00:00:00.000 - 00:00:27.240

So, can we first of all start by you telling me a little bit about how you became involved with the Greenham Common experience? Right, well it actually started at the end of 1979, when, if you were in Newbury at the time you might have been aware of this, we were told that the Christmas lads were going

00:00:27.240 - 00:01:04.540

to be coming to Greenham and the then Secretary of State for Defence, Francis Pym, came down to Newbury to a public meeting to reassure us that we're all going to be very safe, which was difficult, not the easiest, and what he was saying was that Newbury would be no more in danger than anywhere else, I think he said in the south of England, because

00:01:04.540 - 00:01:43.000

at any time of international tension, the missiles would not be at Greenham, they would be put on lorries and they would be dispersed from Greenham in all different directions and they would melt into the countryside, so that Newbury would not be a target. And I think the options for local people, it was put to us as our, it was our patriotic

00:01:43.000 - 00:02:20.720

duty basically to accept the missiles and most people realised that we couldn't do anything about it, so we better just sort of get on with it, and I think the, obviously people were still afraid and that fear just went underground, it was internalised as they said, the only resistance at that time was the Newbury campaign against cruise missiles

00:02:21.500 - 00:03:03.320

and that was started by the Labour Party and I did join it quite early on with some reservations because I wasn't party political, I joined it, well really on ethical grounds, I'm a Quaker and therefore it's the peace angle and the moral angle that made me decide that my choice was between turning a blind eye like everybody else or not, and that was my only

00:03:03.320 - 00:03:41.420

not option. In fact the Newbury campaign was run as a Labour Party, as a left-wing political organisation, it actually, the campaigning was, it was focused on stuff like whether nuclear disarmament should be unilateral or multilateral and really we could have been a peace group somewhere in the Outer Hebrides,

00:03:41.420 - 00:04:22.500

it didn't take up on the actual localness of it, because Greenham, if you've been in Newbury you'll know that it's about less than a mile from the town centre. So were CMD very much involved then in this Newbury campaign? Yeah we affiliated, we affiliated to CMD but we worked fairly independently and we did one or two

00:04:22.500 - 00:04:54.340

marches and that sort of thing, we leafleted, we were out in the square, handed out leaflets, but they were that sort of leaflets, it was all political stuff. So was it the Labour Party centrally that were taking up this movement or involved with this movement or was it the local Labour Party?

00:04:55.060 - 00:05:25.420

It was the local Labour Party, yeah, Joan Ruddick, was she an MP at the time, anyway she certainly has been an MP, but she was the lead figure and the public persona of it, and it spoke to me pretty well for a while, but at that level. So that takes, that sort of was in 79,

00:05:29.000 - 00:05:58.800

sorry 79-80, so then at what point did the focus then go towards Greenham itself, Greenham Common itself? This is where the women come into it, so that was 1981. We did in fact, the Newbury campaign, one of the things it did was host quite a number of pilgrimages to Greenham.

00:06:00.340 - 00:06:33.840

Oh yes, and the women weren't the first, and most of our energy actually went into baked potatoes and that sort of stuff, but what they did, they came on their pilgrimage, they waved their flags and then they went away, but what was different about the women's march from Cardiff, they didn't just go away, they stayed, and I mean I was quite scared for them

00:06:33.840 - 00:07:04.800

at first. We supplied them with tents, because they hadn't come prepared, not to camp, and they were chaining themselves to the fence and that sort of thing, really daring stuff to me, and so we came up with tents and blankets and food and so that was that was our main, the local women who were supporting, in fact it wasn't women only at the

00:07:04.800 - 00:07:38.960

time. When you say we, was this actually the Newbury campaign or was this the Quakers or was this an informal group of women within Newbury that was supporting them? No, I'm wrong, it wasn't women only at the time, it was mixed, and it became women only after about six months, something like that, there was a big meeting at the camp and the men were evicted basically,

00:07:40.300 - 00:08:09.900

asked to leave, yes, and that's when it became women only, so the support, the local support was from the Newbury campaign, but when it, and one of the things that we did was get people from further afield involved, like Reading, Oxford, Swindon, Southampton, so they were coming up with food and things like that to support the women.

00:08:11.180 - 00:08:38.920

Right. Yeah, but it was, it was 1981 I think before it went women only. Yes. And then after that, a group of local women materialised, you know, from the people who were already active. Right, so this group of local women who materialised, did they continue to,

00:08:39.560 - 00:09:06.960

live as residents, or did some of them actually move up to the camps themselves? No, I think mostly we stayed at home, we were much more useful there, because of course the women needed stuff. Yeah. Right, okay, and so the focus of the local women's group was very much to support the women in the

00:09:06.960 - 00:09:38.400

camps. Yeah, yeah. What was the feeling about these, this particular local women's group towards the camp, the camps, and the issues that they were standing for? Well, obviously we're supportive of the issue, and in varying degrees, you know, as it became more feminist, supporting that side of it as well.

00:09:42.620 - 00:10:09.040

Right, right, and for instance, when they had, surround the camp, various, did the local women then go to join them? Oh yes, oh yeah, we were there. Right, so very, you were basically very much a greener woman, a sort of greener common women,

00:10:09.580 - 00:10:50.820

but just living within the community of Newbury? Off-base, off-base. Off-base, yes, that's interesting. What, what was the reaction to other residents, to both the women, the camps, and to local people supporting them? Not very positive. My husband was a local builder, and he actually did do some custom

00:10:50.820 - 00:11:22.500

over my involvement, yeah, and I had to be quite careful. I had three children at the local school, and, you know, I had to be quite careful not to raise my profile to the extent where they would be affected, and that was a bit of a tightrope walking out, you can imagine. Yeah, yes, that's, that is interesting. Did you feel that you were very much in the minority

00:11:22.500 - 00:11:45.680

within Newbury, as supporters? Yes, oh very much, yeah. Yeah. If there was a silent minority, it was silent. But the number of people who actually don't love us, that weren't prepared to do anything about it. Right. That may have been the case, we wouldn't know.

00:11:47.280 - 00:12:21.780

Exactly. What, in what ways did the other local residents, I say other enough, in quotes, voice their opposition? I think this probably started around, it first started when there was the first ring around the base, the big event, which is 82, and an awful lot of

00:12:24.200 - 00:12:49.680

disruption was caused by all these thousands of women descending from all over the country, and basically bashing the fence down, and leaving litter, and, you know, not adequate toilet facilities, you know, that sort of thing. You can imagine, you know, how the local population was affected.

00:12:53.600 - 00:13:22.360

Yeah, absolutely. And so the local people, how did they react to this? Yes, they were in opposition, did they take any actions? Yes. I've got a lot of newspaper cuttings, which you'd be welcome to, if you can get hold of, you know, if you can come and get them, from the local paper.

00:13:23.940 - 00:13:54.440

Dangerous correspondence, and a lot of it pretty hostile, and some of it supportive. There was an organisation which called itself RAGE, which was Rape Payers Against Scream of Encampments. They started up, and they were, they put cartoons in the local paper, which I'm surprised that the Newbury Weekly News actually published, because they were

00:13:56.780 - 00:14:28.920

fascist. They were visibly fascist, and I suspect that that particular movement didn't take off. I don't think it really took off, because of the image that it presented. But in the meantime, they did throw magnets and all, you know, sort of physical harassment. Right, right. Yes, I've heard about that actually very recently, the lengths to which they went,

00:14:29.480 - 00:14:56.160

to make the women feel very unwelcomed, yes, absolutely. No, that's interesting. But so this movement, RAGE, was fairly short-lived? I think it was, yes. Yes. Less than a year. I mean, they were just awful, and I think, you know, people,

00:14:56.160 - 00:15:33.560

especially two lots of awful. Yeah. But you had these women raising the profile of the fact that the missiles were there. Did local people's attitude change towards the presence of the missiles? I think it's difficult for me to judge that, because having taken the public stand that I had,

00:15:34.620 - 00:16:02.940

you know, I wasn't in with the sort of people that you're talking about. But I think that the fear just went further and further underground. It became, you know, less and less. Local people were faced with awful missiles, and then the awful women as well. And there was a definite tendency to pinpoint on the women,

00:16:03.600 - 00:16:35.880

that they could do something about, and not look at what was behind the fence. Oh, that was a definite. Oh, yes, so obvious. That was what was happening. It was a strategy to avoid thinking about the real horror. So you're saying that the individuals felt they couldn't, felt isolated in their fear? Powerless, yeah.

00:16:35.880 - 00:17:15.080

Hmm. Right, right. I mean, I remember seeing many Greenham women around Newbury at the time. What was the response to the women using the local facilities? This is where the Quakers came into it, because that did become a big problem. What we did at the meeting house, were you aware of the meeting house in Newbury? Probably not.

00:17:16.280 - 00:17:36.140

It was at the back of the bus station. Anyway. I know where you are. Yes, yes, yes, I do know. Yes, exactly. So what we did, we installed a washing machine and a shower, and initially a pay phone as well, but that didn't work.

00:17:36.580 - 00:18:17.620

So that the women could clean up as they came into town. Right, right. And was this something that was managed by the meeting house, by the Quakers, or was it managed, was it just a facility? We installed those in the meeting house, and we were given by a Quaker headquarters, a part-time worker who could help to organise things.

00:18:18.460 - 00:18:38.880

Right. And see if things worked. Yeah, yeah. What was the perception of these women? By the locals. Probably mostly negative. Were they prevented from using local facilities?

00:18:41.100 - 00:19:08.200

I'm not aware that they were prevented. I haven't heard that. No, no, no. So for instance, shops, pubs, facilities like that, they were not necessarily welcomed, but they weren't rejected. I think that they weren't prohibited, but they certainly weren't particularly welcome.

00:19:09.340 - 00:19:40.360

Right, right. And what about the local police? What was their response? Well, they were obviously much involved with the evictions, and around about 84, 85, 86, the middle of the 80s, the Thames Valley Police were involved with the police convoys, policing the police convoys.

00:19:41.840 - 00:20:01.260

So what way were they involved, the Thames Valley Police? They were charged with ensuring the safety of the convoy. Right. Ensuring the safety of the convoy. Right. From the local point of view.

00:20:03.100 - 00:20:35.140

Right. Actually, I'll just say, when you say ensuring the safety of the convoys, I'll come back to something else in a moment. You mean the safety from what aspect? Public safety, so that they had a safe passage, and that they weren't causing obstructions or anything that they would do with normal traffic. Except, of course, they had to supply an escort

00:20:37.520 - 00:20:58.820

for each convoy. Right. And was the fear for the convoys' safety because of protest against the convoys, or just a general accident safety, insurance safety? Oh, no, both.

00:21:01.720 - 00:21:37.360

Yeah, I mean, the convoys, these only started in 1984, when all the missiles had been landed, and all the launchers and the support vehicles, quite a lot in the convoy. And they had to practice nuclear wars, what they would do in the event of having to disperse into the countryside. And they had to do that regularly. And this is where CruiseWatch comes

00:21:37.360 - 00:22:00.080

into it. Because, of course, they were going off base. And the women did the protest on base. CruiseWatch did the protest off base. And who organised CruiseWatch? Was that initiated from the Green and Women themselves, or was this a local initiation?

00:22:01.000 - 00:22:35.220

It was a local initiative. And the way it worked, a group of maybe half a dozen of us got in touch, again, with all the surrounding peace groups. Again, we talked about Reading, Oxford, Swindon with West, Southampton, and even further afield than that, and set up a telephone network, so that when the convoy left Greenland,

00:22:35.220 - 00:23:03.820

then we would be informed by the women, and we would alert people further afield, on the trunk roads, and report back if they sighted a convoy. And that worked extremely well. In fact, it worked so well that we caught them every time. We caught the convoy every time. The whole object of the exercise

00:23:04.380 - 00:23:29.500

is to make nonsense of this idea that they could go out in secret, and melt into the countryside without anyone knowing, which of course is rubbish. Right. So when you say caught the convoy, are you saying that you actually prevented them from doing what they intended to do?

00:23:30.560 - 00:24:01.060

We prevented them doing it in secret. Right, right. So for instance, supposing you caught or identified a convoy, and they got to whatever site they were intending to arrive at, so then your local peace groups, they would then just hang around? Or were they able to be more disruptive than that?

00:24:01.560 - 00:24:23.320

Oh yes, they were more disruptive than that. Within all the confines of non-violence. Right. So what kind of measures did they take? If you could stop the convoy, that would be ideal. Right. If you could climb on the convoy, that was even more ideal.

00:24:26.560 - 00:24:53.020

On one occasion, one of the, actually one of the women, was able to put a potato down its exhaust pipe. And the exhaust pipe of one of the launches, which are, they're pointed upwards, they're not like a car exhaust pipe. I don't think she knew what she was doing, but anyway, she had a potato in her pocket, she climbed up there, and she popped it down, and it stopped the

00:24:53.020 - 00:25:28.700

whole convoy. It's wonderful. It's wonderful to supply potatoes all round, and you've just sorted the whole thing. Did you, or your husband, I mean, what roles did you play in this, in the cruise watch? I made it my business to, excuse me, sorry, each time, and we got advance notice from the women, because they, it didn't take them long to spot when the preparations were happening on the

00:25:28.700 - 00:26:05.920

base. Right. So we would get a few hours notice. Right. And they always went out around midnight, it was always done at night. I made it my business to pick up a band load of women, and be somewhere in the first three, four miles of their journey, and as they, in hiding, but as the convoy came, we would jump out and wave our banners,

00:26:06.920 - 00:26:41.280

throw our paint, or whatever we were doing, just so that they could not get away from the fact that they had been spotted, and they were not going out in secret. That was my mission. I just did that month after month. What, I mean, you must have then been confronted by the Thames Valley Police. Yes. I mean, were you arrested? Um, was I arrested for that?

00:26:44.680 - 00:27:16.600

Don't, don't think so. No. Not on the cruise watch though, no. You were clearly arrested for something else. What was that? Was that for other protests? Yeah, yeah, so that's the going into the base. Right. So was that very much part of the peace camps, when you went into the bases

00:27:17.240 - 00:27:51.280

through the fence? Was that with the women themselves? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So were the Newbury Police, were they a part of the Thames Valley Police, or were they separate? No, they're Thames Valley, yeah. Right, right, and when people were arrested, were they just cautioned and freed, or were they kept in prison, in the cell, or confined?

00:27:52.020 - 00:28:27.680

Oh, both. Horses for horses on that. I think it very much depended on the situation. But this is where the bylaws come into it, because, I mean, have you, have you had the bylaws story? No, no, I don't know that at all. Oh my goodness. Sorry, sorry, please tell me. The women just habitually broke into the base, and it was, it constituted a civil trespass.

00:28:28.640 - 00:29:05.320

Right. All that, and they couldn't be arrested for it, they could be asked to leave, and made difficult, and so the MOD responded to that problem by instituting bylaws, and, which made it a criminal offence to go on the base. Right. And they didn't kettle the fish altogether, and you did get arrested, and then you would have to go to court, and you would have

00:29:05.320 - 00:29:38.260

to either pay a fine or go to prison. That's interesting. I'm amazed that you've spoken to all these women who haven't heard this story. Well, I mean, the people I spoke to, they haven't gone in, they didn't go into this detail, which I find absolutely fascinating. So did the Ministry of Defence, did they actually change the description of the base? Because it

00:29:38.260 - 00:30:26.840

was ostensibly, I presume, still common land. Ah, that came a bit later. When, two women in particular, Jean and Georgina, who took it on themselves to look into the history of the base, and they worked together with a local person called Leslie Pope. Right, yes, yes. And Leslie was okay with, he was happy looking at Acts of Parliament and stuff like that. Yeah. And he

00:30:27.480 - 00:31:16.180

worked out the history of the base, and that in fact, it had been commandeered for the war effort. But when the war regulations terminated in 1960, the MOD forgot that they handed the base back temporarily, but they didn't extinguish the commoners' rights. So the commoners' rights are, they attach to property, not to a person, and attached to a number of properties around

00:31:16.180 - 00:31:50.000

Greenham and Crookham Collins. Yes. And Leslie, bless him, he discovered all this. And together with the women, they worked on, in fact, what Jean and Georgina did was when they were charged for trespass, infringement of the by-laws, they pleaded not guilty on the grounds that their by-laws were

00:31:50.000 - 00:32:18.760

illegal, because they excluded the commoners. And that went backwards and forwards to the magistrate's court, then it went up to the county court, then it went up to the high court, appeals in the meantime on both sides, and eventually it ended up in the House of Lords. And the House of Lords ruled that in fact those by-laws were illegal.

00:32:19.760 - 00:32:57.020

But this wasn't until about 1987, 88, possibly even 89. And all those arrests, in fact, there'd been hundreds of arrests made in the meantime, that they all were illegal and had to be overturned. Right, now, yes, I was aware of that it had gone to the high court. I hadn't appreciated the implications of the finding that it made all the arrests actually illegal.

00:32:57.660 - 00:33:25.360

Yeah, yeah, we were allowed to claim compensation. Excellent. Oh, thank you for clearing that up. There were so many aspects of it that I was aware of, but hadn't put the whole picture together. I've been told bits and pieces, but yes, that is really interesting.

00:33:28.820 - 00:33:58.980

There is something before that I really wanted to ask you. I'll probably come back to something else in a minute. Some of the women have, and we have asked women, about illnesses that occurred as a result of being in the vicinity. What are you aware of? Are you talking about radiation?

00:34:01.340 - 00:34:19.660

I think that, I mean, I'm going to interview somebody about it, but this is what they're suggesting, and then having its implications thereafter. We're talking about zapping. Exactly. Now, how did that happen?

00:34:21.360 - 00:34:54.700

I became aware of it at Greengate, which is the only gate that's actually not on the road. So it's way off road by about a quarter of a mile, and so it doesn't affect the general public. But the women there started having headaches, menstrual problems, and they became convinced that they were being targeted with microwaves from inside the base.

00:34:59.260 - 00:35:27.000

I'm not sure to what extent that was ever actually proven, but I certainly believe it. And that was then, as far as you understand, it was very much confined to a particular area of the base, i.e. the Greengate. Interesting. Let's just move on to commons again, the returning of the base to common land.

00:35:27.140 - 00:35:39.860

Were you involved in that? Yes, very much so. Right. It's got a small group, and what happened was after the House of Lords ruling,

00:35:39.860 - 00:36:17.380

of course, the MOD had to do something about it, and they had to do something quite quickly, because the Americans at that time, 1987 was the INF Treaty, so the Americans at that time were thinking about their next agreement common. So they had to move fairly quickly to get rid of the commoners. And the way they did this was they offered to meet,

00:36:17.600 - 00:36:46.980

there were two commons, there's Greenham Common and Crookham Common, and the base straddles them both, or parts of both. So the MOD wanted to call the commoners together, one meeting for Greenham and one meeting for Crookham, the commoners. The initial response from the commoners was, no way are we prepared

00:36:46.980 - 00:37:25.300

to sell our rights. But that slowly changed, and what commons again was, was a group of local people supporting three or four commoners who, despite the change in attitude and the the growing preponderance of commoners who were prepared to accept money for their rights, to support the ones who were sticking out.

00:37:27.680 - 00:38:00.160

And that got quite hairy, and that really was, they were subjected to some considerable pressure. In what way? How? But by the commoners association, and by the MOD, because it involved court actions. And those commoners were given an ultimatum, at least twice, that

00:38:02.420 - 00:38:39.420

either you accept the money, or we will have to compulsory purchase the whole lot, and everybody will lose their rights, and they won't get the money. So that was the pressure. And they did stick it out, and in the end, the MOD did give in. Those who were prepared to accept money, they were prepared to surrender their rights?

00:38:41.540 - 00:39:05.800

They were prepared to sell the rights attached to their property. Right, right. Which would then have become the property, well, owned by the Ministry of Defence. They would have ceased to exist, those rights, they would have ceased to exist. And the common itself would then have become the property of the Ministry of Defence?

00:39:06.220 - 00:39:27.440

It would have been deregistered, it would have come off the commons register. Right, and then up for sale? It would have ceased to be a common, and that would render it open for use by the military, unimpaired use by the military.

00:39:29.280 - 00:39:52.420

Yes, but if they've surrendered, and so if the ministry leased it, who would they be leasing it from? From the district council. Oh, right, right. So therefore, was the district council trying to obtain this,

00:39:52.740 - 00:40:08.760

or which side were the district council? Oh, I think they were keeping well out of it. I don't blame them for what you're describing. I mean, they would just have been the recipient, they actually weren't involved.

00:40:09.400 - 00:40:28.140

I don't think they were the owners at the time, I think the MOD were actually the owners, but don't quote me on that, because that's a legal necessity, whether it was the district council leasing it to them, or whether they actually, probably more like it was a lease, I don't know.

00:40:30.380 - 00:41:02.220

Can I just return to, on the common, the women in their camps, as I understand it, there were evictions, there was a process of evicting. What form did that take, and who evicted them? We visited the council, and they appointed a team of bailiffs, and the job of the bailiffs was to go around the camp, at least once every so often,

00:41:03.000 - 00:41:31.760

and everything that was on council-owned land had to be cleared. So what the women did was pick up all their belongings and put them in prams, whatever they could, and go onto the highway, which was not council-owned, and where they could not be evicted. When the bailiffs had moved on to the next camp,

00:41:32.140 - 00:42:07.400

they went back, which meant that basically they had minimal belongings, and they lived hand to mouth. The only way they survived was that they were being constantly supplied with new furniture, blankets, food, all the time. From yourselves? Not just us, no, from people all over the country, people came, yeah, constant stream.

00:42:09.820 - 00:42:41.120

I've actually got upstairs a rocking chair, which was donated to Bluegate as evicted, and I managed to save it because it's in the van. I love stories like that, and articles like that, that have got such a history. How wonderful. No, that's really interesting. So since then, have you continued your interest and support for

00:42:42.580 - 00:43:09.380

disarmament? Oh yes, of course. If you're for something on principle, you're unlikely to just drop it. We have looked at Aldermaston quite a lot, and participated in the local group in Reading, which took an interest in what was happening at Aldermaston.

00:43:10.300 - 00:43:31.100

Didn't do so much of the protest, but rather looked at it as a local thing, and the effect it had on the people who live around. So we were worried about radiation, for instance. And do you think there was evidence of radiation from Aldermaston?

00:43:31.560 - 00:43:56.740

Oh yes, oh yes. And how was that transmitted? Had they got nuclear sources? What was creating this? They work with plutonium, and that means that the debris has to be got rid of,

00:43:57.280 - 00:44:29.840

and it has to go either up the chimneys or into the water. And I think the airborne pollution from Aldermaston probably was more significant in the 1960s, around that sort of time, before they really started cleaning up. And I think they did clean up quite a lot. They did at least two quite comprehensive soil surveys,

00:44:29.840 - 00:44:53.620

which did show many hotspots of plutonium in soil. That was attributed to atmospheric testing in the 1960s. And definitely it was there, yeah. Yeah, no, that's interesting.

00:44:53.620 - 00:45:31.760

I'm sorry, just returning, your husband, he supported you the whole way through? Yes, as best he can. He did go out on a cruise watch, and two of my children also continued, to some degree. Yeah, the family, they were all sort of at the late teenage stage, and this went on over a decade,

00:45:32.740 - 00:46:00.920

the whole of the 1980s. So it was right through their teen years, all of them. Yes, I mean, that is interesting. And I'm quite interested in the legacy, as far as you're concerned, from your actions at Greenham. I don't know. I'm not sure how to answer that.

00:46:01.600 - 00:46:25.920

Well, in terms of your own family, it sounds as though they've continued their interest. Yes. It's the values behind it, so that nowadays, we've gone quiet on nuclear disarmament, and we're more worried nowadays about climate change. Right.

00:46:27.180 - 00:46:56.040

But it's all part of the same picture. To me, they're not separate things. It's a continuum. Yeah. No, interesting. Because what we're finding is that unless people were actually involved in Greenham, and then passed it on through the generations, or involved in C&D,

00:46:56.580 - 00:47:21.260

that actually the sort of generations coming along now know very little about the efforts that went in from the 60s onwards. I think that's true. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, part of this is to, if we can, get some more aspects of it into the

00:47:22.980 - 00:47:39.000

curriculum. Oh, excellent. Yeah, good idea. Um, because I think it would be a shame for this to disappear. It's all a learning lesson. History repeats itself, as we see.

00:47:41.320 - 00:48:04.120

Yeah. So yes, unless there's anything else, that last aspect was really interesting. Yeah, if there's anything else, please say. I'll let you know if I think of anything. Please do, or email me. And it's been fascinating talking to you, it really has.

00:48:06.720 - 00:48:10.960

And yeah, we can keep in touch. Thank you very much.