Reflections on hanging (1956)

Preface ======= In 1937, during the Civil War in Spain, I spent three months under sentence of death as a suspected spy, witnessing the executions of my fellow prisoners and awaiting my own. These three months left me with a vested interest in capital punishment—rather like “half-hanged Smith”, who was cut down after fifteen minutes and lived on. Each time a man’s or a woman’s neck is broken in this peaceful country, memory starts to fester like a badly healed wound. I shall never achieve real peace of mind until hanging is ‘abolished.