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So, Jackie Best, thank you so much for joining us today. It's lovely to meet you. Could you start by telling us how you came to be part of Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp? Well, I don't actually remember how I knew about it, you know, like, I mean, maybe it was something on the news or, no, it probably wouldn't have been on the news,

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actually. It would have been a newsletter of some kind, because, of course, you know, in the early 80s, we didn't have the internet. We didn't even have mobile phones. So, you know, we were in this situation whereby everything we did within activism or anything we were involved in came through newsletters or telephone calls. So, our network pretty much then wasn't even

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facts. It was pretty much newsletters and phone calls. And most of that information would have come from going to a women's centre or having been to an event or, you know, some other event, which would have been perhaps, would have been for those days, very alternative. Yeah.

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Because it was sort of quite unusual, I guess, you know, certainly not mainstream. So, I would have probably have known about it through, I lived in a very, very rural village in Somerset, and probably would have known about it through having gone to Bristol, because Bristol would have been the hub or top nest, but that was probably a bit later. So,

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you know, so sort of found out that way, really. And what made you decide to go? Well, I suppose, yeah, indignation that, you know. Yeah.

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You know, like, what? Seriously? You're just going to put these, like, nuclear warheads and, you know, weapons in our countryside? And, you know, just like, no, this is not okay. I think, I can't remember if Menwith Hill Camp was already set up then or not. I don't remember if it was, but I think I knew about it. I was educating my

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son, who was about probably four at the time. So, I took him out of mainstream school. He just went, I didn't sort of intended to, but he went in for a short period. And then I took him out and went and travelled a little bit and met other people who were educating their child otherwise, as is the legal term for educating your child at home.

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And I think perhaps also through that we had newsletters. And I went to Italy and stayed on a hill farm community where they were educating their children. Otherwise, they'd invited people to come to share, really to share socialising and educating the child with their children. So, I went with my son, travelled over. And actually, it was there that

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I met, I think it was a Finnish woman, I can't remember. And I met a couple of other people. And one woman from London, who, interestingly, we went to Italy, and we met this woman from London, 1984, who was very much part of CND. And I think I knew about CND, but not fully. But I think I joined it around that time, and began to read about and know about things like CND and Amnesty

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International and those kind of groups. And was like, oh, wow, okay. This is new to me. And so, really, that was my interaction with CND and Greenland came about because of that really. Can you remember the first time you went? Can you remember your first visits? Yeah, yeah, I remember it really, really clearly. The very first time I went,

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I went up on the bus. So, I did have a car, but probably wouldn't have got me to Greenham. I later used to use the women's aid car that I was working in the women's aid project with. And, but I remember going up on the bus, which was, I think it was arranged by some people around in Yeovil and around surrounding areas, South Somerset area. And it picked us up on route.

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And we went up, and we got dropped off, and we had to walk because there was a very, very big police presence at that time. Not all the time, but often there was. And I think they must have known we were coming, not just us, but there were lots of people all over the country. People were coming because some women had walked in the, I think in the initial group, or some of the initial

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groups, they'd walked all the way from West Wales and the bottom of Cornwall up. And I had been to a meeting somewhere in Yeovil or outside of Yeovil, where we went and met these people. They were walking, lots of them were walking. And we went and met and took, you know, food and met, you know, met these women who were walking up to Greenham Common making a statement.

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It was the original march in 1981. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And then I think that there was, I might be wrong, but I've got a feeling, wasn't there kind of like a pilgrimage yearly thing where people carried on walking? There were star marches. Yes. Yes. So it was one of those. It wasn't the 81 one. It was 82 or 83 that I first sort of went, oh, wow, this is serious. And, you know, and to

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begin to learn, because at that time I was only, I suppose I was 20. Well, 81, I would have been 20. So I was 22, 21 or 22. Yeah. So, and I had a young son. And so, you know, it was really important to me, you know, just learning and understanding, you know, when you're sort of introduced to something that has not been your mainstream and thinking, wow, you know, this is very,

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very different. And I didn't really understand at that stage how other people would view this, you know, as they saw it, you know, aberrant behaviour that we were all, you know, dashing around the countryside as they saw it, you know, not looking after our homes and our children. And we were running around the countryside shouting and, you know, sticking our noses

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in where we shouldn't be because the military and the police knew what they were doing and they would keep us safe. Yeah. Leave it to the men. Why are you getting involved? Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Why aren't you staying at home, you know? Do you remember what gate you arrived at? The first gate that I think was Yellowgate. Mostly I used to go up to Yellow and

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and Greengate to bring food because it was over. Yellowgate was quite easy to get to as well. It was an easy access point. And I'm pretty sure the first time we went to Yellowgate and on the coach, I'm trying to remember the name, Taylor's Coaches was, I don't know if I said that in my. Yeah, yeah, you did, yeah. Okay, Taylor's Coaches. I think there was somebody who worked there

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or one of the family who were very, you know, supportive of, you know, CND and Greenham. And so I think they provided our coach for free or we just paid a pound or something like that or two pounds. It was quite cheap, I remember. And when we arrived, we had to get off because they wouldn't let the coach and the bus, as we call it, the bus go that close. The police

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presence was quite strong. So I don't remember if the very first time was Yellowgate, but certainly we went to a meeting point. I think it probably was Yellowgate. And I just remember, you see, my first sort of reactions were, just got there and thinking, oh, wow, because you couldn't really see into the base because of the fences. But there were the big high gates there,

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obviously. But on the first occasion, which must have been one of the, you know, star marches and a lot of people all over the country arriving. I remember reading about that in the newsletter and thinking I have to go and went there and had my son with me as well. So he would have been four, no, three, three and a half, four, something. And there were quite a lot of people with children

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as well there. And it was quite a carnival atmosphere. But also, it was also a bit scary as well, because there was military on the inside, you know, who were patrolling up and down. They were obviously prepared, you know. Later, I think they got a bit blasé about it, which is how people got over the fence and got in, you know. And also some of them made friendships with people

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on this side of the fence, you know. But the police were more intimidating on the outside, because they bused them in from the north. They bused in loads of police from the Met. And it was sort of quite interesting. I think they were probably, you know, very, very reactive, because they hadn't really, you know, we hadn't even quite had the miners strike

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at that time. So it hadn't really been anything in the preceding, you know, 10, 15 years, I don't think, that had caused police to have to attend an event where lots of people, and especially being lots of women, were there en masse where they felt we shouldn't be, you know. What were your experiences with the police then?

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Well, I was taken in a couple of times. Mostly okay, but probably because the times when I was there and police were there, it was like en masse when we went, lots of us, was if I had my son with me, I was much more cautious. So I would stay right back. Because obviously, I didn't want to, you know, put him at any risk or be separated from him. You know, I was a single mother. And

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so obviously, I was very careful about that. And I think that the times when I had gone up and obviously left him at home, there was a couple of events where some women got over the wire once. Well, they did several times, but there was one specific time when I think they actually got over the wire and were on the bunkers. Some of us got arrested then.

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There was another time when the gates opened. I can't remember what year that was, but it would have been the early 80s, 84, 5, 6. The gates opened, and no one did anything. But then the women rushed the gate. Like, we just waited, you know, everyone just waited. The gates would open, and somehow it was like, was it a test? Were they tricking us, you know? And then I think

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everybody just sort of like, you know, spoke, said, right, get ready, get ready, get ready, you know. And then just everybody ran in. Yeah. I don't know when it was the incident with the fire extinguisher. Yeah, that's what, yeah, yeah, that's it. What happened then? Um, well, I don't remember all of that, but somebody got a fire extinguisher or let off a

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fire extinguisher. They were so reactive. It was as if their sort of behaviour and their reaction was as if we had the bombs, you know, anything that women did. Like, so if we had bolt cutters and the wire was cut, because some, so there was a period when there was a lot of wire cutting as well. And don't forget, I wasn't there all the time. So I was there mostly weekend times. But,

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because I used to go out weekends. But when I did stay, there was a few times where there was, you know, wires being cut. And I think what they did really, how their reaction then was pretty much like we had like, were causing World War Three, you know. So they were just so sometimes very, very angry. Some, some weren't. Some of them also, you know, some of the military

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people felt, you know, the military men felt that they wish they weren't there because they didn't believe in it either, you know. And I think that was sort of tough. So sometimes I would try to talk to people and just say like, why, you know, why are you working here? What have you got kids, you know, where'd you come from? What, what, what's this mean to you? What does it mean to

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you if, you know, if something, you know, sort of slips and, you know, if there's some sort of seepage or, you know, some things we didn't really know what, what the real damage would possibly be, you know, we hadn't quite had Chernobyl then that was next year in 1884 in April. And actually it was that, it was Chernobyl, which really compounded, I think it compounded

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not just for me, but for hundreds and hundreds of people over the country, you know, women and some men and men, you know, would come because seeing Chernobyl happen, I think really, really frightened people. Yeah, it made it much more real, didn't it? Yeah, it was so scary. And it was so, so real. And I think that next decade made a massive difference, you know, up and up

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until like 91, 92 made a massive difference because Chernobyl very quickly when, when it wasn't initially, because don't forget also, we didn't have the same media. So we didn't get access to the same pictures and the same stories. I think it probably took five or six years before real photos and real sort of histories and, you know, actual stories of people on the

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ground were coming out and then seeing how people were affected, you know, like, like the firefighters and some of the scientists who had been defected in, in, in effect from, from Belarus and, and, you know, the, the area of Belarus and next door, what's it called? Where Chernobyl was? The Ukraine. Yeah. But some of them had, had actually got out of the country

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and were telling their story. And some of them had colleagues in Germany and under UK too. But, you know, when we, when I think people really, really realise that actually we had damage here, you know, we had sheep dead in the Lake District in Scotland. Really? And Devon. Yeah. Yeah. There were, I mean,

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there were big covers up from that initially, but there was definitely a fallout. We had a fallout here in the, yeah, yeah. I'm pretty certain check, check anyway, Google it and check. And, but definitely there was the fallout and there was radiation, which was measured in, in Cumbria in the Lake District. And I'm pretty sure Scotland too. And I think in Devon,

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I might be wrong about Devon, but, but I'm pretty certain that there was, I've read that in some papers somewhere in, in the nineties. I went to Belarus myself in 2004, I think it was. So yeah, just to have to, to see some Chernobyl children and, and to see some people then sort of see the situation and it's pretty, pretty stark and, you know, scary still. And I think what we began to

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understand when scientists and people started to talk much more, you know, beyond the scaremongering of the kind of the fun and those newspapers that would put out initially, you know, apocalypse and all this darkened black and white pages on the newspapers, we're all going to die tomorrow. And that kind of thing to versus the other people saying, no, no, no, it's just,

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it's just a thing that's just blown up and it can happen anywhere. People got really scared. So, you know, we then had whole thing, you know, we had like Faslane and we had the Cumbrian, the, in Morecambe Bay, you know, the nuclear and Hesham Head and Menwith Hill and people then really, that's when things really started to change. And I think that changed a lot of the

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nature of what was happening at Greenham. So the preceding, I think, this is just my opinion, the preceding three years or so, I think lots of people were very, very down on what they saw these women doing, you know, running away from their homes and leaving their husbands and, you know, people at home and not doing their duty and running and having a party down at

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Greenham Common. I think people then gradually, that it changed, you know, the nature of it changed a little bit. Yeah. Because I really, really think that whole thing about Greenham was then the advent for things like the miners strike, like the poll tax, you know, and then the Nelson Mandela, you know, I think it, I think that really informed the way people then stood up

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against our government. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think that was crucial. Do you think I think it's quite different now? I think it's, I think it's very different in nature. And I'm not really sure if that's because of media, the way that we, the way that we use media, because we have social media now, you know, sort of, it probably took until the 2000s until people started

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to actually speak about all this is happening, all that's happening, even though, you know, the internet was around like 97, a bit more, you know, available to people, beginning to be able to afford to have broadband into your house, even though it took three years to upload an email. Bringing up hours and hours on the phone to the technician. Yes, I've done that. Yes, I've done

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I've taken out Yeah, I put in that stuff. But yeah, I do. I think that I think there was elements of sort of, what's the word? Not social attack, you know, I think that people get, I think it's much faster to rise. And then it dissipates very quickly, I think. Yeah. And I, and I think there's kind of less substance. So, so for example, last year, with the Black Lives Matter happened, like

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in Bristol, when they pulled the statue down at Colston, you know, on the wherever was the Bristol, you know, the statue there. Yeah. But I think that things like the Black Lives Matter, for example, is is an example of something very, very important in our society. But I wonder if if it's because it's about people, and the genre of people that it sort of rises quickly,

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something happens from the people who were elemental to the subject, then it just dissipates really fast. You know, which is a bit like the internet, a bit like you see something on, you know, Facebook or a message somewhere. And, and I'm not really sure that, you know, perhaps people inundated with so much information. Yeah, it can't stay and it can't maintain. And,

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you know, we don't all run off and do something about it. Yeah, yeah, I think you're, you're right. Like it's people, a lot of people will do their bit by commenting on social media. Yeah. But yeah, you're right, then the next cause you stroll, and there's another thing that infuriates you. And yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I suppose it's,

00:21:07.580 - 00:21:28.780

it's harder for people to pick a cause or, and certainly easier to feel like, oh, well, I've done something because I've said that on Facebook. Yeah, or I signed a petition, you know, yeah, those people do that. And I think because it's it is also fast, and, and it's rushing past people's minds, you know, their eyes, and they're,

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they're sort of looking, and there's so much now, which is dependent on social media for your access for what's happening, the news, I think more people get their news from there, or what they perceive to be their news from, from the internet, you know, and I'm not really sure that younger people, you know, I'm talking about people under the 40s, consider causes and groups

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a necessity for them to join, they just think, oh, they will stand up and argue about this, you know, I don't, I don't know if we would have something like the poll tax, you know, response now. I don't know if that would happen. Or, you know, if we would have, because, because, you know, we still have nuclear issues in this country. But I'm not really sure about, you know,

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who's doing that, certainly, if you go to any places, it's certainly not so many young people. No, and I don't know how aware people are now of the threat of nuclear, like, yeah, people are aware of Chernobyl. Yeah, but only I feel more in a more popular culture context, you know, they're aware of the word. And that something bad happened there. And then there

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was there was like a horror film based there. But I don't feel like people today really understand what the threat is and exactly what happened. No, no, no. Do you think something on the scale of the peace camp at Greenham could happen again? I think it would depend what it was. I think it would depend very much what it was.

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You know, thinking about what do we have currently that was that is not mainstream, we have the HS2, is it HS2? Yeah. The train thing, we've got people currently in tunnels under Paddington, and people trying to save trees, but even the tree they couldn't save and then it was cut down. And that was just posted on Facebook. And then it's gone. Yeah. And I don't know how many people

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know about HS2. I don't know. I really have never seen I haven't seen at all on any pages that I'm on. And I'm on quite a lot of page. I'm quite sort of a prolific looker and looking around and reading things. Yeah, I'm quite interested in seeing how people perceive what they see, or if it gets onto the news, if you like. And I haven't seen that at all, only because I am connected with

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some pages that it will come up. It's not in the ordinary news. I think it was on there because somebody is an actor or a singer. Children, I think, were in there and they managed to get them out. So they're coming out, they're like tying themselves up onto posts and things. And then what they're doing is they're rotating. They're giving themselves up sometimes in order to get

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food for the others. Yeah. But it's a very tiny protest. It really is. It really is. I think, again, people think it's all goes back to the media again, how the media are portraying it and why they are there. And it's seen, I feel, in the media as this minority of people who are hippies and whatever. Yeah. And that's it really. It doesn't really, the media doesn't seem to delve

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into the reasons why they are there and why they don't want HS2. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, and then people just, you know, the arguments that you see, for example, on Facebook or forums is about, they look at it from a work ethic point of view, people coming there or we've got the other trains we've got. So they discuss what trains we've got. They're not actually discussing

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the countryside and the ecological impact, you know. And the same thing, I think, with Extinction Rebellion, you know, those are the two main things which are happening currently in today. You know, we're, what, March 2021. And there's very, very little, I think, sort of antagonism about anything. You know, people are just, you know, maybe that's also because of the

00:25:46.240 - 00:26:17.400

lockdown, but even pre-lockdown. Yeah, partly at the moment people are just trying to get through, but the year before in 19, we had the Extinction Rebellion, which became quite prolific in their, you know, movement. But even what's interesting about that is that I have heard people who were very pro-Greenham and, you know, CND and quite, and quite supportive and quite strong and feminist

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and, you know, all from in the past, actually berating what Extinction Rebellion are doing. You know, I've seen comments of people saying, oh, it's just a load of middle class hippies, or it's a load of middle class twats who think that they can stop the, I think the real issue was, did they stop a train, was it a tube or buses? I can't remember, but they just got angry because

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people got stopped from going to work. And then everybody said, no, no, they did it wrong. They shouldn't have done that. They should have just, you know, gone to the bridge after everybody gone to work and stopped Westminster Bridge, or they should have done that, you know. So it doesn't have an impact, does it?

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Yes, the impact is not impactful anymore. There's no point having a protest or, you know, carrying out an action if no one's going to be bothered about it. No, no, exactly, no. And that's the whole point, isn't it? You know, it's like, there was the guy

00:27:20.560 - 00:27:35.280

at, outside, was it the Houses of Parliament, who used to be on the road there, camp. You know, people don't even know. If you say to people, say, oh, see, what was he doing there? I never saw, I never heard of that before. No, completely.

00:27:36.240 - 00:27:59.320

People have no idea, you know, they're much more interested in, you know, Barnard Castle and people breaking lockdown and getting, you know, frustrated and angry about something like that than they are something like, you know, Black Lives Matter or our nuclear position or our ecological position in society.

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Yeah. Yeah. So going back to Greenham, what do you think, because we were talking there about people saying that XR is just a lot of middle class, you know, white people, and that was similar

00:28:17.300 - 00:28:39.840

reporting with Greenham, you know, a load of middle class white women who can afford to do this or whatever. What do you think of that coverage? Do you think it was a load of middle class white women? There were a lot of middle class white women. Yes, that's true to say. And maybe that's also

00:28:40.920 - 00:29:03.980

that those women could present themselves to be, you know, call to arms, if you like, could get up and go to Greenham. And that made it possible for them. But it wasn't the whole case. I would say there was many, many, many more working class women. And there were definitely a lot of women from the Black, you know, I think, minority groups and from London and,

00:29:04.160 - 00:29:32.560

you know, the Wages Due Housework women and the Black lesbians of Southall. They all came in groups regularly. And I think there was pretty much a reasonable mix. I wouldn't have said, you know, today, actually, I mean, I live in a village in South Somerset, and there was, you know, there were a few more people of different, you know, ethnic origins in the town. But it's

00:29:32.560 - 00:30:00.920

a very rural area. And so it's not so inviting, very different than, you know, 45 miles down the road at Bristol, of course. But if you go further west, the same is the same situation, pretty much as it was back in the past, really, you know, it's quite hard for people of, you know, Black and minority groups to live in rural areas, I think. And I think during that time, yes, it's true that

00:30:00.920 - 00:30:30.160

there were middle class women, but they were there and they were campaigning and they actually weren't living in their middle class lifestyle by being at Greenham. And many of them stayed many, many years, you know, and part of my actioning, if you like, was that I carried on working, you know, and went up weekly. And those women were there, you know, week in, week out, winter,

00:30:30.740 - 00:30:55.240

summer, you know, all the time they were there. And with great hardship and greater hardship, because sometimes their families disowned them. Sometimes if they had been in marriages, you know, heterosexual marriages, which were the only ones possible at that time, they were often ousted out of their families, you know. And, you know, some women weren't,

00:30:55.300 - 00:31:19.440

they were still supported from home. I have a friend who lives in Wales, who had two or three children and she just left and she left them for a very, very long time, you know. And because this was really important, she went to do this for her children. Yeah, of course, yeah. No one bats an eyelid at a man going to work to support his children or

00:31:19.440 - 00:31:37.500

whatever. Yeah, yeah. Or if he has, you know, well, we're going to have to go abroad and get a job, you know, or go up to Manchester and get a job and come back every six months. Yeah, it's okay. Yeah. So, you know. Women are treated so much worse, aren't they, if they, you know, leave in inverted commas with their children, if they're not with them all of the

00:31:37.500 - 00:32:02.480

time. Yeah. Women are seen as being these terrible mothers, but men, that seems more natural, apparently. Yeah, yeah, natural to leave your child and go, yeah, it's totally bizarre. Yeah. Yeah. So, I think, you know, I think that, I think really, you know, women did see it as a piece of work, you know, lots of women saw it as, and it was, you know, I mean, for me, it was too,

00:32:02.480 - 00:32:24.680

you know, I was living at home and working as well. I was running some projects, but I was also all the time collecting food and collecting things and taking them up because they'd have things taken away, you know, if there was a raid, you know, sometimes they would just come and, you know, one time there was, there was a fire, I think, as well. I can't remember when that was,

00:32:24.940 - 00:32:51.240

but there was a fire and, you know, a lot of women lost a lot of things. But, you know, we had, we had sort of a lot of people strongly supporting it, as I say, after 1984, I think, after the Chernobyl, you know, because I think people began to think, oh, actually now it's really scary. Yeah, yeah. Does your son have memories of Greenham? He doesn't really, no,

00:32:51.340 - 00:33:16.960

I talked to him. I mean, he's quite conservative with a small C, maybe with a big C as well, I don't know, but, you know, often it's like different, but he remembers, my niece remembers coming. Yeah, because she lived with you part time. Yeah, so she, she remembers coming with me. I remember she making a joke on one of our family WhatsApp saying like, oh, well,

00:33:16.980 - 00:33:36.060

don't go down to Aunty Jackie's because she'll take you to some, because now they've all got kids, you know. Yeah, don't leave your kids with Aunty Jackie because she'll be like making them make a house or making them go on a, on some march somewhere. Yeah, I mean, I took them to everything, you know, if I had kids living with me, then they, they came to it because I felt

00:33:36.060 - 00:33:57.860

it was important that they saw it and understood. So yeah, and my son, I think he does remember, but I think probably because we did so many things, it's all sort of merged into one, he doesn't remember if that was an event there. I mean, he remembers more because he was quite young. He remembers much more, I think, than Nelson Mandela. Yeah. You know, meets in London

00:33:57.860 - 00:34:23.860

and free Nelson Mandela and the Poltacs, because once I nearly got arrested and he got, I got separated and the police then tried to take me away. And these two guys actually got a hold of me and lifted me up over a, like, bollards and things because my child was in, in his push chair, just the other side. And people were very, very, you know, people stayed together. They

00:34:23.860 - 00:34:46.920

were very strong, you know, together, kept together. Yeah. But at Greenham, I think, probably he didn't come a lot of the time. He came when I stayed a couple of times. Yeah. Stayed in a tent and that, and there were kids around and there was quite a lot of children there actually. Was that at a particular gate or was there, you know, most gates?

00:34:46.920 - 00:35:12.780

I can't remember if it was a purple gate or yellow gate, mostly. And Greengate, there were, there was a time, I'm sure there was a time when there was quite a lot of children at Greengate. There was a lot of people from Topless, I think, at Greengate. Yeah. I don't know if you've probably found that. Some. Yeah. Some. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, we just used to, I just used to take,

00:35:12.780 - 00:35:35.640

you know, food up and sleeping bags and tents. Say if there were, when there were lots of children there, if there was a big action. Yeah. What, what was the plan? What would happen with the childcare and things? Mostly what would happen is the designated women would take the children or keep them, you know, to one side. And I think people,

00:35:36.060 - 00:36:03.480

mostly what happened was that women made sure that they went away from them, you know, being, if they were actually doing something, then they, that would happen away from children. Yeah. You know, very, very clearly. So, because I think also if you had children, the, the, to be fair, both the military and the police were, did stand off a bit. Yeah. And they were, I'd say a

00:36:03.480 - 00:36:30.200

little bit more respectful of, of that setting. And, you know, and I think people were quite careful about not shouting so much and not creating, you know, much of a furore really. Although it did happen, but I think it was a bit more, certainly more respectful than it was like at the poll tax. Yeah. Which was, you know, quite a lot more violent, you know. And you were part

00:36:30.200 - 00:37:00.040

of night watch as well. Is that right? In Greenham? Yeah. Some, well, sometimes I, I did go, but not, no, not that often. I mostly went weekends and would stay over and, and I sometimes would go like for a few days up to a week. But I mostly just took things up and then joined and joined the whoever was at the gate, you know. And once I joined a group that walked around the

00:37:00.040 - 00:37:25.720

perimeter. So, so there was a, there was, I can't remember how it came about. I think it was some women from, I don't know, some churches. I wasn't ever involved in any church thing, but it was some women from some churches in London. I think it was Southwark Cathedral. Is there a cathedral in Southwark? Southwark, Southwark. Anyway, that sort of springs to mind

00:37:25.720 - 00:37:50.240

in my head that they were this, like a mother's union group or something. And they had got together and they had money. And because often people would come, you know, with money or they'd say, we've got this, what should we buy or should we bring money? And I remember I joined this group and I don't even know how I got to it because sometimes there'd be a meeting. You'd get,

00:37:50.460 - 00:38:06.000

say to Yellowgate, there'd be a meeting in progress. I'm trying to find the photograph because I've got a photograph of that with, and the mother's due wages with their banner. Oh, amazing. Actually over there in my room, I've got photos everywhere where I've been hunting for them and

00:38:06.000 - 00:38:26.200

I can't find them at the moment, but I have found them recently and hope to find them again. I could send them to you. That'd be amazing. Thank you. Yeah. But I remember this was one time there was a big meeting and there was a big yellow minibus. I remember it was an LGV minibus and it had written on the side,

00:38:26.860 - 00:38:48.960

wages due housework. So that was the wages due housework women. And then there was a Southall Black Sisters. And there were a few other groups and we must have been there for a particular, you know, sometimes it would, it would just screen and would just be like quiet if you like, and it would just be camping or, you know, being there and being, being, it was like being on a

00:38:48.960 - 00:39:16.280

and just being on, on, can't think of the word to say, you know, just like women's ordinary work, they would just be there being a presence, not just, you know, they were being a presence. And then other times there would be, you know, we need to up the ante. So then there would be some bigger event and just to get things, get it back into the news to get things going.

00:39:17.040 - 00:39:41.600

And it may be sometimes that was when some women had perhaps been arrested or some women had gone over the wire or there'd been some cutting of the wire. So then I can't remember when this was, and I think it might've been 86 or 87, that this, this occasion where the yellow minibus was there and the women ran having a meet and they would have a bit like, it'd be like a big committee

00:39:41.600 - 00:40:05.400

meeting. Anyone can, every gate could come and they would talk about, we've been given this, what should we do with it? We've been given some money or somebody has got this, there's a van going to come, somebody's going to bring us these things, where do we want it to go? That kind of thing. And it was there, I think that I met these women who'd come from, I'm sure it was Southwark

00:40:05.400 - 00:40:35.600

Cathedral, that's in my head. And they were something like the Mother's Union or something like that, Mother's Union kind of group. I think it would have been something like that in those days. And they had come with money and they had these pads. They wanted to go around and see everybody and write down what was needed, what could they do? And I remember walking the

00:40:35.600 - 00:41:05.340

perimeter with them. And the reason I remember it so strongly was that, was their clothing, because I don't want to be stereotypical, but typical, typical, what you'd imagine to be Mother's Union from a church meeting. But they were absolutely fantastic. They were really lovely. And they all had these longish skirts and cardigans with, some had a pearl necklace on.

00:41:06.140 - 00:41:39.160

And they were very smart, and a Macintosh coat and perhaps an umbrella and their handbags. And it just looked so incongruous, you know, with the variety of mostly women that were there, you know. And so I remember setting off and thinking, oh, how's this going to go with some women, because some women were extremely radical in their stance. And there were pockets of women

00:41:39.160 - 00:42:04.500

who would be quite crossed if you approach them, you know, because they didn't, they wanted to be, I can't remember what gates, would it have been purple? Anyway, other pockets around, you know, the perimeter. And I just thought, oh, well, we'll just go and, you know, see what happens. And I think I was probably quite good at communicating and sort of saying, look, it's okay,

00:42:04.640 - 00:42:30.560

let's just, you know. And we just went around. And they did, they were very nice. They spoke to as many people as we were able to. And they wrote down copious notes and asked for things. And I'm pretty sure, I don't remember, but I'm pretty sure that they came back, you know, a couple of weeks or three weeks later with things that have been asked for. Yeah. And they'd raised

00:42:30.560 - 00:42:54.500

money in their sort of church meetings and things. So there was a lot of that going on as well. You know, and I think that made it a bit more acceptable, if you like, those kind of talkings. And I think that, again, was because of it was post-Chernobyl. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what other women would say that were there in the sort of preceding

00:42:54.500 - 00:43:28.020

years, 81, 82, 83. But I would wonder if you were to find people or talk to women about that aspect, whether things and the support levels changed considerably afterwards. That's what I always felt that, you know, I thought, and I did feel in 84, especially 84 to 87, well up to 90, that there was a lot, lot more support. You know, do you think the authorities were really

00:43:28.960 - 00:43:51.620

worried about with the Green and women? Because you've mentioned that you're pretty certain you had your phone tapped. Yeah. So the extent that the authorities went to, to find out what the protesters were doing. Well, first of all, you know, I'd like to know about the phone tapping. And then also, you know, yeah. What do you think they were aiming to do by doing that?

00:43:52.240 - 00:44:18.660

Well, the phone tapping, I think I said on my previous thing that the, I don't know if I in our village. Do you want me to say his name again? Yeah. So Danny one, he was really nice because he was kind of my peer, if you like, in terms of age and village status. So he always knew, he always knew that I'd been to Greenham. And we didn't have in those days APNR for your vehicle

00:44:18.660 - 00:44:42.480

recognition. Yeah. And, and even if we did, we wouldn't have had it from Yeovil and Somerset to Greenham, you know, not on the A303, there was would be nowhere to do that. So unless there were people who were following or taking notes of all vehicles going past, which would be quite difficult at speed to do that. Yeah, there must have been other ways of them finding out where

00:44:42.480 - 00:45:06.020

we've been, you know, they might have been collating things of all vehicles around the base, perhaps who parked or were nearby. But I think it was a lot more difficult than to find out whose vehicles were who, you know, and especially as the vehicle wasn't registered to my name anyway. Right. It's the women's aid. It's the women's aid car. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I was on the insurance

00:45:06.020 - 00:45:33.380

and I think we had a base insurance that anyone could drive it, but I basically used it mostly because I was probably one of the only drivers in those days, you know, and also would go and collect women from places. But with the phone, it wasn't quite in that period of time. The phones weren't quite, they weren't digitalised either, digitised or whatever

00:45:33.380 - 00:46:01.560

you call it then anyway. So it was the old lines, the exchanges. There were many more exchanges in villages and towns. So when I, the village I lived in was pretty much on the old system. And if you think about it, that's not so far away from post Second World War when, you know, telecoms and telephones were still, you had to ring up, I think even probably in the 60s, where you

00:46:01.560 - 00:46:30.560

would ring up, you'd lift up the receiver and there were telecommunication, mostly women there at the end. And you would say, can you put me through to West Cocoa 369, please? You know, my number when I was in that house was just three digits. Oh, wow. It was, yeah, it was Corscombe 541. Then in the later 80s, it got added two numbers, which was 89541. And now it's got another,

00:46:30.740 - 00:46:54.980

then you had to dial, if you were out of your area, out of your village, you then had to dial the standard code to get into the next village or town and then dial back out again. So for example, if I was 541, I could call a neighbour by dialing three figures. But if I wanted to call the next village, I'd have to dial their code, which was 86 to get into East

00:46:54.980 - 00:47:23.540

Cocoa, for example, and then their number. And then that whole, that became a five figure number. But the whole thing really was that I think the tapping was very, very easy for them to do, still on a natural practical level. Because at those times, sometimes I would pick up the receiver and I could hear a neighbour talking. You know, so and also we hadn't been long when

00:47:23.540 - 00:47:48.660

we've not had party lines. So some villages in some areas, and the reason that I think is quite important was because I think that still gave government and people that, you know, so called authority, access to people's numbers and listening. So I think they could do it quite easy. Yeah. You know, now, they do it by using satellites and, you know, listen to our mobile

00:47:48.660 - 00:48:13.500

phones, they pretty much everything we say, you know, you've got one of these mobile phones, and everything that you say is recorded somewhere, you know, we've got the whole of America up in the north is recording everything that we're all doing now, you know. So I don't think it was so difficult to do. But we did know, I mean, that I was in various groups at the time. And we also

00:48:13.500 - 00:48:41.560

used to know that we would say, somebody had said, and I don't know if this is true or not, but at one time, there was something about using a code word, people would use code words. And I'm talking about people who are perhaps a bit more extreme in their, not extreme, you know, they were a bit more, a bit more radical in their in what they were doing, and, and having the time

00:48:41.560 - 00:49:09.360

and, you know, ability to, you know, be party to, you know, to be part of much more radical groups and into politics and, and, and more underground about it a bit like they're, you know, HS2 people now, and the passing of information. And so I know that people were very careful about what words they used. So for example, if they were going to do something at Greenham, or in some

00:49:09.360 - 00:49:30.300

other setting, they would use different words and not say they were going to do that. So people believe very strongly, and they knew, because the evidence was, unless somebody has, you've got an infiltrator, and somebody has said you're going to do that, you know, and if you think about it, you know, as I say, we went that far away from, you know, Second World War, where people were

00:49:30.300 - 00:49:56.120

still very much using phones and, you know, telegrams and information to pass information along. So I remember somebody saying to me, oh, you should use the word cabbages a few times in your thing and see if you happen. And I did a couple of times, it's interesting. And there were definite clicks on the line. Other, you know, so, so whether that's true or not, but there was

00:49:56.120 - 00:50:19.960

definitely, you know, I can't prove it and wouldn't be able to prove it. But very, very much so sometimes, if I was calling a number somewhere, or calling somebody to arrange something, there would definitely be clicks on the line. You could hear then, you know, that somebody was, was listening in, you know, it was quite, quite good. And then sometimes, as I say, I would see

00:50:19.960 - 00:50:44.380

Danny want when I'd been up to, especially when it'd been a bigger one. He'd say, oh, you up at Greenham at the weekend, then were you? I said, yeah, you following me then, you know, we've got chat, you know. And, you know, it's, I, you know, I think the government wants to keep an eye on us all the time. Anyway, you know, I, I think that anyone who does anything that seemed to be

00:50:44.380 - 00:51:10.120

subversive, alternative, or outside of the box of what, what the government wants us to follow, then, you know, then I think those people are monitored. Yeah. And I, and I think that the ways the government does that it monitors, you know, who we are, what we're doing, what we're saying, in order to test, you know, the mode of the people. You know, I think the government's

00:51:10.120 - 00:51:34.200

in a much stronger position now, all governments are in in our country, whoever they are, because they have so much more access to everything we're doing, they don't really have to follow us or do anything, because we have got so much CCTV, we've got so much information digitized on, on the internet, through our phones, through our broadband, you know, our vehicles, you know,

00:51:34.220 - 00:51:56.960

are picked up APNR everywhere we're going, you know, you can't find your stolen vehicle from outside your house, or get the police to find it. But, you know, you certainly will be notified that you were somewhere you shouldn't have been. If you Yeah, absolutely. You know, Oh, could you tell us a bit about that? You mentioned transportation lists at some of the

00:51:56.960 - 00:52:28.740

gates. I was quite interested by that. Oh, what do I say? And you said something about how women could put their names down for things? Yeah, yeah. Well, bit like actually, I was thinking that was funny the other day I was looking at, there's one group that I'm in, that's a shared, shared list for people going to peace campings. And there's very few people on it. And it's just

00:52:28.740 - 00:52:52.420

sort of quite interesting that, you know, I wonder if they're a bit afraid to put their information online and how they, you know, share lists to get all over the country. And we used to have big lists of where people were. And so I often used to take people back to so if I was up at Greenham, because I was so regular, some women that I knew would,

00:52:52.800 - 00:53:13.560

if they wanted to get a lift back, or say, for example, the West Country, like Totnes, and they're all Bristol, come to Yeovil, and then they could get the bus to Bristol quite easy. Sometimes I would go that way and drop them and then come home. So we would, we would offer lifts, because sometimes women, you know, had to go home to their families or their children or whatever.

00:53:14.640 - 00:53:41.760

And we did have lists, excuse me, we had lists to, you know, offer lifts to people. And Cardiff as well, I remember taking some women to Cardiff, there was quite strong, you know, groups. So you get women to Bristol or Cardiff, or Totnes, because it was quite difficult to get up from the West Country. And don't forget, even now comparatively, the prices were much higher to

00:53:41.760 - 00:54:04.800

get transport anywhere. Right, yeah. You know, so you couldn't really go on the train from the from the West Country, one you couldn't really afford to do that. Except sometimes we used to have what now is still called a network card, but we had a network gold card and a network green card, I think it was, there wasn't really just network rail card. And so we often used to like share

00:54:04.800 - 00:54:31.040

those. So that if you went with four people, it made it a lot cheaper. So we just used to give our card to somebody else. And then they could get the train, say they could get from Totnes to Exeter, they could get the train up to here or Salisbury. And I would pick women up in Salisbury sometimes. And I used to take women back to Cardiff and Bristol and Totnes. And sometimes

00:54:31.040 - 00:54:53.200

I'd have women camp in my garden. And again, somehow, so somebody was telling somebody something because sometimes like local police officer, he'd mentioned that to me as well that I had, you know, people staying because I always pick up hitchhikers or I'd, you know, bring if I brought them back from Greenham, you know, sometimes like two or three of them, several people would camp

00:54:53.200 - 00:55:14.900

in my garden. Yeah. And then, you know, take them home the next day or something, or, or they'd get a lift from somewhere else, wherever they were going, or they'd go off and hitch that kind of thing. But somehow that was always known, known about, you know, it could have been that I just lived in a very, as it was nosy rural area, and people always questioning what I was doing,

00:55:14.900 - 00:55:50.880

you know, so. Was it important to you that Greenham was women only? And if so, why? Yeah, I think, I think I felt it was a very important, a very important statement that, that, you know, the larger aspects of the element of Greenham were women only. And I think that was really important, because it was a real statement saying, you know, we can do

00:55:50.880 - 00:56:15.580

this, you know, we, this really, really matters. And, and you, mostly men, as it was, it was, it was all, you know, who were behind it, the military and the government and the police. There were, I think, I don't think I ever saw any female uniformed people, you know, or even, even people making statements, you know,

00:56:15.640 - 00:56:38.680

women making statements, whether they reporters or journalists or government figures, you know, on the news or in papers, it was actually very, very, a very clear divide. Yeah. And I think that was really, really important. And it became important. And I think it changed initially, there were quite a few men there at the beginning, there were

00:56:39.600 - 00:57:02.580

camps, but I did feel it was really, really important, you know, and I felt that if men wanted to do it, they could do that, but they should go over there and do that for themselves, you know. And also the standoffs were very different when it was women only versus a mixed group. How did it make a difference? Well, I think it made a difference because of the tone,

00:57:02.580 - 00:57:29.600

if there were male protesters, the tone of male protesters would be often much more antagonistic. And also the response from the police would be equally as antagonistic and definitely from the military. Because I think the military somehow saw what women were doing as somehow not as important and not as big, but actually if men were doing it, it was much more threatening.

00:57:30.160 - 00:58:02.380

So I think there was this kind of sliding sense underneath that people didn't really see the women as so as important as they really were. That's what we're really trying to say. Didn't see it or perceive it that way. And kind of like the long game was played, if you like, by the green and women standing out their course and stating their life's work to protect children

00:58:02.380 - 00:58:30.040

and communities and their families of every genre. And I think that that made that very important. And I think the difference very, very much was that the way each side, if you like, regarded each other. So the military seeing men would feel threatened and they would feel they needed to beat them down. And also, you know, maybe an elephant, they weren't proper men

00:58:30.040 - 00:58:55.740

because they should be at home or they should be working as well. But, you know, and they were here and they need to be taught a lesson. Yeah. You know, I mean, the men, the police were quite rough too when they took women in. I remember going in a minivan, you know, police minivan. And they also just had other minivans because they had too many women to try to arrest. But they would do things

00:58:55.740 - 00:59:17.620

like take us in, but not read us our rights. So once we got to the station, you hadn't had your rights read. They would then just say you can go. But it was just it's another method to cause you to cause disruption. So then how could you get back to the camp? You know, so it meant men, women would have to walk because we didn't have mobile phones to call somebody. Sometimes there

00:59:17.620 - 00:59:41.020

would be women who were like out watchers who would be in small cars or whatever nearby, and they would follow the police, the van or the minibus to Reading. I remember getting arrested and going to Reading police station. And there was just like loads and loads of us. Well, there's no way they didn't have enough cells to put us in. And they had nothing really, you know,

00:59:41.100 - 01:00:01.060

it was it was much easier than they would just take you in as they wanted to. And now they'd have to have an absolute reason of the breach of the peace or whatever that they would charge you with. But of course, they weren't doing that they were getting us into the vehicle, we would go there. And then of course, they hadn't read us our rights. And then there was too many people

01:00:01.060 - 01:00:21.740

at the sergeant's desk to be able to say, right, put them there, put them there. And if you hadn't had your rights read, then they would just turf you out the station. Yeah. So then, of course, all they were just doing was causing disruption, hoping that we would go away. Yeah, that's what they hoped for. And I think I think that was also important with it being women was that, you know,

01:00:21.740 - 01:00:47.880

women are not going to go away. You know, we're not going to just go because they say, you know, you've been naughty, go now. Yeah. You know, go back home. And, you know, did you ever go to court at all after you were arrested or not? Never got to that? No, no. I went, I think three times, got taken. One time I did have my rights read to me and everything,

01:00:48.060 - 01:01:08.660

you know, written in there. And I think I might have had a letter to my home, but nothing, nothing ever came of it. It was the same with the Poltacs. They didn't ever want to arrest us, really. They didn't. You know, we used to try to be arrested because we wanted to make a statement because the more of us that were actually in the courts, then that would have

01:01:08.660 - 01:01:31.700

to be reported upon. And then we could make a statement if we were reported upon and had to appear in court, which would cost more money and more importantly, be reported on. And it would be another group of women, but that rarely happened. Yeah. It rarely happened. I mean, occasionally, I mean, there's probably more evidence than I recall or know about that women were arrested,

01:01:31.860 - 01:01:53.800

but I think mostly it was probably when there was a specific assault or if people were caught specifically cutting to get in or going over the wall so they could be arrested and, you know, taken away. But yeah, the pretty light, they didn't want, you know, that's part of it as well. It's that, you know, I don't, you know, you're saying, what did the government, you know, want to do

01:01:53.800 - 01:02:13.180

with us? Why did, why were they listening and everything? They wanted to find out, I think, who, who the people were, who the women were, where they came from. And, you know, and I think perhaps they just believed we would go away and perhaps they believed an element of it was that somebody was funding this somehow. Yeah. They couldn't seem to get their heads around that there wasn't

01:02:13.840 - 01:02:36.720

big leader. Yeah. Absolutely. Who told you to do that? I remember being asked that, who told you to come here? Are you here all the time? And I just say, no, I just come every week. So I was quite open with them. Every week, you know, that's the vehicle that's there on the road. I've come in that vehicle and I bring, you know, it was full of food and, you know, I'm going back

01:02:36.720 - 01:02:55.140

in it and they would, they just couldn't understand. Yeah. Who's your leader? Who told you what to do? Have you been told when are you coming again? I said, well, why do you want to know? You better bring me up and ask me or go on my phone and you'll find out when I'm coming again. You know, they asked ridiculous questions, really ridiculous. It's quite funny, isn't it? And they

01:02:55.140 - 01:03:19.440

couldn't just be like, oh, well, you can make your own decisions. Yeah. You're just doing this to support other women and protect us, not for any other gain. No, why are you coming here every week? You know, it's not going to do you any good. And, you know, they'd say things like that, you know, people won't think good of you in your community and they don't anyway, you know.

01:03:21.440 - 01:03:45.940

They don't anyway, they think I'm a heathen because I've taken my son out of school. Yeah. You spoke about kind of prejudice that you had, you know, in your village where you were living. What was that like and how did it manifest itself? Well, it probably was compounded by things like going to Greenham. But, you know, because I was a young mother, single mother

01:03:45.940 - 01:04:14.800

and a lesbian, too, I mean, I experienced quite bad homophobia, really, from villagers. I had dead rabbits chucked in my door and a bag of poo once. And I don't know if it was a human or dogs, but yeah, my front porch door would just open. Most people's did, you know, mostly had your, you didn't lock your doors, really, those in then, you know, that time. And I'd get phone

01:04:14.800 - 01:04:43.300

calls from people, you know, saying things. And men actually would, men who were married men, who were from the village, would come past and, you know, try to engage with me and want to have a sexual relationship. So, yeah, they found they found it really, really difficult. And then I took my son out of school and that made it even worse. Then sometimes I'd have women staying or,

01:04:43.480 - 01:05:06.160

you know, people staying that were traveling up and down and whatever. And then I went off to Italy and traveled a bit and then would come back. People just couldn't understand, you know, I wasn't correct. I wasn't proper. I wasn't, you know, first of all, I didn't have a proper lifestyle because I didn't have a husband. And, you know, then what was I doing with this child,

01:05:06.680 - 01:05:29.100

you know? So I was reported to social services. And when I took him out of school, I mean, the the education officer was was lovely. Actually, he was really nice guy. He was just near retirement. He came to see us a few times and he said, I'm just coming because I've actually had another report. But he really liked, you know, meeting my son and my son Martin would like

01:05:29.100 - 01:05:57.660

make things and show him stuff. And he was, you know, as advanced as any child that was curious and was being educated in the world, you know. And, you know, interestingly, he went on to my son went back and did a placement at his primary school because he went there for the last six months of his primary school because I wanted to be engaging. And interesting, he went back and did

01:05:57.660 - 01:06:21.920

that. And I got an apology from the head, which was interesting because some some of the response, some of the experiences were from other parents. Yeah. You know, it's that thing. Excuse me. It's that thing about fear, isn't it? You know, it's the same as with with Greenham, that that if somebody does something a bit different, then, you know, they they're they're

01:06:21.920 - 01:06:42.040

a hippie or they're a vegan or they're this, you know, people have to put a label on you somehow. So perhaps it must be that, you know, because I was a lesbian or something or, you know, then taking my child out of school, that was really because it questions what other people are doing. People don't just say, oh, they're doing that. They say, oh, is it being questioned

01:06:42.040 - 01:07:07.180

about what I'm doing? Yeah, that's it. Oh, are you doing that because you think wrong of us? Whereas you don't care what you do. I just yeah, I just want to do what I'm doing and it's perfectly legal and I'm doing this, you know. Did you report any of these things to the police? No, no. I mean, I think I talked to the local police officer who lived in the village about

01:07:07.180 - 01:07:32.800

Whitehead, but but it's kind of, you know, living in that setting, it's it's all very insidious if if, you know, during that time. So that was like the very early 80s. If if one had actually done something, I mean, I also then went on in the next few years, I was training some police officers around rape crisis and domestic violence. Yeah. And so some in the area would come to sessions

01:07:32.800 - 01:08:02.440

and this is sort of off of kilter a little bit from what you're asking. But this would be part of the reason as well is that so some of these were sergeant level and above and they would sit and this stance, you know, legs wide open. And they're only at this meeting because they have to do some domestic violence training. So it's like 1988 then. And honestly, everyone nearly was

01:08:02.440 - 01:08:07.720

saying, oh, well, why didn't women leave them if it's so bad? And, you know, these sort of like