In order to implement the Peace, Friendship and Exchange Initiative, the Japanese Embassy in London took quiet soundings in December of 1994 and January of 1995 to see how interested parties in this country believed that any funds which might be made available in the United Kingdom under the scope of the "Peace, Friendship and Exchange Initiative" should be spent. Even at that time, officials were able to indicate privately that the Japanese Government envisaged that out of the total 100 billion yen programme approximately 100 million yen would be earmarked for the United Kingdom. The "Peace, Friendship and Exchange Initiative" was designed to point to a new future in which mutual confidence and trust would be enhanced and perhaps a discrete veil might be drawn across memories of the less fortunate chapters of the military conflict which had ended half a century before. As time passed, we were all much encouraged by the willingness of the Japanese business community to subscribe additional funds, solicited by the Japanese Government, for the support of this great project, and this, indeed, has enabled us to achieve even more than was initially anticipated. All of the funding for this project therefore continues to come from Japanese sources, although the project has from the first won powerful support from successive British prime ministers and their Governments.

It was decided that these resources would finance several distinct programmes including an Anglo-Japanese History Project (1995-2000) which would review the entire course of Anglo-Japanese relations in order to understand the war and its context; grassroot exchange visits led by Keiko Holmes that would enable ex-Prisoners of War and members of their immediate families to travel to the Far East where they would meet up with Japanese ex-servicemen who had fought against British forces, and a programme to enable the grandchildren of British ex-prisoners of the Japanese to join with other British young people selected to visit Japan.

In May 1995, I was invited to sound out former Far East Prisoners of War and Civilian Internees with a view to exploring the likely attitude that they and their comrades might take if a number of their grandchildren were invited to join other children in embarking upon a two-week visit to Japan. It was felt to be important to make a major gesture aimed at remembering the past while looking towards the future. One of the objects of the programme was to lay the foundations for an enduring friendship between members of the new generations that had grown in Britain and Japan long after the end of the Pacific War.
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