00:00:00.000 - 00:00:26.580

you just say what you care that you think you're prepared to share, but a little bit about your family background and whether, you know, was your family in CND or did they, you know, were they encouraging or censorious, you know, were you from a military family, a little bit about your background and the politics that you grew up with?

00:00:31.120 - 00:01:01.580

My background when I was a child, you mean, was very, very difficult and very poor, very poverty stricken, which it shouldn't have been because my father was a jazz musician and who played with Johnny Dankworth band, which obviously in the 50s was very famous, but he was an alcoholic and I later learned he took various things like heroin,

00:01:02.400 - 00:01:39.240

so he wasn't there most of the time and when he was there he was very violent. And I got married and had my first child at 20 and by the time of Greenham I'd been in CND for quite a while, I can't remember how long, and been involved in, well, I was helping a friend organise gigs to make money for Salisbury CND and I learnt to screen print posters

00:01:42.040 - 00:02:20.560

and when I heard about Greenham I was living right out in the countryside in Dorset, being a housewife, I was fairly bored really, and I decided to, I drew a card of a woman with the world in her belly and I took it to the art centre and we produced it as a card and it was a few, it was a few weeks into Greenham and I decided to take it there,

00:02:20.900 - 00:02:45.720

I was selling it to make money for Greenham, so I decided to take the money there and the card to show the women, but I had been involved in Greenham, in CND for quite a long time and also Green stuff, I went to the Green Party, well it was the Ecology Party summer gatherings and then the Green Party gatherings.

00:02:48.400 - 00:03:09.900

So I took the card, the women had been there for a few weeks in the autumn of 1981 and they really liked it and it ended up on loads of posters and banners, of the women, even in Japan. I think I remember it, was it, as opposed to, was it a black and white poster rather than a colour

00:03:09.900 - 00:03:28.860

one? Poster was designed by a man called David something from London, who was involved with the Quakers, but the woman with the world in her belly, he put on it. Originally she had a blue dress on, so that the sea merged with her dress.

00:03:32.780 - 00:03:51.460

Yeah, the sea of the world merged with her dress and it was a long dress. So, so that was that the first time you went to Greenham, when you went up in the, right at the beginning with your, your um? Yeah, it was a few weeks in, so it was kind of fairly established with caravans and

00:03:51.460 - 00:04:18.320

teepees and things at Greengate, what later became Greengate. And first of all, I lived in a teepee with another woman, which was, and it became absolutely freezing. That was the winter that was the Arctic winter, the Siberian winter, and it was one of the coldest winters I've ever known.

00:04:18.320 - 00:04:47.720

And this teepee hadn't had its poles rubbed down properly. So the water would, from melting snow etc, would run down the poles and drip on you in the night. I remember my husband coming to visit me and he managed about one night, it was too cold for him. I think women are, I think women are harder, hardier in that way. We can put up with cold

00:04:47.720 - 00:05:13.740

weather. Well, I'm just, I'm just thinking of all the sort of First World War soldiers that were in the trenches, because I think they had it pretty hard. They did. Yeah, at least we weren't being bombed and shot at. Well, not, not quite, not quite. But that's, I mean, it's actually an interesting comparison,

00:05:13.740 - 00:05:32.880

isn't it, about men leaving home to fight war and women. That's true. To fight wars and women leaving home to, you know, fight against war. So that's, so, so, so it was particularly at Greengate that you stayed at.

00:05:33.060 - 00:06:03.200

Yeah, we were at Maingate and Fran put her teepee up at Greengate so she could talk to the people who were constructing things on site. And I was, I was at Maingate, first of all. And later on, I moved into a caravan. We did have some interaction with the base. There was one lady there called Marion,

00:06:04.240 - 00:06:38.560

who was completely accident prone and absolutely wonderful. And she was writing a thesis on chaos at the time, chaos theory. And she lived in a tent which had a paraffin heater. And for some reason she had gas canisters in it as well. And her thesis. And I remember one night I was sitting in one of the teepees

00:06:39.440 - 00:07:14.300

and somebody ran in and said, Marion's tent's on fire. I was actually sitting in the teepee that the men were in talking to them and we grabbed the water container and it was solid ice. So me and them and Fran ran towards the fire and somebody shouted at us from the base.

00:07:15.420 - 00:07:38.100

Be careful. And we realised they were right as the gas canisters exploded. Wow. We hit the deck and the fire engine came out of the base. And one of the soldiers said to Fran,

00:07:39.780 - 00:08:02.920

that's dangerous stuff you're messing with. And she said, not half as dangerous as the stuff you're messing with. Anyway, we had to put Marion into a caravan. And she had to go to a bar mitzvah one night.

00:08:04.220 - 00:08:30.300

So I thought when she's gone, I thought I'll go and check on the caravan because I know what she's like. And the bedclothes had fallen on top of a paraffin heater that was still on. So she set the caravan on fire as well as her own bed.

00:08:31.360 - 00:08:57.280

We managed to save that. Then she spilled a kettle of boiling water on her foot and had to have that treated. The dressings changed a lot, big bandages and things. And one day we were sitting around the fire with her and she said, it's a myth that I'm accident prone.

00:08:57.920 - 00:09:23.020

And put her feet out to warm herself and the bandage caught fire. It was a really funny place to live a lot of the time. Despite the freezing coldness of waking up in your caravan and finding that even the eggs and the baked beans in the tin were frozen.

00:09:25.140 - 00:09:40.220

So what was happening to your children when you were there? My husband was looking after them. I used to go back for a week or two and then come back to Greenham and kind of commute. I hitchhiked backwards and forwards.

00:09:43.020 - 00:09:55.680

I can't say it did very much for our relationship. Is it the same husband you've got now? No. That's so often the story with these Greenham women interviews.

00:09:58.600 - 00:10:23.680

He encouraged me to go in the beginning, but then I started to get told off really for not being there where I should be. Looking after the children and everything. So I was going to say, did you have a preference with the gates that you were staying?

00:10:23.920 - 00:10:46.620

But really, there was only Yellowgate, Maingate to start with, wasn't there? And then there was Greengate, which Fran was mostly on. First of all, when I went, I was very naive. And I used to be put to talk to press and all sorts of people and

00:10:49.680 - 00:11:11.540

then I wasn't because they didn't agree with what I said. There was a lady who was writing a letter from Greenham and she said that we wanted to tell the women of the world that we want peace. I said, well, actually, no, we don't want to tell the people of the world because

00:11:12.100 - 00:11:40.960

it's generally not the women that are making the problems. Anyway, she altered the letter and then came yelling and shouting at me and telling me that I could, you know, I wasn't welcome there. Anyway, so there was a bit of there was a bit of a rebellion going on and

00:11:42.040 - 00:12:15.820

see, this is to follow me about this, you know, being rebellious and not agreeing with people. Anyway, I was living in caravan with my friend Caroline and she was organizing the Embrace the Base thing where we had festivals at each gate. And I remember we drove down to Leicester to get the marquees and

00:12:16.840 - 00:12:36.900

she was booking different things to happen. And Helen came into our caravan. One time we organized a load of men to come and do bridges over the streams and things because there were a lot of streams and bogs all around the base.

00:12:37.800 - 00:13:07.720

So they came to do that and Helen didn't like that. So one day we were in the caravan, just sitting there and she came in and said to Caroline, you're no longer a signatory to the bank account, which was a bit of a shock because Caroline was organizing the whole Embrace the

00:13:07.980 - 00:13:31.980

Base thing and the blockade and everything. So we had all these festivals that each cut things at each gate and we were going to blockade the whole base and so Embrace the Base was actually later that was a blockade we were doing and we had no money.

00:13:34.840 - 00:14:05.120

So she had to ring round the peace movement basically and people like Bruce Kent and that gave her money because we had no access to the money for the organizing. And I remember we drove down to, we drove up to Leicester to get the marquees. Us and some other women were digging toilets. We got some long drops from

00:14:07.560 - 00:14:38.600

Glastonbury from Michael Evis. Yeah, so basically there were, it was us rebellious women that organized it. And I went to Greengate and I was chained myself up to Greengate with some of my friends and we were chained up for 24 hours and that was the same all round the base.

00:14:43.840 - 00:15:16.680

Well, I was going to say how was planning and decision making done? But Um, it was supposedly by consensus but in reality it was the tyranny of structurelessness where the strongest and most bullying would win the day if you weren't careful. Okay, so did you get arrested? Did you go to prison?

00:15:18.300 - 00:15:45.840

No, not when I was at Greenham. When I, I left Greenham in March or April 1982. So I was just there really over the winter and for the spring and we started another peace camp at Burfield. And we were sleep, basically sleeping in those plastic

00:15:45.840 - 00:16:16.620

orange bivvy bags, first of all, outside Burfield. And I got arrested at Upper Hayford when we went to do the blockade there, the first blockade. And that was, I can't remember when that was. I, that was, I got in the autumn of 1982. I got a job working for Dorset Peace Council and I was paid by the Quaker Peace and Service.

00:16:17.980 - 00:16:47.920

And I trained two different NVDA groups and people knew that we were, basically, we just had a lot of fun and we giggled a lot. And so they put us on the gate where they knew that the arrests were likely to happen. And the police must have known that I had trained both the groups,

00:16:48.000 - 00:17:21.080

because both the groups were put on that gate. And I was the only one arrested, first of all. And I was held by the scruff of my neck up in front of all the others, like an example, and taken away and put for an hour or two in one of those, is it a paddy wagon? Is it a paddy wagon? They're all metal, like little boxes and you've got a tiny, tiny little window.

00:17:22.380 - 00:17:43.800

Yeah, like a horse box. Yeah, I was in there for about an hour or two before they filled it up with other people and then took it to the police station. Would you like to explain the connection with Burfield and Upper Hayford? They were both military bases.

00:17:44.420 - 00:18:12.400

Well, Burfield took apart warheads, basically, from cruise missiles and such, and I think it does Trident as well. They took them apart and the stuff inside, I think, came from Aldermaston. So there was like a triangle. And then I think they put them back together again at Burfield

00:18:13.240 - 00:18:40.820

and sent them off because I know that the land-based cruise missiles used to go there. And that's why we were at Burfield. There wasn't, at that point, any peace camp at Aldermaston. It wasn't as secure at Burfield as it is now. Yeah. Have you been going back to Burfield then?

00:18:42.000 - 00:19:11.460

No, I haven't been for years, but I think now it's a lot more secure from what I've heard because I remember my friend Betty hitchhiked back to Burfield Peace Camp and stayed in the lorry and got right inside the perimeter fence on the lorry before they took her off and searched her. So you came and went from Dorset. So were you part of CND?

00:19:11.460 - 00:19:29.180

Yeah. That was your local, because you were doing a bit of Greenham Women everywhere back home as well. It wasn't until I'd left Greenham that I was working for Dorset Peace Council. Oh, yeah.

00:19:29.180 - 00:19:59.760

And I had to coordinate all the peace groups and all the green groups in Dorset and do a newsletter and do NVDA training. And I also organised the Star March. Do you remember the Star Marches? I organised the one from Dorset to Greenham. Yeah. Yeah, I do. And I went on a march. I don't know whether it was one of the Star

00:19:59.760 - 00:20:20.380

Marches, but it started off in Plymouth and I was living near Totnes for the first couple of years of Greenham. I was coming and going like you. But there was a march that went all through the West Country and ended up at Greenham. We might have met up with you because at one point, of course, we went through Andover and

00:20:20.380 - 00:20:42.240

loads of marches went through Andover. Yeah. Yeah, I remember the Somerset ones mainly. And yeah, there were quite a few marches, weren't there? There was the Snowball. That was a CND thing, the Snowball marches as well. They all came later.

00:20:43.100 - 00:21:04.480

I can't remember. What year was it, the Star Marches? I think it was 83. Oh, right. Yeah, that would that would figure with my timeline. Yeah. And stayed in all different church halls and peace groups and things. Yeah. That's it. And some a bit of camping and.

00:21:05.680 - 00:21:30.400

Yeah, it's good fun. Yeah, it was. It was. So have you got any any favourite, favourite memories and the worst memories? You've already talked about the freezingness and the fires. I remember there was constant TV cameras.

00:21:31.720 - 00:21:52.620

All the time and sometimes, you know, you'd see there was a lady from Germany who. Came back and of course, I ran to give her a hug. And there's this blooming TV camera that said, could you do that again? We said, no. It could be quite intrusive.

00:21:56.420 - 00:22:14.940

There's all sorts of things happened like. I had a friend called Fiona who had various pets, one of which was a hedgehog. And so she. She came to see us and she took off her wellingtons and left them in the kitchen of the caravan

00:22:14.940 - 00:22:44.540

and. Left a hedgehog out there as well, and it crawled into a welly. And then it couldn't back out because of its prickles. And we had to destroy her welly to rescue. Yes, I was little, I was little things.

00:22:45.280 - 00:23:01.380

I remember the. Of the thing that we did. With the blockade and everything for 24 hours. I mean, we were absolutely exhausted and.

00:23:02.960 - 00:23:24.620

These blokes that had been looking after everybody, we just went to bed. They went out and got us dinner. Then a load of ruffians were came along and start throwing stones in the middle of the night at. The camp.

00:23:25.340 - 00:23:48.360

They do your bows and. These blokes were then asked to sit up all night and protect us. So this is kind of one of the reasons I had a different attitude was because this is basically these blokes stayed up for 36, 48 hours looking after looking after us.

00:23:54.620 - 00:24:14.600

What else? The other thing I remember when I was at Burfield over Hiroshima day, we did. A fast in the center of Reading and we slept in our bivy bags on a traffic island. And I remember I went to sleep.

00:24:16.200 - 00:24:31.800

And in the morning I woke up, I was absolutely soaked right to the skin, everything I wore. But what had happened while I was asleep was my some of my friends had been beaten up by skinheads. And I felt terribly ashamed because I hadn't woken up.

00:24:31.860 - 00:24:49.380

I hadn't heard it or anything. Yeah. I was going to ask you, what was your experience of the reactions from the new breed locals? Reading, obviously.

00:24:50.860 - 00:25:02.380

Yeah. They didn't like us. And I think it was quite a Tory area. We had a few people that lived nearby that were really lovely and really friendly.

00:25:05.500 - 00:25:29.840

But no, it wasn't. We weren't terribly popular in the town from what I remember. Well, when I was at Burfield, we had a few local supporters, quite a few in Reading and some more locally in Burfield itself.

00:25:30.040 - 00:25:44.780

There was an old couple and they used to come and kidnap one of us and take us home for a bath and feed us and even don our socks. And they seemed very lovely. They were kind of old communists.

00:25:46.340 - 00:26:11.520

So I thought they were lovely until we went to a public meeting where there was somebody who was pro Greenham and against the Tory in a kind of village hall political meeting. And we were sitting there and as soon as the Tory spoke, he shouted, crap.

00:26:12.860 - 00:26:29.820

The old fella. And they just constantly shouted, insulted the Tory every time he spoke. We were sitting there thinking, this isn't the way to behave. Yeah.

00:26:32.220 - 00:26:49.200

But they were very lovable. Yeah. So you did quite a few sort of speaks going to because of your role with the Dorset coordinator, you'd went and did quite a lot of talks and things at different groups.

00:26:50.080 - 00:27:12.320

Did you? Well, I started off the first time I had to speak to a big group was when I was at Greenham and the local CND organised a big meeting, a really big meeting in Salisbury Art Centre, which is a church,

00:27:13.360 - 00:27:26.060

converted church. And I had to speak there. Which I think I'd be absolutely terrified by now. But then I think I was just young and naive.

00:27:26.220 - 00:27:40.840

So I just did it. I remember I got back to Salisbury. I couldn't get home to Dorset in time to get changed. So I had to wear a local Salisbury woman's clothes because I was just so incredibly dirty

00:27:40.840 - 00:27:53.360

and muddy. But yeah, I did. Yeah, that was the first time I ever spoke in public. And when I worked for Dorset Peace Council, I had to do it a lot,

00:27:54.560 - 00:28:19.420

particularly on things like Star March. Where, when we got to places like Andover and that, they'd want, they'd have organised something and they'd want people to speak. My husband also, he was working for them as well and he did organise the conferences

00:28:20.420 - 00:28:38.720

in Dorset and we had a magazine called The Radiator. I wish I don't, I don't know if you remember The Radiator? No. That was kind of South Western magazine, peace movement magazine.

00:28:40.220 - 00:28:49.920

Oh, have you got copies of it? Yeah. Oh, good. Also, I've got pictures of, I've got the poster

00:28:50.820 - 00:29:05.800

of the woman with the world in her belly. I haven't got any original cards, but I've got the see-through things that you use when you're making a poster on silkscreen. I've still got the silkscreens.

00:29:05.900 - 00:29:31.920

I've still got some artwork I did for The Radiator and I've got a few, I've got the poster that I did for the Star March, the Dorset Star March, and another Greenham poster that was done for the Festival for Peace and the Blockade. So, I did send photographs of them.

00:29:33.460 - 00:29:50.300

I can't remember if it was to you lot or not. There is a sort of archive of resistance that's been based in, I think, Bristol. I've seen them at the Green Gathering. They have a big exhibition space now.

00:29:50.380 - 00:30:08.480

It's really great. So, that's a good place to deposit things as well. So, I mean, I didn't, after that, I didn't do much with the piece. I got arrested again, but I can't remember where it was.

00:30:08.540 - 00:30:26.580

It was a base somewhere. I got arrested again and fined and the Quakers paid my fine because by then I was a single parent and I couldn't go to prison and leave the children. I didn't really do masses.

00:30:26.720 - 00:30:45.160

I went on all the marches and everything. I didn't, wasn't massively involved again in the peace movement really until the Iraq war, at which time myself and some other women decided to protest. I was living in Wales by then.

00:30:45.520 - 00:31:17.960

We decided to protest in the Welsh Assembly and we made t-shirts which each had a letter on so that we spelt no war. And we went in with, obviously, with our jackets and that on and we went in and at a certain point we got up, we took our coats off and got up on the chairs

00:31:19.120 - 00:31:40.160

and spelt no war. But they had obviously sussed us because we would grab really quickly from behind and marched out and we had organised it so that this woman who was a famous actress in Wales, she played the wife of Dylan Thomas.

00:31:40.660 - 00:32:01.300

She was quite famous. She was supposed to be, when we got arrested, which we knew we would, she was supposed to be at the front to speak but they arrested us the other way around so that I was so I was on every news programme in Wales

00:32:03.060 - 00:32:21.580

saying that we didn't want, we didn't want the Iraq war. Yeah. And what was lovely was that Cynog Davydd and, oh who was the other, the Plaid Cymru, people came out and sang with us outside.

00:32:22.500 - 00:32:39.720

Yeah. Because Wales was a nuclear-free zone at that time, wasn't it? Plaid Cymru in the south were very anti-nuclear. I think they were a bit more pro-nuclear in the north with Anglesey and all that.

00:32:41.180 - 00:33:03.700

Quite different in the north than the south. Yeah, yeah. What did you make of the media coverage? I mean, you said that there were quite a lot of reporters and TV cameras at camp

00:33:04.620 - 00:33:25.820

and it's sort of, it's quite opinion-forming, wasn't it, the media coverage? First of all, they kind of, it was quite shocking some of the photographs because some of the photographs, they'd kind of catch women in positions where they looked rather provocative, which I didn't like.

00:33:26.640 - 00:33:44.880

What do you mean, sexually provocative? Well, yeah, kind of chained up and kind of, I can't, that, yeah, was a bit, it was fairly friendly, I thought, first of all. I think they kind of thought we were a load of weird eccentrics

00:33:44.880 - 00:34:13.300

and then it became more and more unfriendly. And we were kind of, you know, all the stuff about bobble-hatted and everything and, yeah. Wooly hats, yeah. One of the things that, well, a bit later on, possibly than when you were able to get up to

00:34:13.300 - 00:34:41.360

camp, but there was a big split with Yellowgate and the other gates and I wondered if you had any comments about that. I mean, actually, you sort of summarised some of your experience around the hierarchy of, you know, the, not hierarchy of oppression, but hierarchy of, I don't know, decision-making and

00:34:43.600 - 00:35:02.160

Well, I mean, my experience of, you know, was that there were some people who, after the festival that we, and blockade that we organised, they came out for the TV cameras and pretended to be clearing up and then went back again and everybody else did the clearing up.

00:35:04.200 - 00:35:22.700

But you get that in every organisation. Yeah. We were aware of things that were going on when we were at Burfield and, you know, in the rest of the time and while we were on the Star March.

00:35:24.100 - 00:35:42.600

But I wasn't involved with it. I was more involved locally and training people for demos and blockades and things. Yeah, yeah. I kept well back because I felt a bit bruised by some of my experiences at Greenham.

00:35:46.960 - 00:36:02.620

I think now I see it from both sides a bit more now. Do you feel that your involvement, what sort of impact do you think your involvement had on your life, looking back? A lot. Huge amount.

00:36:06.440 - 00:36:25.740

Had, gave me a lot more confidence. Opened, it opened, I mean, well, it destroyed my marriage, which wasn't too good, but it opened life up for me. And after I'd worked for Dorset Peace Council,

00:36:25.740 - 00:36:45.980

when I moved back to Salisbury from Dorset, I worked for social services for adults with learning disabilities and enjoyed that. And then after that, I also worked in festival welfare

00:36:47.920 - 00:37:05.240

at Glastonbury and various other festivals. And we started the big green gathering. Oh, yeah. And we, yeah, we started the big green gathering until, and that went on until

00:37:07.480 - 00:37:25.300

2007. 2009, we were going to have the other one, but the police stopped it because basically it was too popular and too successful and making too much money. But that's what, Greenham gave me that confidence so that I could do the radio

00:37:26.800 - 00:37:34.380

and things like that at festivals. Yeah, yeah. Oh, great. So what, so that was your personal

00:37:38.000 - 00:37:50.080

impact. And what do you feel that the, there's a green, you know, what would you say was the Greenham legacy? We're coming up to the 40th, we are on the 40th anniversary this year.

00:37:50.080 - 00:38:03.260

So on a broader scale, what do you see was the impact of Greenham? Very much empowered women. Women saw that they could make a difference. It impacted Gorbachev.

00:38:05.900 - 00:38:20.400

I mean, he actually cited the Greenham women as one of the reasons that, you know, for Glasnost. Hmm. I think we had a huge impact.

00:38:21.620 - 00:38:42.020

I think the peace movement grew hugely from Greenham. We were already large. If you remember that 1981 demo in London, that was huge then. And I think we influence the next generations.

00:38:43.420 - 00:39:07.880

Our children, my son was on the huge anti-Iraq march in London as an adult. I mean, that was a million people. I think it was one of the biggest demos ever in the UK. So I think Greenham had a huge impact and made people realise how insane nuclear weapons

00:39:07.880 - 00:39:25.240

are. We didn't stop them, unfortunately. But we got them after a while, I mean, with Cruise Watch and that, we got them off those vehicles.

00:39:25.800 - 00:39:36.440

They weren't going around the countryside, threatening Russia, you know, after Cruise Watch and that. And that came from Greenham. Hmm.

00:39:38.380 - 00:40:03.020

Yeah. And at that time, there was a huge sort of explosion, really, of peace camps all over the country, you know, like women's ones and mixed ones. Now, I went up to men with a few times, Faslane a few times.

00:40:03.300 - 00:40:26.560

It's a long way to Faslane. And I mean, that hasn't ever really stopped in Scotland, has it? The British imposing the nuclear thing on submarines on Faslane. And I think it is definitely nowadays actually still part of the argument for a lot of Scots

00:40:26.560 - 00:40:41.880

of having independence. Yeah. Yeah, because they've got the space that they don't want. I wonder what will happen if independence happens, because I think it's far more likely

00:40:41.880 - 00:40:50.000

now we've left the EU that Scotland would become independent. I wonder where they'll put them then. I suppose Plymouth. I don't know.

00:40:50.860 - 00:40:59.340

Is it deep enough, Plymouth? I suppose it's got submarines there. Yeah. Well, they might get decommissioned.

00:41:00.260 - 00:41:13.940

That would be brilliant, wouldn't it? I mean, what use are they anyway? We can't use them without permission from the Americans. They go on about sovereignty, that we've got our sovereignty back.

00:41:14.100 - 00:41:24.240

We haven't. We've got bases all over our country still. We have to ask the Americans for permission for everything. Yeah, yeah.

00:41:24.400 - 00:41:42.400

I do rather despair of the young women nowadays because I just think they don't remember what we did. And they don't remember why we did it. They don't seem to have the respect.

00:41:43.880 - 00:41:58.160

You know, they seem to be pandering all the time. I think it's partly because, as per usual, you know, a lot of women's struggles and achievements have been erased. You know, in fact, we're not even being recorded.

00:41:59.760 - 00:42:07.400

You probably read or at least know this magazine. I know about it. Oh, right. Oh, OK.

00:42:07.480 - 00:42:22.700

Well, I subscribe to it. So I've just had the new, it only comes out a couple of times. I always used to buy it at the Green Gathering, actually. And this issue, I got it this week in the post.

00:42:22.800 - 00:42:38.840

So I'm just working my way through it. And it's in the sort of news brief on the first few pages. It's called Twyford Rising. And it's partly a review and a promotion of a book.

00:42:39.380 - 00:42:51.600

It starts off 28 years after the event of the Twyford bypass. You know, it's at Winchester. I mean, it's very much our neck of the woods. And I went along to the Twyford thing for a few days out.

00:42:52.940 - 00:43:06.140

But 28 years after the event, we have a book recounting the story of the direct action campaign against the M3 motorway cutting a motorway cutting at Twyford down. This was the first. Listen to this.

00:43:06.640 - 00:43:26.100

This was the first time environmental direct action on this scale had been taken up in the UK and inspired many similar campaigns in the UK and abroad. Well, I mean, it's ludicrous to say there was no environmental protests because I mean, they could say that Greenham was a peace protest,

00:43:26.100 - 00:43:49.200

but there was all the women that that were doing things anti-nuclear stuff for nuclear power stations, trying to stop them being built. There was people like Brig doing the Sizewell inquiry about Sizewell B. There was loads of there was loads of environmental demos.

00:43:49.920 - 00:44:07.140

Yeah, and it was and Greenham was was so much about direct action. I think we well, we probably didn't, but we really modernized the concept of lock ons. Yes. And and also for me, it was an environmental

00:44:07.820 - 00:44:26.500

protest because it's actually about reclaiming the common. For me, it wasn't just about nuclear weapons, nuclear war, America finger on the bottom. It was about reclaiming the common. You know, and I think, again, like what documentation there is in the mainstream,

00:44:29.080 - 00:44:42.160

it reiterates that it was an anti-nuclear, anti-war thing. And for me, it wasn't just about that. It was very much about reclaiming common land. And if that isn't an environmental issue, I don't know what is.

00:44:43.160 - 00:44:57.660

Well, nuclear fallout is pretty much an environmental issue. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is there anything else you want to add? I'm doing too much talking now.

00:44:57.780 - 00:45:03.580

It's your turn. No, you're not. It's good. Trying to think.

00:45:04.820 - 00:45:21.740

There's so many things when you start thinking. That's a trouble. Yeah, it's nice to just hear little antidotes, like the thing about your friend being accident prone and then she sets fire to her bandage on her foot

00:45:21.740 - 00:45:45.320

when she's warming up and the hedgehog in the Wellington. And I remember at Burfield, we were looking for somewhere to camp. In the end, a farmer let us use a little area to camp in. But at one time, we were looking for somewhere to camp and we thought we'd found a spot.

00:45:45.580 - 00:46:02.320

And these men turned up with rifles. And they were kind of, I don't know what it's called when they undo the rifle, put it back together again, point it and things. It was just being very quiet and very threatening.

00:46:03.620 - 00:46:14.540

Yeah. I remember that. I remember we made a cup of tea. And I remember another time at Boscombe Down, which, of course, they had the F-111s out.

00:46:15.580 - 00:46:45.640

And when I was just finished working for Dorset Peace Council. And I went up to visit the peace camp that started at Boscombe. And we actually knew the Modplods fairly well because they were there all the time. And a busload of people that had been,

00:46:47.480 - 00:47:05.060

they were a load of people that were to do with Stonehenge Festival, came along, tore the fence down and threw stones at the police. And we were not at all happy about this. And then the riot police came.

00:47:06.480 - 00:47:23.000

So I said, I think I'll put the kettle on. So we put the, there was all this mayhem. We put the kettle on. These blokes got back in their bus and the riot police got back in their bus

00:47:24.120 - 00:47:48.820

and chased these blokes in their bus. And I think they left one person behind because I took a cup of tea over to the MOD policeman. It was obviously, he was obviously a bit shaken up. And this bloke that had been left behind swore at me and said I was a traitor and that.

00:47:49.720 - 00:48:03.280

And basically I told him to fuck off. You know, that he wasn't wanted there because we were non-violent. And you don't throw stones at people just for their job. Hmm.

00:48:05.020 - 00:48:23.180

You respect everybody, even if you don't agree with them. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, it was interesting because we're both kind of in those worlds.

00:48:24.080 - 00:48:39.440

There's kind of overlap between the travellers and festivals and peace movement. There has been right from the beginning. So did you take your children to Greenham?

00:48:39.780 - 00:48:50.600

Were they too little? They visited a few times. But of course, when I was there in the winter, it was far too cold, really. Yeah.

00:48:51.840 - 00:49:07.280

I went back to them. They visited Burfield as well, but I couldn't expect them to sleep in a plastic bag. Yeah, they did visit. I don't know.

00:49:07.360 - 00:49:20.840

I don't know how good or bad it was for them. I think it was bad in some ways because I think they really missed me. And yeah, that wasn't good for them. They seem to be very resilient.

00:49:23.020 - 00:49:41.300

Yeah. Yeah, they are pretty anti-war and that. As a result, I don't think I think that I don't think I think I was too young. Really, to have children.

00:49:41.720 - 00:50:03.160

So I think I didn't think of them enough. I think I was desperate not to be a housewife. I think a lot of women that came to Greenham were like that. I think a lot of Greenham women were incredibly bored with how I mean,

00:50:03.640 - 00:50:24.240

how we'd been brought up to be. And we had to escape it. Yeah. Yes, I don't these roles that we were pushed into and kind of conditioned to.

00:50:26.020 - 00:50:58.080

I think I think that's another result of Greenham is that and feminism is that we managed to to a certain extent get out of those roles and become a lot stronger. So whatever's happening now, I don't know. I mean, what I don't like nowadays is the emphasis on looks and women being sex objects

00:51:00.000 - 00:51:14.640

and, you know, people having female singers on the telly having to be half naked all the bloody time in order to be famous. Yeah. You know, this is what this is part of the thing we were fighting against.

00:51:14.640 - 00:51:40.740

It's being constantly seen as sex objects rather than as strong, intelligent human beings. Yeah, because we are sexual beings. But I don't know. The whole thing about appearance and makeup and all that kind of bollocks.

00:51:42.040 - 00:51:56.280

I think that I very much. Yeah. Ante it. I was having a chat the other day with someone and I was talking about Greenham and I said

00:51:56.280 - 00:52:08.160

I said we were deconstructing the fashion industry. Yes. The fashion started, people started to copy us. Yeah.

00:52:09.720 - 00:52:30.840

We didn't have that terminology, but actually, that was one of the things we were doing. We were quite, you know, chopping up clothes and painting on them and stitching banners on them and everything was definitely we were we were an antithesis to the fashion industry that I think very much overlaps what you what you've just been

00:52:30.840 - 00:52:48.440

talking about the pressure on looks now. And a lot of it was to keep warm. I remember going to the charity shop in Newbury and getting you. I couldn't I couldn't find ladies long johns.

00:52:48.460 - 00:53:17.080

I found these men's long johns, but also this strange garment which went. Like all in one and was like shorts and had a flap underneath so that you could go for a pee. So I wore both and a wooly dress and trousers and leg warmers and two pairs of socks.

00:53:18.440 - 00:53:34.740

I mean, it was really, really cold that winter. Really, really cold. But we were I mean, we were lucky because at least we had teepees and caravans. When the eviction happened, women were reduced to kind of basically

00:53:37.960 - 00:53:50.320

tarps and benders, weren't they? Yeah. I mean, what happened with you? Were you were you were you one of the tarp and bend a lot or?

00:53:50.940 - 00:54:06.500

Well, I when when there was sort of daily evictions, I started going up one weekend a month I was working in Exeter Women's Centre. So I could get one when we cut a month off and go and stay at Blue Gate. And that was my.

00:54:07.940 - 00:54:25.160

Well, it was plastic sheeting. We just put a long piece on the on the railings every night and all bundled in together. You know, it was was I don't know when that was that 85 probably. But then I got a truck because I just thought I'm not I can't do this.

00:54:26.980 - 00:54:39.220

And I can't keep doing this. And also, we didn't really have that many vehicles either. People didn't women didn't own cars very much. I mean, there were you know, there were sort of more middle class

00:54:39.220 - 00:54:54.040

women that had had access to a car or something. But mostly we were really short of transport, weren't we? I wouldn't like my daughter to do what I did because I hitched backwards and forwards from Greenham on my own.

00:54:54.680 - 00:55:16.100

I did have a couple of lucky escapes, but I really wouldn't want my daughter doing it. I did have a difficult situation with a lorry driver who was Irish, who stopped in a layby. But luckily, he noticed my wedding ring and for some weird reason, maybe it was a Catholic.

00:55:16.280 - 00:55:30.400

I don't know what, you know, and I told him about my children and everything and he desisted. Yeah, yeah, escaped, basically. That did put me off. Yeah.

00:55:33.060 - 00:55:48.140

Luckily, in cars, they didn't in those days have central locking systems either in cars, which was helpful. Yeah, you always knew you could open the door. Yeah, you could get out of the traffic lights and that.

00:55:48.980 - 00:55:58.000

So you must have did you have those conversations when you were hitching about, oh, I'm going to Greenham Common, you know, what do you think about the peace movement? Did you have those?

00:55:58.380 - 00:56:18.260

Occasionally, in fact, I did have conversations with army people. Because, of course, Salisbury was very much an army town. Yeah. I remember we camped outside the Guildhall in the centre of Salisbury once and

00:56:20.400 - 00:56:42.540

we were sleeping on the steps and all of a sudden there was this vast influx of soldiers, all drunk, who had apparently been to a football match and they wanted to kiss us good night, which wasn't terribly pleasant. But we were just polite to them.

00:56:42.980 - 00:56:57.680

And then the military police came. It was amazing. They just they saw the military police and they were just like conditioned. They were, you know, I mean, they were instantly obedient.

00:56:58.700 - 00:57:20.720

There was just one left asleep on a bench all night. It's very much to do with conditioning a lot of the army, I think. And I met an army officer when I was hitching and I talked to him about he said that he was anti-nuclear weapons.

00:57:21.000 - 00:57:43.280

He said, I've been trained to go forward and take and occupy land. And you can't do that if it's radioactive. So that was very interesting. So there were people in the military that were anti-nuclear weapons as well.

00:57:43.280 - 00:58:02.960

Hmm. And I remember we went to visit with my first husband, went to visit Hayford. Oh, yeah, we stayed the night and in the middle of the night we were sitting. I think it was in a dome or a bender.

00:58:05.700 - 00:58:17.560

And this. Oh, that was it. This. Somebody had shot Molotov cocktail, well, paraffin things with a fuse at the camp.

00:58:18.620 - 00:58:43.180

And we got up and went in the bender to be all together. And this American came along very drunk and came in with us and burst into tears. And he told us how he'd been at Woodstock. And how how was he now hanging bombs on airplanes?

00:58:44.280 - 00:58:56.200

Yeah. And that and basically passed out and went to sleep. Then the police came. So we sat, we all sat in front of him.

00:58:57.120 - 00:59:13.980

People from the camp said that the police wouldn't see him. And we told the police what had happened. And that we suspected it was drunks to do with the base. And they were given the, you know, the thing with the wicking and everything.

00:59:14.440 - 00:59:31.120

And they went away. It's weird, we've also felt like we had to protect him, even though he was probably involved with some of the violence, because he was clearly really confused about what he was doing.

00:59:31.920 - 00:59:44.280

Yeah. And that was the only way you could get a job or an education for some people, or health insurance for Americans. Yeah.

00:59:44.540 - 01:00:06.600

I remember much earlier that in the 70s, we had a friend that was basically staying with us who was on the run from the army. He did get caught in the end and put in army prison. But he was on the run because he'd been recruited in Newcastle.

01:00:08.820 - 01:00:26.560

And very poor working class bloke. And he found himself in Northern Ireland and realised that he'd have to, you know, that somebody could be waiting to kill him as he walked down the road with his gun.

01:00:26.920 - 01:00:43.080

And that he might have to kill them first. And he deserted. I think a lot of people, they're recruited when they're very young and they don't really understand.

01:00:44.380 - 01:00:51.920

They see things in films and that with all these heroes and that, they don't really understand the reality of it till it hits them.