was concerned that his mother "was somewhat alarmed" when the police officer arrived. After being arrested, Jones was taken to Bargoed police station and later that day the police raided the ILP offices in the town.

From Bargoed, Jones was taken to Cardiff where he appeared before the Magistrates Court. He was fined 2/- and sentenced to four months imprisonment for refusing to obey military orders. He was taken to Cardiff Gaol.

At the same time as the police took action in South Wales, the leadership of the NCF was also the subject of a police crackdown in London. As Jones was waiting to be arrested in Bargoed, other members of the NCF national committee were appearing before magistrates in the Mansion House in London.

Eight members of the national committee, including Jones in his absence, were found guilty of prejudicing recruitment by circulating a leaflet calling for the repeal of the Military Service Act. They were each fined £100, the maximum possible, plus £10 costs, and if they did not pay the fines they were each to face 61 days imprisonment.

A month later, the national committee members appealed against the judgement and Jones was brought up to London from Cardiff Gaol, escorted by two policemen. He appeared before the court with his fellow committee members and although he "looked white and worn", he presented his case and responded to the questions asked of him "with great spirit and determination". Jones explained to the court that he had been kept in solitary confinement for three weeks, but despite the hardship he had faced he had "no doubt" about the stand he was taking.

As expected, the appeal was rejected and the convicted were given 14 days to pay their fines or face imprisonment. Most of them went to prison.

On the day after his arrest in Bargoed, as well as appearing before Cardiff Magistrates, Jones was also brought before Caerphilly Magistrates' Court. Here, on 30 May 1916, he was found guilty of being an 'absentee', was fined £2 and it was decided that he would be placed in the hands of the military. He was kept in detention of one form or other until the end of 1917.

Prison

After Caerphilly Magistrates, Jones had to face a military court martial. Even though he had never served in the armed forces, under the Military Service Act he was found guilty of "desertion" and sentenced to a period of "sheer hard labour" with the military. He began his sentence at the Kinmel Park Army Camp in North Wales, but was then transferred to join other conscientious objectors in Wormwood Scrubs.

It is difficult to appreciate the hardship which Jones experienced while in prison. There were periods of solitary confinement and throughout Jones survived on a poor diet and was the subject of constant personal abuse.

Within a few months Jones' physical and mental health deteriorated, and in November 1916 he re-evaluated the nature of his conscientious objection. As a result, he no longer felt able to uphold the 'maximalist' position as an absolute conscientious objector and instead he became an 'alternativist'. This meant that he was breaking ranks with the leadership of the NCF by being prepared to accept 'work' which did not involve bearing arms but which, nevertheless, could be seen by some as indirectly contributing to the war effort. Jones' view was that it was important to differentiate between armed conflict, which he remained opposed to, and the legitimate functioning of the state.

From his prison cell in Wormwood Scrubs, and then from his room in the Home Office Work Centre at Warwick to which he was transferred, Jones made an effort to explain and rationalise the change in his position. During 1917 he engaged in correspondence with Mansell Grenfell from South Wales who remained a prisoner in Wormwood Scrubs, and before that Jones corresponded with Clifford Allen, the chairman of the NCF, who also remained in Wormwood Scrubs.

In an undated letter to Allen, which seems to have been written in late November 1916, Jones, however, did not make any real attempt to defend the alternativist position which he had adopted. He stated that "it would be pointless and profitless for me to enter a discussion of the 'Alternativist and Absolutist' business now. We will not emphasise differences. Let us rather emphasise agreements. And in one way at least we are certainly at one - to work together each in his own way to realise the Co-operative Commonwealth of the future."

The letter to Allen also is interesting because it explained that the experience of imprisonment had reinforced Jones' religious beliefs. "More and more," he wrote, "I am compelled to recognise and appreciate the value of individual character and the formative influence of religion."

The second reason why the letter is of interest is because it contains Jones' heartfelt concern about his family back in South Wales. One of his brothers had received his call-up papers and there was very real worry that because of his ill health he would "fail to survive the war". Another of Jones' brothers was also a conscientious objector and had been forced to leave his teaching post. Jones was always very close to his mother and he was extremely concerned that the pressures that his family were facing would "prove too much for her". A final worry for Jones was whether his engagement to his fiancée would last. In fact, it did not.

An earlier letter to Catherine Marshall, the secretary of the NCF, written soon after Jones had been transferred to Warwick, shows even more clearly the psychological strain which he had been subjected to in Wormwood Scrubs. In the letter he explained that "the effect of prison" had been to take away his ability to concentrate "upon any subject for any length of time". He said that his mind was in a "nebulous condition" and that sometimes he felt his scalp was "about to fly off".

In the Warwick Work Centre, Jones' health continued to worsen and because of this he was released at the end of 1917. But this did not mean the end of his agitational work and in April 1919 Jones appeared before Bargoed Magistrates charged with desertion, even though the war had ended some five months earlier. Even more bizarrely, he was charged with deserting from the Lancashire Fusiliers. It appears that after granting him bail at £10, the Magistrates handed him over to the military and the authorities contrived to keep him under lock and key for a further three months. This time he remained in detention until 2 August 1919.

Jones' conscientious objection to the war meant that after the conflict had ended he was prevented from returning to school teaching. Despite his ill health, he worked for a time as a labourer in a local colliery before becoming the ILP's Welsh Organiser and joining the National Council of the ILP. He remained a member of Gelligaer UDC throughout the war and following the Armistice, when he was able, he returned to his council work.

Labour support for Jones

In March 1919, Jones unsuccessfully stood for election to Glamorgan County Council when he contested the Bargoed ward. But in December 1919 he was elected in a by-election following the death of a councillor who was a local congregational minister. At the first meeting of the county council after his election, Jones was collectively and individually snubbed with no welcome or congratulations being offered to him by the chairman of the council or any of his fellow councillors.

Jones had taken a principled stand against the First World War. He and his family suffered enormously and Jones himself was subjected to terrible ill-treatment while in prison. Indeed, the physical strain which those years imposed on him was to remain with Jones throughout his life and almost certainly contributed to his premature death at the age of 53.

The huge trauma of the First World War left a deep scar on the country, not least in South Wales. The heady jingoism of the first few months of the war steadily gave way to a sense of resignation as the death toll mounted. But this did not mean that the public hostility to Jones diminished. If anything it increased as the war dragged on. After the war there were inevitably raw emotions as so many had lost loved ones. Increasingly though, Jones' contemporaries came to question whether such a conflict had been necessary and what it had achieved.

In July 1921, Alfred Onions, the strongly pro-war Labour MP for Caerphilly, died after a period of illness. Against the backdrop of economic crisis, Jones won the support of the local miners, who rejected their leaders' advice, and secured the Labour nomination. The following month saw Jones win a stunning and overwhelming by-election victory, thereby becoming the first conscientious objector to be elected to Parliament.

Jones had made a courageous stand against an appalling conflict. He did what he believed to be right. His election showed that even those who had bitterly disagreed with his stance at the time, nevertheless, were prepared to support him as a man of principle who was determined to help create a better world, free from war.

--

Wayne David is the Labour MP for Caerphilly.

Author's note on sources:

Much of the information for this piece has been gleaned from newspapers. The Caerphilly Journal and the Merthyr Express have been particularly rich sources, complemented by the ILP paper Labour Leader. These have been especially important because of the destruction of the documentation from the Tribunals and Gelligaer UDC.

John Sheaff, the son-in-law of Morgan Jones, has written an admirable introduction to Jones' life and Dylan Rees wrote an outstanding article on Jones' contribution towards education in Morgannwg (Vol. 31, 1987), the Journal of Glamorgan History. Both have provided very useful background information.

I have also been fortunate in the fact that correspondence from Morgan Jones has been reproduced in Llafur - the Journal of the Society for the Study of Welsh Labour History (Vol. 1, 1972 - 1975).

Wayne David MP

This article was originally published in the Labour Heritage bulletin.

More information about Labour Heritage, including membership forms and text from previous bulletins going back to 2001, can be found on the organisation's website: www.labour-heritage.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
ILP Profiles: Morgan Jones and the First World War

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
WAYNE DAVID recounts the life of Morgan Jones, an ILP councillor and anti-war activist who emerged from the hardship of prison to become the first conscientious objector elected to Parliament. Morgan Jones was born on 3 May 1885 in the village of Gelligaer at the foot of Gelligaer mountain.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Conscientious Objectors in World War One

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Video about those men who refused to join or be conscripted into the army during WW1 including the different types of conscientious objectors and what happened to them. Song: You Gotta Be by Des'ree N.B. This is an earlyish attempt at video making. No copyright infringement intended. For educational use only.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The recent impact of COVID-19 on the small business community has been significant. As a positive, more rural people have sought to support local businesses, but some businesses will have found operat

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The recent impact of COVID-19 on the small business community has been significant. As a positive, more rural people have sought to support local businesses, but some businesses will have found operat

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Newport suffragette Margaret Haig Mackworth, later known as 2nd Viscountess Rhondda, is being commemorated today.

In 1913 Lady Rhondda posted a 'small incendiary device' in a postbox on Risca Road in Newport as part of the suffragette movement.

She was imprisoned after refusing to pay a fine, and was released only after going on hunger strike.

Today the same postbox has been decorated in suffragette colours and speakers will pay tribute to those who fought for equality.

Today also marks 100 years since suffragette Emily Wilding Davison stepped in front of King George V's horse, Anmer, at the Epsom Derby in the name of women's rights.

She suffered serious injuries, which resulted in her death four days later.

The incident proved to be a precursor to change for women in Britain.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Newport suffragette Margaret Haig Mackworth, later known as 2nd Viscountess Rhondda, is being commemorated today. In 1913 Lady Rhondda posted a 'small incendiary device' in a postbox on Risca Road in Newport as part of the suffragette movement. She was imprisoned after refusing to pay a fine, and was released only after going on hunger strike.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Winding Snake Productions - Bird In A Cage

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Many of the children were astounded at the ways in which women were expected to live and how they were overshadowed and dismissed by their male counterparts; from matters of dress to involvement in the decision-making process that governed their lives and those of their families.