Editing Brian Haw (section)

==Early and personal life==
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Haw was born on 7 January 1949,<ref name="BBC dies">{{cite news|title=Parliament Square peace campaigner Brian Haw dies|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13828800|access-date=19 June 2011|newspaper=BBC Online|date=19 June 2011}}</ref><ref>Jerome Taylor, "3,000 days and counting... The lonely life of Brian", ''The Independent'', 19 August 2009, p. 14.</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/21/world/europe/21haw.html?ref=deathsobituaries|title=Brian Haw, 62, Dies; Camped in Front of Parliament to Protest War|date=21 June 2011|work=[[The New York Times]]|author=Dennis Hevesi}}</ref><ref name=odnb>John Rees, 'Haw, Brian William (1949–2011)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Jan 2015 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/103787 accessed 13 Feb 2015]</ref> in [[Wanstead Hospital]], in [[Woodford Green]], [[Essex]] <!-- Do not change to London Woodford Green was in Essex in 1949 when he was born --><ref>{{cite web |last=Gideon |first=Michael R. |url=http://100gf.wordpress.com/2011/06/19/obituary-anti-war-protester-brian-haw-dies-aged-62-after-battling-lung-cancer/ |title=Obituary: Anti-war protester Brian Haw dies aged 62 after battling lung cancer &#124; 100gf &#124; Politics and Computers |website=100gf.wordpress.com |date=2011-06-19 |access-date=2017-06-15 |archive-date=19 May 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170519020658/https://100gf.wordpress.com/2011/06/19/obituary-anti-war-protester-brian-haw-dies-aged-62-after-battling-lung-cancer/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> a twin and the eldest of six.<ref name="Tel obit"/> He grew up in neighbouring [[Barking, London|Barking]] and in [[Whitstable]], Kent.<ref name="Tel obit">{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/8585399/Brian-Haw.html |title=Brian Haw obituary |website=Telegraph.co.uk |access-date=15 June 2017}}</ref>

His father, Robert William Haw (1925–1964), served as a sniper in the [[Reconnaissance Corps]] in the Second World War, and had been one of the first British soldiers to enter the [[Bergen-Belsen concentration camp]]. He later worked as a railway clerk,<ref name=odnb/> and also worked in a betting office.{{citation needed|date=February 2015}} He took his own life when Haw was 13.<ref name="Tel obit"/> Haw's mother was Iris Marie Haw (née Hall).<ref name=odnb/>

Haw's family were involved in an [[evangelical Christian]] church in Whitstable, which Haw joined when he was aged 11.<ref name=odnb/> Haw was apprenticed to a boat-builder from the age of 16 and then entered the [[British Merchant Navy|Merchant Navy]] as a deckhand.<ref name="Express profile">Anna Pukas, "I'm staying I won't let Blair bully me'", ''The Express'', 11 May 2006.</ref> He travelled widely before spending six months at an evangelical college in Nottingham, after which he preached [[world peace]]. Haw visited [[Northern Ireland]] in 1970 during [[The Troubles]], as well as the [[Killing Fields]] of [[Cambodia]] in 1989.<ref name=odnb/>

After returning to London, he worked as a removals man and as a carpenter, and later with youth in [[Redditch]], Worcestershire.<ref name="BBC dies" /><ref name="odnb" /> He married his wife Kay in [[Redbridge, London|Redbridge]] in June 1977.<ref name=odnb/> They lived in [[Redditch]] with their seven children until he left them in 2001 to begin his Parliament Square protest.<ref name="BBC dies"/> The couple divorced in 2003.<ref name="Tel obit"/>