00:00:00.000 - 00:00:18.940

Maybe to start off, you could just tell me something about your background, before you were at Greenham. Sure. Well, my background was... Sorry, I've not even started very clearly. My background was an army family, and I moved around a lot.

00:00:18.940 - 00:00:57.440

I was born in Singapore, and I'd lived in Germany and Denmark and Britain in three different places. And I moved to Greenham from quite close to an army base that I'd lived on, so it was quite extreme but connected. So is that how you knew about Greenham, the fact that you lived so closely? No, not really. No, I think army backgrounds can be quite sheltered, to a certain extent.

00:00:57.940 - 00:01:31.060

And I found out about... When I left school, I kind of dropped out of school and university, and I got involved with a political bookshop in Winchester, which was the town where I was living at the time. And there was an older woman there who was a political activist, I suppose, and who I liked, and she told me about Greenham. And I'm still in contact with her now.

00:01:31.960 - 00:01:56.900

So did you go to Greenham on your own, or did you go with friends? I went with a school friend, and neither of us had done anything like that before, so we were both quite naive. Tell me about it. What was it like the day you arrived? Well, I think by the time we got there, it was dark. It was certainly late afternoon, and it was in the winter.

00:01:57.080 - 00:02:26.100

It was December, and we had bought some plastic to make a bender because we knew that Greenham women had benders, but we didn't really know what to do with it. And when we arrived, it turned out that it was actually really thin as well, and not really suitable. So we were rustling around kind of in the dark, and the women living there were kind of extremely sarcastic and were taking the piss out of us.

00:02:26.100 - 00:02:54.240

And they were sitting around the fire and going, oh, what are you two doing over there, you know, rustling away in the dark? And we said, I think I said, oh, I'm trying to blow up my airbed, and it's gone down. And they were quite scornful of creature comforts as well. And then one of them said, I know, I lost the plug off my iron the other day.

00:02:54.920 - 00:03:11.800

Which gate was this? Greengate. Greengate. Is that where you stayed the whole time? No, I initially went to Greengate, and I stayed there for a few months, certainly through the winter and maybe into the spring.

00:03:12.480 - 00:03:33.360

And then I moved to Bluegate. Was there a particular reason you went to Greengate? I think it was one that was a little bit further back from the road. Possibly the woman who recommended to me that I went to Greenham had told me about it.

00:03:35.320 - 00:03:51.440

As far as I know, I didn't know anyone who was there already. But after being there for a while, I found out it was a very separatist gate as well. What do you mean by separatist gate? There were no men allowed.

00:03:51.800 - 00:04:05.780

I mean, there were no men staying at Greenham anyway, but there were no men allowed to visit. Oh, even during the day? No, it was no, no. By separatist, it meant that they didn't mix with men at all.

00:04:06.840 - 00:04:21.140

So, having said that, I think it was quite good for me at the time, because I'd come from a very conservative and sexist family. I'd never really been in that type of environment before. So, I think it did me quite a lot of good.

00:04:21.580 - 00:04:34.220

What year was this? 1984. And I enjoyed my time there. It was one of the only gates that was more secluded,

00:04:35.940 - 00:04:50.440

which was also probably why it was the separatist gate. It was about a mile away from a major road. It was reached by a narrow road that had tarmac on it, but it was like a single lane road.

00:04:51.120 - 00:05:05.740

And it was very beautiful. It was in like a silver birch wood, and there was a little stream, and we had some benders that were hidden completely inside bushes. A lot of women have talked about nature

00:05:05.740 - 00:05:25.060

and how they enjoyed being outside, living in nature. Yeah, I mean, I think I've always liked nature, and parts of Winchester and Hampshire are incredibly beautiful. So, it was definitely not something that would have put me off, no.

00:05:25.820 - 00:05:41.120

I did enjoy my time there in relation to... Did you do any actions while you were at Green Gate? Yes, quite a few. It was very common for us to take down sections of the fence.

00:05:41.480 - 00:05:59.940

That was an almost daily event, and we'd sort of developed some techniques, I suppose, whereby you could take down lots of sections at once by rolling the chain link fence.

00:05:59.940 - 00:06:16.820

So, you'd sort of cut a vertical line, and you had to make sure that you cut through the horizontal retaining wires, and then you could roll the fence just by cutting along the bottom. So, it was quite common for big sections to be removed.

00:06:17.640 - 00:06:37.200

And did you go through into the base? At other times, yeah. I was involved with several actions, like mass trespasses. And I also broke into an American vehicle depot with another woman,

00:06:37.420 - 00:06:52.640

and they were keeping a goose as a warning goose, like an alarm. I'm sure I haven't heard that before. Yeah, geese have been kept. There's a kind of tradition of keeping them as light guard dogs.

00:06:52.640 - 00:07:08.260

And a lot of us were very much into animal rights, and we weren't very impressed with the goose being kept by itself. So, she went back with another woman and stole it, and it was released in Newbury.

00:07:11.240 - 00:07:23.420

I didn't do anything else specific, like dance on the missile silos or anything like that. No, just marauding. Just marauding around, yeah.

00:07:24.040 - 00:07:35.160

Did you follow any of the convoys? No, no, I didn't. I only saw the convoy once, and it was in the middle of the night, and it was absolutely terrifying.

00:07:35.540 - 00:07:43.520

It was far more imposing than I thought it would be. In what way? They're huge, really big. On each vehicle?

00:07:43.900 - 00:07:56.520

Yeah, yeah, they're absolutely massive. And it was the middle of the night as well, so that obviously didn't help. How many vehicles would there have been, roughly, in the convoy? I think they varied.

00:07:57.100 - 00:08:15.240

I mean, they had the main kind of missile-carrying vehicles plus smaller vehicles around them for security. Did you meet any of the personnel, US Army personnel? When we broke into the base, yeah, quite a few.

00:08:15.260 - 00:08:30.880

How did they behave? Really horribly. Well, one time I was ill, and they laughed at me and poked fun at me. Yeah, they weren't very impressed, really.

00:08:31.020 - 00:08:40.860

I think they were pretty appalled by us. We had quite a lot of aggression from the people who lived in Newbury as well. Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. What form did that take?

00:08:42.100 - 00:08:55.460

Especially when we were at Blue Gate, which was more problematic because that gate was near the road. So, yeah, they used to drive by, shout abuse, throw rubbish at us, that kind of thing. So just verbal abuse?

00:08:56.220 - 00:09:15.840

Yeah, but I'm sure I did hear of people being attacked. We had to be careful when we walked around Newbury, obviously. Somebody had a go at me once when I was walking around Newbury. Did you feel the whole of Newbury was hostile towards you?

00:09:15.980 - 00:09:27.320

Not at all. Or were there people who did support? No, we had places that we could go to in Newbury. In particular was the Quaker Meeting House, called the Friends Meeting House,

00:09:27.440 - 00:09:38.920

who were sympathetic to us, and we used to go there for meetings, and we were allowed to use their facilities. They allowed us to shower and things like that. Any other places?

00:09:39.860 - 00:09:55.620

There was a cafe called the Empire Cafe that we used to like to go to, and back in the day when we were all vegans, we'd probably have beans and chips or something like that. And there was also a fantastic health food shop as well.

00:09:56.180 - 00:10:03.960

I think it was just called something like Newbury Whole Foods, I don't really remember. We used to go there and stock up on goodies. So they were supportive?

00:10:03.960 - 00:10:24.920

Yeah, and the sort of early vegan products were very important to us, so we used to go and buy halva and chocolate soy dessert and hummus and things like that. Why did you move from Greengate to Bluegate? Because there was a younger crowd at Bluegate,

00:10:25.400 - 00:10:42.160

and I think I was probably tiring a bit of the separatism by then. I think one of my friends had tried to go there with her son, who was quite young, and they turned her away. And I think the Bluegate crowd were just more fun, really.

00:10:42.620 - 00:10:56.720

How many had been at Greengate? It was difficult to say specific numbers, because women were coming and going all the time, so at any of the gates it could vary from a really small number,

00:10:56.720 - 00:11:10.920

like three to quite a lot. But I suppose at any given time there'd probably be about, I don't know, hopefully about eight to ten, but sometimes more, sometimes less.

00:11:12.840 - 00:11:24.580

So how long were you at Bluegate for? Well, for the rest of the time that I was there, which was until the following winter, which would have been the winter of 85.

00:11:24.580 - 00:11:41.220

And then I think I mentioned in my message that we set off to go and do an action in the SAS training base, which was in the Welsh Borders. Can you remember exactly where that was?

00:11:42.420 - 00:11:52.680

I probably could. Was it a place called US Herald? No, it wasn't, no. Because that's an SAS base right on the Welsh Border.

00:11:52.680 - 00:12:07.160

US Herald. It's literally on the border, and it's the major SAS base. If it was, then we might have known it by another name, like maybe the name of the nearest village or something like that,

00:12:07.320 - 00:12:19.860

but it doesn't ring a bell. I used to remember the name. I'll try and recall it. So what did you do when you were down there? We broke in and just trespassed, really.

00:12:20.440 - 00:12:38.320

We walked for a long time, and we didn't get to anything whereby we could actually, you know... ..do any actions as such. But I think the main aim was to highlight the lack of security.

00:12:38.560 - 00:12:48.600

That's going to be my next question. Which is why we did it. And then we got arrested. By military personnel?

00:12:48.600 - 00:13:02.020

Yeah, on the base, yeah. And what happened then? We were put into a small building which had windows that opened, which was a bad idea because then we climbed over and escaped.

00:13:03.520 - 00:13:19.860

Did any pursuits? I think once they realised... I don't know, I think I escaped, and I think a few others did. I don't recall anyone getting arrested or getting retained after that.

00:13:20.020 - 00:13:32.920

I think they were probably a bit embarrassed about it all, to be honest, and then they let us go. I can imagine. And then after that we went and camped in a kind of abandoned quarry.

00:13:33.340 - 00:13:48.020

And then I came to London with a friend, with one of the women. But you did that action from Blue Gate? Yeah, and then after that I moved to London. I came straight to London from Wales.

00:13:50.740 - 00:14:15.840

What do you think the biggest impact of Greenham was on you personally? It was probably the women that I met while I was there. I'm still in contact with quite a few of them and met friends of friends via them as well.

00:14:15.860 - 00:14:27.720

Were you a feminist or would you have called yourself a feminist when you turned up at Greenham? Yeah, I would have done, definitely. I would say feminism was probably the first form of politics

00:14:27.720 - 00:14:42.020

that I came across or I got interested in. That was from about the age of 13, because you could buy spare rib in the shop near where I lived. So I started buying spare rib.

00:14:44.380 - 00:15:01.680

So yeah, I would say feminism was pretty important to me. Living at Greenham, how did it inform your views of feminism? Did it change them at all? Did they develop them in any particular direction?

00:15:03.440 - 00:15:21.580

I think, yeah, my politics were kind of invigorated and strengthened by being at Greenham. I met women from a really wide range of backgrounds and some really powerful and very lively women.

00:15:24.860 - 00:15:40.980

And probably a lot of them would be considered extremely eccentric by mainstream standards. Because I was so young, a lot of being at Greenham didn't really strike me as being that unusual, that strange.

00:15:40.980 - 00:15:55.420

Were you still a teenager? Yes, I was 16 in 1984 when I first went there. So it was also a big part of becoming an adult as well, really. I suppose you could say I kind of came of age there.

00:15:56.760 - 00:16:12.880

But I met women from a wide range of backgrounds and a wide range of ages as well. Did you feel it was a space where you could sort of experiment a little bit? Yes, definitely.

00:16:13.220 - 00:16:23.340

In what way? In many ways, really. I don't feel as though we were really that constrained at all, apart from the rigours of living outdoors

00:16:23.340 - 00:16:42.100

and things like regular evictions, which could be a bit of a kind of harsh wake-up call, literally, in some cases. No, and I suppose we were constrained

00:16:42.100 - 00:17:00.420

by sometimes having to kind of remove our benders as well. But we were able to experiment in loads of ways. We weren't really constrained by having to look after families, pressures from parents or partners.

00:17:01.600 - 00:17:18.040

We could dress however we wanted and make our benders however we wanted and have lovers. So, yes, we often were quite creative.

00:17:18.420 - 00:17:32.000

We used to decorate the benders, do artwork. Did you do any sketching or anything? Yes, I did do some drawing when I was there, but I haven't kept any of the drawings.

00:17:32.000 - 00:17:45.120

I know it's annoying, things you wish you'd kept now. You chuck out when you're younger. What did your family think of you living in Greenland? I think they were pretty horrified.

00:17:46.060 - 00:17:59.060

My dad used to take me up there sometimes, drop me off, which was quite shockingly liberal of him. I think it was because my mother was so terrified of me hitchhiking, I think she probably made him do it.

00:18:01.000 - 00:18:17.640

Yeah, they weren't very happy about it. Did you talk about it with them in detail, or did they just...? They probably didn't want to know. I remember my dad found an arrest warrant in my pocket

00:18:17.640 - 00:18:31.720

and he was really upset and horrified by it. He said, when you were young, your mother and I used to sit and wonder what you'd be when you grew up and now you've got a criminal record and you're not even 18.

00:18:32.980 - 00:18:48.200

Poor dad. So I think they were a bit upset. They were quite liberal for an army family and I think that they were worried more than anything else,

00:18:48.520 - 00:19:03.320

as you would be if your daughter was living outdoors and breaking into bases. Talk about feminism. No, my family weren't a political family in that respect.

00:19:03.620 - 00:19:30.380

They were sort of conservative with a small c. I wasn't brought up to be aware of so-called alternative politics at all. I wasn't really aware of people who weren't monarchists and conservative. I wasn't aware of any other ideas aside from that kind of thing.

00:19:30.440 - 00:19:50.940

So it must have been quite a leap to go from that to Greenham at 16. I think that I'd had a kind of gradual awakening which started with things like reading Spare Rib and other political things that I managed to get my hands on.

00:19:50.940 - 00:20:22.420

Like I said, there was an alternative bookshop in Winchester that I used to go to so I started reading anarchist and Green magazines. Then I went to Stonehenge the day I finished my O-Levels. At that time it had really grown to be quite a big festival

00:20:22.420 - 00:20:42.120

and that was a real eye-opener because I just hadn't really known that anything like that existed. I was quite happy really. I think for a few years I just threw myself headlong into anything counter-cultural

00:20:42.120 - 00:20:59.100

that I came across really. Were you involved in any peace movements? Were you a member of CND or anything like that? No, no. I've never really been involved as in being a member of any organisations.

00:21:00.000 - 00:21:24.220

I've always been involved with very informal groups that did direct action. After I left Green I became involved with a group of feminist squatters in Brixton that I did political actions with but it was always on a really informal basis. So not part of a big group?

00:21:24.880 - 00:21:46.380

Well, one of my friends who I knew at the time has subsequently made a film called Rebel Dykes and she's just in the final stages of getting that finished. She felt really strongly that the things that we were doing at the time should be recorded.

00:21:47.800 - 00:22:07.500

Quite a few documentary films had been made about squatters and other political activity around that time but we came to realise that nothing had been done. There was no record of what we had done.

00:22:08.360 - 00:22:21.120

Was she being to Greenham? Yeah, I met her at Greenham. That's really great. When's it going to come out? Well, I've been informed that like many things it's a kind of financial issue

00:22:21.120 - 00:22:42.580

but I know it's got a lot of animation in it as well which is really labour intensive but I have been informed that it's nearly there. I know you weren't involved in any peace movements but did you feel under a nuclear threat when you were a child and a teenager?

00:22:42.880 - 00:23:03.600

Bearing in mind you're a military adult. Absolutely. My father worked for NATO during the height of the Cold War and at one point he was stationed in one of the top three NATO bases in Northern Europe which was at Karup in Denmark.

00:23:04.760 - 00:23:35.600

It was called Baltap actually, the Danish one. He worked in an underground bunker which I obviously never visited and found out later that my parents had tiny radiation suits for me and my brother which fortunately I never saw at the time.

00:23:37.020 - 00:24:01.360

So yeah, the threat of nuclear war was very real and very present I would say. Did it scare you? Or were you so young you just sort of didn't really think it through? I think I was kind of numbed by the time I reached my teens. I think that it seemed like a real and present reality

00:24:01.360 - 00:24:29.180

but I was also kind of quite used to the idea as well. So that was in 1977 when I lived in Denmark. You're a spare rib reader. What did you think, or were you aware of the media representation of Green and Women?

00:24:31.360 - 00:24:58.620

What did you feel about that? I must admit I didn't really relate to what I perceived as being the most well-known image of Green and Women which was kind of housewives for peace holding hands and hanging nappies on the fence. The women that I connected with were I think a younger and punkier group

00:24:58.620 - 00:25:33.300

and we were far more interested in having a good time as well as protesting. And we were often told off by the kind of older senior members of the camps because some of the older women obviously had made major sacrifices and they also didn't want to bring the camps into disrepute any more than they were already.

00:25:34.460 - 00:25:55.460

So to have us around sometimes was quite problematic. Especially at Bluegate we had a really bad reputation, even for Green and Women. And the bad reputation was for what specifically? Spending all our camp money on drugs and not having any left for food

00:25:55.460 - 00:26:21.520

and spray painting everything, being naughty. I mean they were lucky we did get looked after because the thing about Greenham is that people constantly brought things to us. The thing about Greenham is we, you know, peace activists constantly came to visit

00:26:21.520 - 00:26:45.700

and they were really lovely people, you know, they used to bring us hot meals. If you'd spent all your money on drugs, would the older women bear you out with a hot meal? Well, people brought us meals, it wasn't just the Green and Women, they were visitors like Quaker groups and peace activists from other parts of the country

00:26:45.700 - 00:27:10.240

used to bring us hot meals and sometimes we used to get things from the other gate. So you wouldn't starve? Sometimes we had to just eat porridge, but that served us right. And a really good time was when we got given bales of straw

00:27:12.080 - 00:27:27.480

because it was very muddy and so the straw used to soak up the mud and we could sit on them and we could throw it on the fire as well. So that was a really happy time when we had straw. We were very happy when we had straw.

00:27:27.660 - 00:27:36.620

Were you ever evicted? Yeah, lots of times. Tell me about that. The evictions could really vary enormously.

00:27:37.560 - 00:27:59.360

It depended on all sorts of things as well, like the time of day they were done, which bailiffs were involved and sometimes they also decided... The evictions used to sort of vary in ferocity, like sometimes you'd just only have a couple of quite lacklustre bailiffs

00:27:59.360 - 00:28:12.700

and they weren't really that bothered. They would just make you move off the land. You had to move down the road a few hundred metres and then once you had gone a certain distance they would leave

00:28:13.300 - 00:28:28.220

and then we just went back again. But sometimes, occasionally, I don't know why, for whatever reason, they were sort of more ferocious and some bailiffs, individual bailiffs, were worse than others.

00:28:28.400 - 00:28:47.400

So they would try and grab our stuff and put it in the back of their truck and then we'd have to try and grab it and get it back again. And so you'd have to be kind of really super quick if they were like that. And sometimes it would end up being a bit of a scuffle,

00:28:47.520 - 00:29:00.780

not like physical fights because we were peace activists so we weren't supposed to do that, but some people used to do things like stick you sanitary towels onto their wing mirrors and things like that.

00:29:01.120 - 00:29:20.460

But some women at the camp didn't even like us doing that kind of thing because they thought it was aggressive. Do you think the bailiffs treated you any differently because you were a woman? Well, I'd never seen an eviction of any other people

00:29:20.460 - 00:29:33.840

so I don't really have anything to compare it to. I think some of the bailiffs, I'm sure, were quite intolerant of us. Some were just kind of indifferent. They were just sort of doing their job.

00:29:36.860 - 00:29:52.140

And at Blue Gate, at Green Gate in particular, because we had hidden benders, it was really important that the bailiffs didn't find them so we used to try and do things to sort of throw them off the trail

00:29:52.140 - 00:30:03.500

if they looked like they were getting too near to the hidden benders. We'd try and do things to distract them. I don't know, I can't remember now, you know. Just general distraction.

00:30:03.520 - 00:30:18.000

Causing a scuffle, yeah. Arguing with them, chucking things around, stuff like that. And at Blue Gate the evictions were different. The evictions kind of varied depending on which gate you lived at as well

00:30:18.000 - 00:30:34.060

because of just the sort of layout of the gates. At Blue Gate, because we were right on the road and we also didn't really have anywhere to move our stuff, we used to have a spray-painted van which we called Crazy Daisy

00:30:34.880 - 00:30:49.340

which was completely covered. I think it was an old Commer van or, you know, sort of Morris Minor van, that type of thing. It was quite big and we used to throw everything into Crazy Daisy

00:30:49.340 - 00:31:04.280

and drive her down the road. And sometimes we'd drive it a little way and the bay lifts and we'd stop and the bay lifts would say, no, it's too near, you've got to, you know, move it further.

00:31:05.280 - 00:31:17.760

And so we'd move it further away and then they'd sort of go, and then go. Did you meet, or you obviously met, the police because they were on the outside of the fence, weren't they?

00:31:17.840 - 00:31:26.740

How did you get on with them? Did you just ignore them or...? Again, it was a real mixture, yeah. Some of the police and the soldiers were friendly

00:31:26.740 - 00:31:45.620

or, you know, were tolerators and some were more hostile. I mean, a lot of it, I think, came down to their individual personalities. And did you meet any journalists when you were there? Yeah, I remember being interviewed by a young woman journalist

00:31:46.280 - 00:32:04.180

and I remember Greta Skutch, she was there, who was an actress at the time, more well-known at the time. And journalists wanted to interview me because I was young and I had come from an army background so it was a good story

00:32:04.180 - 00:32:16.580

and I didn't live that far away either. I only lived about, I had only lived about 30 miles away so it was quite, you know, local. Can you remember what sort of things they asked you?

00:32:17.700 - 00:32:35.960

I can see that as a headline on a... Local army girl terms. Yeah, I think they were quite excited about that. Why do you think it's important for people to remember Greenham?

00:32:38.300 - 00:32:57.020

Well, it was massive, I think, really. It went on for a long time, about seven years, wasn't it? Greenham lasted from 1981 until almost 2000 or 2001. Okay, right, far more than seven years.

00:32:57.600 - 00:33:15.000

It changed hugely because then it became about returning the land to the people of Greenbury. Well, that leads me on to my last point which was, apart from it being a very big and influential demonstration

00:33:15.000 - 00:33:31.040

that went on for a long time, it was successful as well and it was one of the few sort of major political actions that succeeded in achieving what it set out to do. And what would you say that achievement was?

00:33:32.140 - 00:33:46.380

Nuclear missiles were removed from the Common, which was the main aim of Greenham, was to have it return to common land, which it was. I was just going to say often, say to people,

00:33:47.080 - 00:34:03.720

you know, what's the point of political activity? I say political activity has been successful in my lifetime and I cite Greenham as being one of those things. And do you think young people...

00:34:03.720 - 00:34:13.940

I mean, I keep saying young people all the time, but I never know quite what it is. I suppose people under 25, really, do they know about Greenham? Are they aware, do you think?

00:34:14.780 - 00:34:24.420

No, I don't think so. Why do you think that is? I think because of what I said to you earlier, before we were recording,

00:34:26.400 - 00:34:44.920

that so-called alternative history, by that I mean, you know, feminist and class, working class, and also the history of non-white people, other races,

00:34:44.920 - 00:35:00.740

hasn't been documented and doesn't get documented. It tends to get forgotten or ignored and I think sometimes quite actively, you know, overlooked as well. And why would the state, presumably,

00:35:01.000 - 00:35:12.920

want to not recognise that history? Well, I think successful political activity is threatening to the state. It's influential.

00:35:13.920 - 00:35:30.800

I think that it's quite important for the state to keep people separate and not to encourage people to unite in any kind of successful political activity.

00:35:32.180 - 00:35:43.860

Apart from, obviously, this project, what ways do you think would be good to tell the Greenham story to, well, not just young people,

00:35:43.960 - 00:35:53.880

to a wider audience, really? Because I think there's quite a few adults who don't really know much about Greenham. Well, I suppose by any means necessary, really.

00:35:54.780 - 00:36:05.900

I think what you said earlier about, I know you just said aside from children, but I think that teaching children about it is really important

00:36:05.900 - 00:36:21.560

and, obviously, with adults, it has to be any medium that they'll pay attention to, really. Documentary film, I think, is probably a good idea. It's probably the main thing,

00:36:22.120 - 00:36:37.520

the main kind of art form that adults pay attention to. I was also just going to say that I think that Greenham was important in the history of feminism as well.

00:36:39.040 - 00:36:56.460

I think particularly at a time when I think that feminism started to become about breaking the glass ceiling and in achieving a kind of equality with wages

00:36:56.460 - 00:37:09.100

and various other battles like that, which are important. I think that more kind of alternative feminist histories are important,

00:37:10.520 - 00:37:25.400

especially in relation to political actions that weren't part of mainstream political organisations. I mean, I know you could ostensibly say that Greenham came under the umbrella of CND,

00:37:25.600 - 00:37:42.780

but there were quite a lot of women there who weren't in CND. Probably wouldn't have joined, necessarily. Who would have seen themselves as being more like anarchists.

00:37:43.020 - 00:38:00.640

They wouldn't have necessarily joined a political organisation. Some of them wouldn't have organised with men. And, yeah, I think they would have just wanted the freedom to do other things.

00:38:01.540 - 00:38:09.980

Do you talk about Greenham much these days? To friends and things? Is it something that's sort of in the past? Intermittently.

00:38:10.360 - 00:38:24.260

No, I mean, it is fairly alive for me because I'm still in touch with quite a lot of women that I met there, for example. I went to the XR demonstrations recently

00:38:25.660 - 00:38:38.560

and when I was at Marble Arch, I was texting to women who had been there and they were old friends from Greenham. And unfortunately they'd just left and gone back to Wales,

00:38:38.720 - 00:38:54.200

but I had hoped to meet up with them there. And one of them was really young when she was at Greenham. She was only 15 and she was from a traveller background and she used to steal Jeeps and drive them around

00:38:54.200 - 00:39:07.320

and turn them over. So she was quite fun and she was really impressive. So I'd hoped to see her. But, yeah, I've met up and I'm still in contact

00:39:07.320 - 00:39:13.280

with quite a few women I used to know there. Do you have any children? No. Nieces and nephews?

00:39:13.600 - 00:39:21.600

No. I'm just wondering if you sort of pass the word on. I have no children in my life. Well, Suarai, my friend here,

00:39:21.680 - 00:39:30.920

saw me entertaining a big group of children earlier on today in the library, but I only really have contact with children through my work. Through your work?

00:39:31.000 - 00:39:36.740

Yeah. Would you do it at the library as a project? A Greenham re-enactment would be good. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:39:37.140 - 00:39:44.620

I would teach them how to build a vendor. I'm not sure their parents would be entirely happy about it though. Useful skill for them. Absolutely.

00:39:44.620 - 00:39:57.780

I was going to say, subsequent to Greenham, I found it really easy to go camping in the middle of nowhere with absolutely no resources and cook elaborate meals on an open fire.

00:39:58.660 - 00:40:10.220

Life skills. What made you decide to leave Greenham? One of my friends got ill because of the cold. It was particularly cold at the time.

00:40:10.220 - 00:40:27.060

And we had to build a fire to thaw our water so that we could make drinks. And she got ill and got taken to hospital. And I think, because I was so young

00:40:27.060 - 00:40:39.240

and I think I'd only just started my adult life, I thought I should probably actually try and experience adult life in other ways. Did you find it difficult to adjust from Greenham

00:40:39.240 - 00:40:52.740

to a sort of more normal... Well, my life in London wasn't normal either. I had a really small puppy who I had got from some travellers when I was at Greenham.

00:40:53.360 - 00:41:09.420

And she was only two months old when I moved to London. And so she was consequently not house-trained. So I had to set about house-training her pretty quickly. And so she got me into quite a bit of trouble

00:41:09.420 - 00:41:23.880

because she was weeing everywhere. When I came to London, I moved into a squat in Brixton. And we were getting our electricity from the house behind us. And we...

00:41:24.800 - 00:41:37.460

There were four women there and two dogs. And I lived there until we got evicted. Did you ever go back to Greenham? Yes, but only to visit, not to live again.

00:41:38.260 - 00:41:46.380

Regularly or...? No, very intermittently. Have you ever been back in the recent past? No.

00:41:46.380 - 00:41:55.260

Because it must look very different. I want to go back. I had dogs up until very recently, and my last dogs were sort of very anxious rescue dogs,

00:41:55.340 - 00:42:10.120

so it wasn't really suitable for me to take them there. But now I'm freer, I will go back here. Because they have a museum, don't they, a small museum? Yeah, there was actually an exhibition of photography there recently

00:42:10.120 - 00:42:20.540

that I really wanted to see. But I am in contact, as I said, with quite a few women who used to live there, so I still see their photographs.

00:42:20.640 - 00:42:28.520

Did you go to the Imperial War Museum exhibition? No. Which I didn't either. But they had a bit.

00:42:28.580 - 00:42:37.580

It was on sort of protests against war, I think, and Greenham had quite a chunk of that. Actually, no, I did, I did, yeah. Yeah, I tell a lie, I did actually see it,

00:42:37.700 - 00:42:51.560

and I'd forgotten about it, and I did recognise quite a few of the women in the photos as well. Was it a fair representation of what went on? Did it sort of manage to put over...?

00:42:52.200 - 00:43:09.260

Yeah, I would say so. I mean, everything like that is only a partial representation, I suppose, especially photography is just a moment in time. But, yeah, it did convey, I think, some of the energy of it, definitely.

00:43:11.120 - 00:43:26.840

I mean, I think, as with everything, these photos, they often only represent particular events, maybe like when there are a lot of women there, and there was, you know, a big gathering.

00:43:27.380 - 00:43:38.760

Yeah. Of course, you were there before the age of mobile phones. Yeah, yeah, there was no computers or phones. Sending images everywhere, I suppose now.

00:43:39.080 - 00:43:54.120

Yeah, I'm sure there would have been a lot more photography, definitely. I have got a few photos from those times, and quite a few were taken, as you can imagine. I wish I'd taken more, obviously,

00:43:54.660 - 00:44:09.280

and I could say that for my life in Brixton afterwards as well. But I think that people were suspicious of people taking a lot of photographs in those days as well. They didn't like it, you know, unless they knew you really well.

00:44:10.120 - 00:44:23.640

Did you ever feel there were sort of people watching you that would be reporting back to the authorities on you? I think, undoubtedly, we were probably infiltrated, I think. It was pretty widespread.

00:44:23.660 - 00:44:33.880

Buckingham, generally, or your gate? The group, I think, I think probably all the gates probably were at some point. I think it was pretty widespread, that type of thing.

00:44:36.980 - 00:44:46.520

When I went at a slightly different... This is going off on a tangent, but at a slightly different time, I went with a girlfriend at the time to visit her father,

00:44:46.720 - 00:45:01.280

who was working in Germany on a base. He was a lawyer, and we met an American servicewoman who we befriended, and she turned out to really be a secret agent of some kind.

00:45:01.740 - 00:45:16.220

And we thought it best that we sort of distance ourselves from her. Yeah, she came to Brixton and hung out with us a bit, and we thought, mm-mm, it's probably not... As we got to know her a bit better

00:45:16.220 - 00:45:27.380

and found out what kind of work she did, we thought it was probably best not to spend any more time with her. You mentioned earlier the arrest warrant that your father found in your pocket.

00:45:27.820 - 00:45:35.040

Mm. How many times were you arrested? I was a bit worried you were going to ask me because I can't remember, but it was a few times. More than once?

00:45:35.040 - 00:45:45.340

Yeah, it was three to five times. So you had to go to court? One time I did, yeah. Where would that have been? Newbury?

00:45:46.220 - 00:45:59.580

Yes, it was, and I did go to Holloway because of something I'd done at Greenham. It would have just been for trespass. I don't think I ever got done for anything else.

00:45:59.980 - 00:46:10.620

So you went to...? I spent a week in Holloway in... Let me think. It would have been the spring of 1986.

00:46:11.420 - 00:46:23.620

Mm. That was interesting. I can imagine. Do you want to talk about that? Yes, I wasn't really very adversely affected by it at all.

00:46:24.020 - 00:46:36.240

I wasn't there for very long. Were you the only one to go there? No, I remember that one of my friends was definitely in there at the same time as me,

00:46:36.380 - 00:46:51.040

but I think initially we were put in a cell together, but then we separated. I liked it. I was taken into a dormitory where, in the middle of the room,

00:46:51.180 - 00:47:00.680

there were two women lying in bed together, and I walked towards them, and one of them turned to me and gave me a joint, and I thought,

00:47:01.260 - 00:47:14.960

oh, this is great, I've come to the right place. So I suppose, as a young lesbian, I was quite happy, really. I hadn't really been torn away from my family

00:47:14.960 - 00:47:25.840

and didn't have a lot of responsibility, so I didn't... My dog Pandora was being looked after by somebody, and so I wasn't very adversely affected by it.

00:47:26.840 - 00:47:38.040

I think the only thing was that, even then I thought that a lot of the women that I met didn't seem to have done anything very serious and shouldn't have been in there.

00:47:39.100 - 00:47:51.860

I met women who were in Holloway because they didn't have TV licences, and some of them had children, so they'd been incarcerated because of that.

00:47:51.860 - 00:48:07.820

Mostly for economic reasons. I remember meeting some women who'd been drug mules, and the only woman I met who maybe deserved to be in there,

00:48:08.240 - 00:48:18.360

she admitted herself. She said, you know, I admit, you know, I should be banged up, and she was an armed robber.

00:48:18.360 - 00:48:39.420

And she kind of thought that she deserved it. But I think that I did have some guilt after I left because I hadn't been there for very long at all, and I used to think about the women who were left behind,

00:48:39.860 - 00:48:50.940

and I think there were quite a few that had probably come from, you know, really difficult backgrounds, and had mental health problems,

00:48:51.420 - 00:49:03.480

and so I used to worry about them or feel sorry for them, yeah. Did your parents know you were in Holloway? I don't think so.

00:49:03.620 - 00:49:13.260

Did they ever find out? I don't think so, not as far as I know. No. Yeah, I think just knowing I'd been arrested

00:49:13.260 - 00:49:28.400

was really enough for them, really. I didn't feel the need to share that with them, no. Yeah, I can understand that. Thanks for all the questions, it's been really useful.

00:49:28.620 - 00:49:42.320

Yeah, it helps them a bit of structure, I think. Sort of last question, maybe, unless there's other things you'd like to talk about. Sure.

00:49:43.380 - 00:49:53.240

Let's do your last question and I'll have a think. Well, the last is the soundbite one, what do you think Greenham's legacy is? Well, OK.

00:49:53.240 - 00:50:07.440

In relation to what its legacy is. Well, that's quite difficult to say because a lot of people don't seem to remember it or know anything about it,

00:50:07.440 - 00:50:27.180

but I think that if people do and if people could be said to be influenced by Greenham, I would say that we could see it in things like the recent XR rebellion, in its energy and creativity

00:50:27.180 - 00:50:48.840

and the degree to which we approached protest from a different... I would say a very different angle and point of view. I would say it was the first... Well, it was definitely the first women-only protest

00:50:50.660 - 00:51:03.580

and I have to say, actually, Greenham did start out as a mixed camp, but there were problems with... I think it was one particular guy,

00:51:03.580 - 00:51:17.900

but there was a problem with sexual aggression. Somebody was accused of being abusive or even raping someone and so the women there at the time were very angry and they turfed the men out

00:51:18.660 - 00:51:41.500

and they made it into a women-only demonstration. So I think the fact that it gave women the opportunity to organise together and independently at a time when second-wave feminism is still relatively early

00:51:45.940 - 00:52:05.620

and I think the scale of it as well, in that it was a massive and long-running demonstration. So I think if it could be said to influence political action today, I would say that it was creative,

00:52:06.620 - 00:52:21.600

it was long and it was the first time women had organised together since the suffragettes on that scale. And also in that it was peaceful as well.

00:52:21.600 - 00:52:39.540

It was successful, it was peaceful. I hope that Greenham does have a legacy. I think that on an individual basis, I would say that it introduced me

00:52:39.540 - 00:52:58.080

to a very wide range of creative ways that women could be and at that time seemed to be almost completely outside of mainstream culture. It showed me that women could live creatively together

00:52:58.080 - 00:53:12.800

and in a positive way outside of mainstream ideas about women being bitches, etc. and competitive. Were you a lesbian before you went to Greenham

00:53:12.800 - 00:53:26.820

or did you explore and find out about yourself? Well, that's complicated as it is. Those sort of questions can often be for individuals. I had been attracted to my friend at school

00:53:26.820 - 00:53:42.420

so Greenham didn't make me into a lesbian. I was kind of aware of it but because I had an army background and it was very sheltered in that respect,

00:53:43.020 - 00:53:52.640

I had never met any gay people, people that I knew to be gay and I had really bizarre ideas about lesbians. I thought that lesbians were almost like

00:53:53.460 - 00:54:04.840

mythological creatures like werewolves and I thought that there were hardly any, maybe about five lesbians in the whole country and I thought that lesbians,

00:54:05.300 - 00:54:17.920

if you became a lesbian you would grow hair all over your body and you couldn't go out in the daylight. So, in my mind, lesbians were almost monsters really,

00:54:18.500 - 00:54:27.720

like werewolves. And so, unsurprisingly, I thought I should put that out of my mind, being a lesbian, because I thought it would ruin my life.

00:54:29.500 - 00:54:39.460

And so I set about trying to be heterosexual and I got a boyfriend. I got several different boyfriends, not simultaneously.

00:54:40.460 - 00:54:58.220

And for about six months until I went to Greenham and I announced to my mum that I was giving up men when I was 16, which was really alarming for her because she was quite concerned that I had had men to give up

00:54:58.220 - 00:55:14.660

at that age and she said, oh, you're very young to be thinking like that. But I met and slept with my first girlfriend at Greenham and subsequently had a relationship with her

00:55:14.660 - 00:55:28.320

and also with some other women, several other women. And I came out when I was 17 and haven't looked back since. So Greenham had its place in your story?

00:55:28.320 - 00:55:43.180

Yeah, I would say Greenham was really positive for me because although I kind of knew I was a lesbian and I'd also had a crush on another woman who I mentioned earlier on who was quite a lot older than me

00:55:43.180 - 00:55:59.800

and she recommended to me that I went to Greenham as well. So, yeah, I would say that Greenham allowed me to meet other like-minded women and to have the confidence to come out.

00:56:02.000 - 00:56:13.420

And we had a lot of fun. We had a summer of love. So, yeah, I would say that Greenham introduced me to a wide range of different women.

00:56:13.500 - 00:56:29.280

There were lots of heterosexual women there as well. And, yeah, a lot of really strong women. Thank you very, very much. Thank you. Thanks for giving... Cheers.

00:56:29.280 - 00:56:36.860

I could sit all evening and talk. It's fantastic. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk about Greenham. Not at all.