00:00:00.000 - 00:00:27.540

If you could just give me a little bit of background about life before you arrived at Greenham Common in 1989. Yes it was yeah so I was 18 in 1989 so I hadn't really got going on my life before I went to Greenham. I'd just done the usual things going to school, sitting exams and then wondering what to do next. I obviously grew up at the height of the Cold War when the world seemed

00:00:27.540 - 00:00:54.760

like quite a scary and insane place with two of the world's superpowers threatening to destroy each other. Did you personally feel, not terror, but were you afraid there would be a nuclear holocaust that it was imminent? My thing really was I didn't feel an immediate sense of danger but I very strongly felt I don't want people from another country to perceive that I'm part

00:00:54.760 - 00:01:19.040

of something that's threatening their existence. Obviously we got the western perspective which very much portrayed us as we are the strong guys and yeah that wasn't something that appealed to me to make people elsewhere that I hadn't met feel under threat and I imagined that they would be feeling scared and that's something I didn't like. Did you have any involvement with peace

00:01:19.040 - 00:01:45.340

movements at all either by sort of being aware of them or a member of CND anything like that? No mainly because they weren't immediately visible to my little humdrum everyday life so but it was it was very much an ambition of something that I wanted to do. I wanted to seek out groups that were doing something and that were being very effective. So how did you

00:01:45.340 - 00:02:13.600

find out about Greenham? I had a couple of friends who somehow or other had picked up newsletters so we just decided to go along and see what was happening at the camps. And what made you decide to live at Yellowgate? Well the first time we visited we just went up for the day and we then said we would come back for the Hiroshima day actions which

00:02:13.600 - 00:02:43.400

happened every year and were a big focus of the camp. So we arrived just before Hiroshima day in 1989 and as we arrived we found the road outside the camp was blocked off there was lots of police and an ambulance arrived on the scene and that was maybe half an hour before a Welsh woman called Helen Thomas had been killed by a West Midlands police horse box.

00:02:44.480 - 00:03:11.060

So we became very involved in supporting the women and Helen's family who the police tried to separate from the women but Helen's mum was very clear that she wanted to meet the women that had been working with her daughter and just the whole intensity of the incredible grief and the unpleasant dishonest way in which the police described their involvement in Helen's

00:03:11.060 - 00:03:36.600

death. How did they describe their involvement? Well of course being the police and Helen being identified not as a woman in her own right but as a lump with the Green and women they blamed Helen and said she was dancing in the road which she wasn't she was just waiting to post a letter waiting for the traffic to clear. Did she live at Yellowgate? Yes she did, yes she did. She hadn't

00:03:36.600 - 00:04:04.760

been living there very long at that stage I think but it was around about a year. So what did Helen's parents say about the police involvement the involvement of the military personnel who actually witnessed it other than the Green and women and obviously the person who knocked her over? Well I suppose those they were the two main witnesses obviously

00:04:04.760 - 00:04:35.520

with very very conflicting descriptions although one of the policemen PC Conway he resigned from the police because of the way that he saw other police officers describing what happened. Did he do that at the time or later on? A few months afterwards yeah. And what were the conflicts in witness statements and things do you know? Well yes the main conflict was the police said that

00:04:35.520 - 00:05:04.660

Helen was in the road that she was dancing trying to portray her as irresponsible and careless whereas women saw that she was waiting to go and post a letter. There was a postbox just opposite the road and there was a kind of island in two parts so there was a hatched section where Helen was waiting. Was it witnessed by army personnel British army personnel?

00:05:05.720 - 00:05:34.860

No so yeah because of the geography of the base the military personnel were all within the fence and they wouldn't have had sight of what was going on. And what happened at the inquest later on which would have been a few months later? Yes well obviously women very much challenged the statements of the police but the eventual verdict was accidental death and there

00:05:34.860 - 00:06:01.480

was I think what we really wanted was an apology some accountability for the police and some honesty in that what probably happened was that the wing mirror clipped Helen's head and then she got dragged under but those things we never got. So they weren't accounted for at all? No no. Interesting. And did her parents take the matter on further after that?

00:06:01.680 - 00:06:26.060

No no they weren't they they were very dignified. Yeah but I'm amazingly strong and as I say very very dignified they had a lot of support from their community as well but they they felt that that wasn't something that they wanted to pursue although they felt they hadn't got the apology that they needed and the honest account of what

00:06:26.060 - 00:06:57.640

happened they decided that wasn't something that they wanted to pursue. How did the women at Greenham remember Helen? Oh she she was always in our thoughts she was always somebody that we spoke about whenever the media or other women came to visit the camp and we built very strong relationships with groups in Wales and in fact I think two women when the camp closed down moved

00:06:58.400 - 00:07:24.240

to live in Wales because of the strength of contact. So there was the Caer Cochleon Caer Deed which I think is the red choir of Cardiff they came down to support a lot whenever women were in court or doing big actions over Hiroshima and Nagasaki Day and also in December which was the anniversary of when the camp was set up. And any other groups

00:07:24.240 - 00:07:52.440

which are just the choir ones? Several peace groups probably mainly based around Cardiff. That's where Helen was from? No she came from a little village called Newcastle Emlyn. Have you heard of that? I walked up from Wales. Oh okay yeah. Oh god tragic for her parents I wonder they're probably not alive now are they? They could be they had strong Welsh people Helen

00:07:52.440 - 00:08:22.420

was 23 at the time yeah so she would yeah if they are alive they'll be very very elderly. And how long had she been at the camp for? So I think she'd been living there for about a year but very involved before that and as a student and somebody working with women's aid she was very politically active before that and was part of a group that tried to stop Viraj Mendes who

00:08:22.420 - 00:08:52.540

was a can't remember where you can Indian asylum seeker maybe seeking refuge in Manchester that home office were trying very hard to get rid of and eventually succeeded but Helen and a group of her friends tried to stop the plane taking off when he was being removed. And did the women make any physical memorial? Yes yes because nowadays everyone puts flowers yeah yeah. What did they do?

00:08:52.700 - 00:09:24.980

Well the site of the peace camp outside the main gate which is where Yellowgate was the there is now a more memorial to the peace camp as a whole and as part of that there is there's a memorial garden to Helen. In her name? Yeah yeah yeah and there's a board that explains about her life and how she was killed. It's interesting the policeman resigned. Yes yeah yeah yeah yeah he he he didn't

00:09:24.980 - 00:09:52.920

want to be part of an organisation that um treated a treated people's lives like that and then b wasn't honest about it and he said there was an orchestrated um attempt to get all the statements to collaborate which he didn't want to do. Which was done by the police? Yeah and yeah no one else was involved. Poor Helen such a young girl as well it's just horrible.

00:09:54.460 - 00:10:24.560

Um how many women were living at Yellowgate roughly when you arrived? Um it was a small group um fluctuating between maybe about six or eight full-time women and then other time other women coming in on lengthy part-time basis and then other people kind of dropping in and out but when I was there it was it was very much it was 1989 so that's very much um when the media

00:10:24.560 - 00:10:51.300

spotlight was not on the camp at all and most people thought the problem of nuclear missiles had been solved and done and dusted and sadly even today it's you know it's something that I think we should all be thinking about and we'll be trying to do something about. Well it's very relevant in terms of Trump and yeah yeah yeah India and Pakistan especially Russia.

00:10:56.000 - 00:11:23.840

So um just so I'm clear in my mind did you live permanently at Yellowgate or were you always going in and out? So for four years I was part-time kind of I would say 50-50 part-time while I was studying and then spending a year in France but from 1993 onwards yes I was full-time so I lived there for full-time for four years. That's a long time were you in a bender?

00:11:23.840 - 00:11:51.500

Um by then the evictions which were very violent and very frequent in the early days um that was in military terms I think you would probably call that a war of attrition which the women won so the um the evictions were not so frequent um and by then we had bought a piece of land um which was in our name largely through a donation from Yoko Ono as well as

00:11:51.500 - 00:12:17.880

others um so we established first of all teepees on that bit of land and then a mobile home um and then we had caravans um outside the main gate which could be moved if necessary so yeah the the um structures are though not ideal they were much more substantial than just the tents and vendors in which women lived for years. And the other gates they were still in operation when you

00:12:17.880 - 00:12:52.980

were there Violet Gate? Only occasionally but not full-time. No one fought to get in there? No Yellowgate was the only full-time yeah yeah. So what sort of women were there when you arrived? Young, old? Well a mixture young, old, international, Scottish, English, um several women who'd been there from 1983 onwards one woman who'd been there pretty much

00:12:52.980 - 00:13:22.540

from the start who was um by then she would be maybe early 30s early to mid 30s. Was Sarah Hepperson? Yes yes yeah yeah yeah yeah I suppose you didn't get a chance to interview her before she died? No but I listened to the Imperial War Museum. Oh yes yeah yeah tape and you can it's open access yeah so I listened to that online which is fascinating um she was

00:13:22.540 - 00:13:49.160

a very clear thinker. Yes yeah yeah yeah yes and obviously being a working-class Scottish woman she had a very strong oral tradition so yes very very easy to listen to with her very clear thoughts. Yeah yeah so so there was her and I don't know if you did you listen to the other woman from Yellowgate who's called Onika Jones? No I didn't listen to her but she is available

00:13:49.160 - 00:14:22.280

again I think oh no actually yes I think I did yeah yeah I have to go and listen to her yeah and Katrina? Katrina has no I didn't listen to hers um largely because there were masses and yes yeah okay to run out of time yeah but um yeah so Sarah died last November yeah um and Helen Jones died not so long yeah as well yeah the international women excuse me um where did they

00:14:22.280 - 00:14:56.080

come from what countries were there any particular countries that seemed to come from or was it just um so there were um we had strong links with um a Canadian woman who um knew another Scottish Canadian woman um women in Japan there was ongoing contact with women in Japan obviously over the Hiroshima Nagasaki issue and I think possibly when women went to prison they would

00:14:56.080 - 00:15:25.360

meet women international women in prison as well so it was very much part of our focus that it was it was a worldwide movement to defeat nuclear weapons in all countries. Did those international women um bring anything particular or different? Fantastic resistance songs um so we really fought um the world's one of the world's biggest nuclear armies with just ourselves the air that we breathe

00:15:25.360 - 00:15:53.740

the fire that we cooked our food on and amazing songs um so yes they they they very much brought their own perspective they they brought um their solidarity and I think part of the psychology that makes nuclear weapons exist is because if you don't have a concept of what other people are like and what their countries come from um it kind of makes it much easier to dehumanize people

00:15:53.740 - 00:16:23.240

and undermine the value of their existence so I think psychologically it was very important to make contact with um women who were either in struggle in their own countries or were threatened by nuclear weapons um so and also we um had a lot of contact with Irish women and we supported yeah we supported the um women in Northern Ireland who at that time were working against

00:16:23.240 - 00:16:49.940

the military in Northern Ireland. Did you go on any trips overseas yourself? I personally didn't but other women did um and there was an Irish woman called Margaret Darcy who um is married or was married to the playwright John Arden um and they together they did many um anti-colonial plays and she was fantastic for bringing drama and music um to the camp which we incorporated

00:16:49.940 - 00:17:15.540

that into our resistance we would do um circus routines in front of the main gate while the nuclear convoy was coming out which obviously it stopped the nuclear convoy but it also is very good for keeping your spirits up and it was it was a humorous playful way to defeat yes defeat the military yeah and singing did you sing to the soldiers the other side of the line

00:17:16.280 - 00:17:44.300

well we weren't so much singing to the soldiers we were mainly singing for ourselves yes I did I have a really terrible voice so um I would offer to sing some of the songs but I won't because my voice is so terrible no it's fine but it's um yes singing was a vital part a of keeping your spirits up but also again it's a psychological thing to change the dynamic of

00:17:44.300 - 00:18:11.000

tension when you're faced with a big organization lots of men in uniform in front of something that has the power to destroy the world um singing was a another subtle way of undermining their power and saying we're on some level whatever it is we're not frightened by you uh and you don't have the right to threaten our lives though you're being paid to do that and everything's set up

00:18:11.560 - 00:18:40.120

um for you to do that morally nobody has the right to do that do you remember any of the lyrics of those songs I do yes would you say some um the the one that really I think is associated with Greenham is you can't kill the spirit she is like a mountain old and strong she goes on and on and who came up with that was that just a sort of joint decision by everyone

00:18:40.920 - 00:19:05.260

I don't know it's entirely possible that it predates Greenham but it's you know it's something that um we took up and used um on every non-violent direct action that we did um yeah I keep meaning to look up um the history of that song and I might have done at some stage yes yeah yeah yeah

00:19:07.220 - 00:19:40.920

so contact with the other side of the wire um was there much other than when the convoys came out or did you um nice faces and sort of get to know people in any way at all so I think we tried to um our relationship we they were there to do a job of work we were there to do a job of work sometimes the um MOD police and soldiers would be violent towards women um so there was a guy

00:19:40.920 - 00:20:08.600

um I can't remember his name and I think it was probably before the time that I went to the camp um he was known as Thumper because um when women were arrested on the base and there were porter cabins for them to be protest um processed he um he hit women in the chest before being interviewed so um yeah all um all sorts of physical violence um and the bailiffs

00:20:08.600 - 00:20:39.020

as well they would um be violent towards women did you experience any particular um violence no no apart from the worst form of violence that um of Helen being killed and her death being lied about um the women who were hit by for example Thumper did they ever try and take it on and make a formal complaint to the base of course of course yes yeah and um there were other

00:20:39.020 - 00:21:07.140

instances where um the squaddies not necessarily coming directly from the base but say on a night out would come to the camp and um not directly attack the women but just do things like urinate on tents chuck things around um shout and kind of throw their weight around it was always um an uphill struggle to get the police to do anything about that and frequently we had to do

00:21:07.140 - 00:21:35.640

things like occupy the sentry box that was outside the main gate so that um people would come and investigate and obviously the investigations were very cursory and strangely found that nobody ever did anything wrong or violent um i do think there has been a slight shift in police accountability since the Macpherson report but um that's not to say that police still don't treat protesters

00:21:35.640 - 00:22:00.860

like that and in fact i they very much do on the recent student loans demonstrations and um anti-fracking camps i think activists have come in for the same level of treatment um i've lost my line of thought um oh yeah um you were saying those um there was sort of bad behavior um aggressive behavior by the squatters did the locals

00:22:01.500 - 00:22:29.700

control yes yes they also thought it would be a good idea to join in on um the bad behavior just i think any minority maybe men oh yeah yeah yeah definitely some some women would occasionally scream um as they drove past from their cars but it you know goodness knows what they were saying they they weren't all in favor of us but yes i think it's just that thing about you're a vulnerable

00:22:29.700 - 00:22:56.680

marginalized group that the press some sections of the press think that they can have a go at the some people think that that means it's open season for um abusing you and kind of taking out all their regression and do you think factual women had anything to do with that yes yes yes there's the misogyny thing as well which seems to lurk just below the surface

00:22:56.680 - 00:23:22.960

mm-hmm and when you went into town to presumably go shopping or whatever pick up supplies what was the atmosphere like then and did it change over the time because you were there a long time yes so i i think i think probably the main change was from say 1981 when the first when the camp was first set up um probably until the mid 80s i would imagine on the whole people's

00:23:22.960 - 00:23:55.740

will to um kind of have any energy for reacting adversely to the presence of women in Newbury had probably ran out by then so going into town yes not a problem at all and um the cafe by the station the empire cafe in particular was very supportive and very welcoming for us and that was very much a haven yeah um did you know someone um maybe she was a canadian-american someone

00:23:55.740 - 00:24:30.020

called janet tavner no she wasn't um canadian-american she um she got removed yeah she's a swedish woman yeah so absolutely yes i was there when she got taken from Salisbury plain um nobody would tell us anything so were you on an action yes yes yes um okay so there's a village in Salisbury plain called imber which was taken during the second

00:24:30.020 - 00:24:58.940

world war and the villagers were told you'll get your village back either um at the end of the war or by some date i can't remember whichever comes first you'll get your village back but they never got it back um and it was used as um one of the places where the cruise convoy was exercised and it was also used for um training soldiers in how to fight um with civilian

00:24:58.940 - 00:25:22.560

populations in particular at that time obviously the population of northern ireland uh was in mind so we would frequently go probably as part of the hiroshima and nagasaki day actions but also i think on the anniversary of when the village was taken we went to open up the church to put flowers in there um and we would sleep in the church so i think it was on one of those actions

00:25:22.560 - 00:25:54.440

we we were all arrested one by one women were released from the police station who arrested yeah um obviously there aren't people there all the time but um i think in the morning somebody comes to check on the village and at that point they found us so um and then we went to Salisbury police station because that's the nearest processing center so one by one women were released

00:25:54.440 - 00:26:24.880

but janet wasn't so um one of the women onica jones she went around the back of the police station banging on all the windows and shouting for janet um saying what are you in for um and janet told us then that that was um immigration so she was held for some weeks in puckle church removal center um and removed uh she was it she was removed on the wrong basis and we that was

00:26:24.880 - 00:26:56.740

another case that we fought and won um she was removed for not having a valid visa which um was incorrect um and she after she was removed she did come back and support the camp while it was still in existence yeah yeah yeah yeah well first of all she had to go via ireland and then sweden joined the eu i can't remember when um probably possibly

00:26:56.740 - 00:27:26.780

90 91 or something like that and then yeah to come back no problem yeah so i'm i'm i still go and visit her a lot of the weather i'll be allowed to do that after brexit who knows i think the world has gone crazy at the moment it was ever thus it was ever thus um just going back to janet tavner was there a vigil that he threw there was yes yeah

00:27:28.000 - 00:28:00.840

well no we we wanted to yes yeah yeah we we actually got right up um we one of the women in fact the woman who went round to the police cells and found out elmica jones yes yeah um she got right up to the last security gate um and said she would have got on the plane only she got janet's name wrong but yes i was very much um part of that vigil which wanted to oppose

00:28:00.840 - 00:28:28.900

her being removed from the uk yeah and how did the police treat you at the airport that day um they weren't they weren't really phased by it i mean you know there was it was just a small group of us on our you know we very smartly dressed very polite very presentable i guess those police are kind of used to dealing with the public in a public place so that slightly changes

00:28:28.900 - 00:29:01.940

the dynamic yeah the other thing um about that particular episode was um is it true that um people felt they were being watched by the authorities people were obviously living outside the camp it's hard yeah well people at greenham who went to um see her off at heathrow airport um and supported her i read somewhere um that someone thought that their movements

00:29:01.940 - 00:29:35.820

were being watched that you weren't aware of well by that stage i was probably i wasn't quite living at the camp full time but i you know that i never thought it unsurprising that the state might somehow be monitoring what we were up to so it's hard to distinguish but you didn't feel any particular no no um what kept you going until 1997 um

00:29:41.420 - 00:30:10.200

determination i suppose i mean it um i said it's hard to explain in a simple sentence i love the smell of wood smoke i love nature i hate nuclear weapons women seem to be very effective at fighting nuclear weapons it seemed to be a never-ending struggle um i i liked meeting women from all over the uk i liked

00:30:10.200 - 00:30:42.800

knowing that my everyday actions were centered around non-violence um and against the nuclear state and there's always something to learn always something to do um so i start to sort of tail off a bit well okay so it's a very um intense situation and by the time i left it was 1997 so there was a smaller group living there full time under

00:30:42.800 - 00:31:11.920

immense pressure um not many new women knew that the camp was there so we didn't get as much support as we did which means the work is much harder um and i suppose the energy started to run out yeah eight years is a considerable time yeah yeah how many were left behind when you i think yellow gate closed in 2001

00:31:14.320 - 00:31:41.500

yes yeah yeah so the the last people the last women there were really sarah hipperson katrina house jean hutchinson who was instrumental in fighting the bylaws um she took out a case against the secretary of state michael heseltine and the house of lords in 1989 found that the bylaws which allowed the military to occupy the

00:31:41.500 - 00:32:13.720

were unlawful um her and another elderly scottish woman called peggy wolford who had made many trips to the soviet union and had actually been thrown out of the soviet union for opposing soviet weapons um so it was really those four i think yeah and how did you organize yourself at yellow gates there weren't that many of you did you discuss in huge detail any actions you

00:32:13.720 - 00:32:49.180

were going to take how did that all work well by then no you didn't need to discuss it in much detail obviously um the nuclear missiles the cruise missiles on the common would have left maybe something mid 90s maybe anyway it was a gradual phasing out um so there would be actions to make sure that the land really did go back to for use for people peaceful purposes

00:32:49.740 - 00:33:25.000

what sort of actions would they be um well the the uh the police occupied one of the buildings and were they tried to carry out exercises um to deal with um people protesting so we would disrupt those exercises inside yes yeah in one of the few buildings that was up the main street coming from the main gate um we had meetings with newbury district council um to make sure that it

00:33:25.000 - 00:33:56.120

did go back to common land and we were discussing having a museum on the common but newbury district council's conditions for that were that the camp should close so we said don't worry it's okay we'll do our own museum um meanwhile down the road aldermaston and burfield um they were stepping up production of the trident um nuclear missile system and every month there um there would be a

00:33:56.120 - 00:34:25.820

new bunch of warheads that were being transported by road um up to faz lane in scotland so we we would try as hard as possible to disrupt those um that transportation and also how did you do that well we would um we would watch the base um and there were certain signs when the missiles were due to be taken up there'll be certain vehicles lining up so then it's just

00:34:25.820 - 00:34:54.240

a question of going back each day um finding out when they're going out and then when they are leaving the base we would um follow them by car yeah yeah um and when they stopped off at various bases on the way which would be marum and wittering then we would um disrupt them there as well and we would go into those bases and say um take the weapons away we're here to stop you

00:34:54.240 - 00:35:26.820

getting those weapons into a state where you can use them and on one occasion um i think it was raf marum or wittering there was a soldier who pointed his gun at women and said stop stop stop or i'll shoot um and we asked we went up to the houses of parliament the next day i think um and ken livingston to ask a question in parliament about that the mp clive solely yes so clive solely

00:35:26.820 - 00:36:04.820

was involved in um the eternal battle for press accountability and press responsibility so he set up an organization um called press wise which was for people who'd been um subject to incorrect slanderous um libelous press treatment um and uh we had many much experience of that most notably though was an article that i think a subsidiary of the mail wrote about a woman living at the

00:36:04.820 - 00:36:35.180

camp calling her um common scrounger um because as part of her income as well as being a self-employed artist she claimed job seeker's allowance um and she fought a successful successful libel action against did you have to go up to the high court yes yeah yes she did yeah um and she also have the legal knowledge and the cash to pursue that so there never has been any legal aid for a libel

00:36:35.180 - 00:37:07.360

action in those days it seemed quite shocking that there wasn't legal aid available nowadays there's never legal aid or hardly legal aid for anything sadly um well she had lived at the camp since 1981 been fighting court cases on a weekly monthly basis so um she didn't have all the legal knowledge necessary but she knew the right places to go and look um i think in essence it's probably

00:37:07.360 - 00:37:39.620

not that complicated you just need the confidence um to take a case the time to spend um documenting everything and the ability to string a coherent legal argument together all of those which she had many years practice in doing what other media organizations were taken to court you know how it was no none were actually taken to court uh we we made several complaints um to various

00:37:39.620 - 00:38:17.240

organizations who we thought hadn't represented us fairly um generally how were they representing you well it's a subtle thing isn't it the way that somebody is represented um um so i think on the whole probably fairly quite fairly there might have been i i think there were some women felt that um our experience wasn't fully represented um and the obviously

00:38:17.240 - 00:38:43.760

interviews would be truncated to focus mainly on the personal women's personal lives rather than what we wanted to talk about the overall politics so yeah i don't i don't really know what to say about the way that we were represented some some people um wrote really good articles there was one um by a guy called cole morton who i don't know if he's still writing but he wrote

00:38:43.760 - 00:39:18.300

quite a good piece in the independent um but mainly by 1989 and the mid-90s people seemed to be fairly bored was there a difference between the tabloid press and the broadsheets very yes yes yeah very um so the the tabloids were really going for the um kind of abusive belittling misogynistic kind of representation of what women were up to um and the whole concept of people non-violently

00:39:18.300 - 00:39:44.960

resisting the military um whereas the the the broadsheets would do a kind of cleverer job of belittling us sometimes um but they they would also do a fairer representation well did the tv cameras ever come when you were there they were there at the beginning when all the big you know embrace the base

00:39:44.960 - 00:40:15.780

yes that's right um occasionally yes um but mainly in fact i think exclusively local local tv stations yeah yeah and they would come for they didn't really come for big actions they would come for big anniversaries though um they liked the kind of commemorative let's look back when lots of women were here angle and were you ever arrested

00:40:17.220 - 00:40:48.560

yes yeah on many occasions i was arrested um for what uh so my first arrest was for trespass that was under the military bylaws that we later found unlawful um i was actually de-arrested from that de-arrested as sort of well they made a mistake go home no so well i i had never heard of being de-arrested and strangely enough it's never happened to me since but there was a group

00:40:48.560 - 00:41:16.920

of women and there was a december action we went on to the runway um that cruise missiles would have taken off from had had there been um any reason to use them or or no that was where they were transported in on on the runway so we occupied the runway um a group of it was quite a sizable group i think maybe 12 15 women so they were all everybody else was carted off and the

00:41:16.920 - 00:41:41.100

policeman said to me did anyone tell you you weren't meant to be on the base and i said nobody had to i knew i wasn't meant to be on the base and he said don't any police officers tell you you weren't meant to be on the base and i said uh no and he said well i'm de-arresting you then i've never heard that term before no no no i haven't and as i say never again was he an

00:41:41.100 - 00:42:08.940

mod yes yeah yeah yeah so all the police on the base were mod police um some sometimes when you're arrested on an mod property there will be processing facilities there there are at aldermaston and burfield fairly small but most of the time you're handed over from the mod police to the civilian police um so trespass was my first action and then criminal

00:42:08.940 - 00:42:37.980

damage um i was arrested many times for criminal damage things like cutting the fence at aldermaston and burfield um to get to those wire cutters i'm not the world's quickest i'm not the world's quickest but i i do know how to use them and after i left greenham as well i um did several actions against the um war in iraq and against the build-up to the war in iraq so yes arrested

00:42:37.980 - 00:43:05.500

on many occasions caught for many um court cases obstruction as well that was another um popular charge for kind of that's a blockading kind of charge um and altogether i've done 13 prison sentences i was going to ask you to take me through the process of you you're doing your action and the police come along and they arrest you where did they take where you put in a police

00:43:05.500 - 00:43:36.940

van what what happened immediately after um so if it was if it was a greenham arrest if it wasn't a very big group then we'd be processed on the base if it was a very big group and there weren't the physical facilities to hold us then you'd go to newbury police station uh they yeah in in um first of all they were mini vans and then in the mid 90s um somebody came up with um riot

00:43:36.940 - 00:44:07.580

vans which kind of had separate encapsulated locked horrible cramped cells yes yeah yeah yeah which are meant to be very dangerous if there's any accident as well um all devastan and birfield again smaller groups could be dealt with um in those premises if it was a large group then would go to reading um and either be processed at the police station and

00:44:07.580 - 00:44:39.380

then dealt with either reading magistrates court or reading crown court so we kept themselves overnight to go to court the next day oh no no no no no so so yes yeah most of the time released on bail although in the mid 90s um a couple of women were remanded and i was once remanded from kettering i think on one of the occasions um when we'd gone up to oppose the trident convoys

00:44:39.380 - 00:45:09.960

i was um i think i had a an initial plea hearing which is the first part of the court hearing um and we were used to not standing up for the magistrates to say we don't respect your laws which protect nuclear weapons and not women so i did that at court and gave my anti-aristocracy anti-monarchy habitual speech and i was i was remanded um and i later found out one of the

00:45:09.960 - 00:45:37.920

women who got it came along with me went thanks a lot you put him in really really bad mood and i went he who's who's he she went lord so-and-so the magistrate but i was released um after a week from that when i said yeah fair cop it's all right i was held in holloway in holloway yeah yeah could you tell me something about that and well holloway was the same as it ever was

00:45:37.920 - 00:46:06.240

um but also women were remanded for doing um fairly substantial criminal damage at all to masterton and burfield i think um and when you say fairly substantial quite extensive damage to the fence um that obviously the state puts a monetary value on things um so prison yes it's it's it's a horrible place to be and my abiding memories of

00:46:07.180 - 00:46:38.900

prison is it's just full of women who are very very distraught who have very fragile kind of precarious lives um were they supportive the non-green and the non um action women um some supportive some you know some just have to stick their heads down and get on with surviving day to day and don't really have much energy for um other people or finding

00:46:38.900 - 00:47:12.020

out about you but yes on the whole um very supportive um so when you were taken from court to holloway that was in a prison van yeah yeah yeah claustrophobic yeah yeah um yeah police not always the best at driving but um i suppose the transportation sticks in my mind less um than the actual prison sentence itself i suppose there's a

00:47:12.020 - 00:47:40.920

slight feeling of dread and anxiety on the journey so i don't think i ever did as a whole sentence anything more than two weeks but i did obviously several sentences of a few weeks at a time and depending on when you were sent down because you never did all of your sentence but depending on when you were sent down um you could end up doing a very short sentence if

00:47:40.920 - 00:48:05.300

you were sent down on a tuesday and then the next day for release if it goes over a certain date then you have to be released slightly earlier so sometimes i'd be sent down on a tuesday but actually released on the friday because my the numerical release date would fall over a weekend when when it wasn't prison practice to release people and were you searched when you got to

00:48:06.180 - 00:48:38.640

yes yes no no uniforms yes women were searched and um strip searched as well margareta darcy um led a resistance to being strip searched in the mid-1990s in which case women would be flung into solitary confinement sometimes um yeah so we we were kind of treated in prison by the prison officers more or less the same as all other women and you know prison officers like

00:48:38.640 - 00:49:11.860

anybody else are a mixed bag yeah yeah yeah and how was it when you came out of holloway prison into the sunlight again how did you feel inside well the the first time um it was it was very very strange as disorientating as it is going into prison you feel it i felt a similar disorientation coming out um i remember thinking why isn't anybody doing anything about the kind of

00:49:14.940 - 00:49:43.260

the lack of anything constructive or rehabilitative in prison um and i'd heard several very harrowing stories about women's lives and i do remember thinking it's kind of not right that most people aren't really aware that that's what the women who end up being in prison that their lives are like um but obviously that kind of gradually recedes the more you get

00:49:43.260 - 00:50:12.520

on with your daily life but yes being released was very initially very disorientating and i suppose it's just kind of processing the overall kind of intensity of the experience which takes yeah it takes a lot of emotions no do you still think about it no no not very often no um last convoys of the

00:50:14.060 - 00:50:45.480

missiles at greenham when did they leave i think that would be the early 90s yeah yeah probably around about 92 93 so yes yeah they just slip away and that was it well no no no they they would still even when the um inter-range nuclear forces treaty the inf treaty the one that trump and putin have now gone back on even when that was signed um the

00:50:45.480 - 00:51:18.700

cruise missiles were still being exercised so every time they were exercised they would be opposed um there were also at that time soviet delegations coming in to do inspections so we would meet those as well and say all nuclear weapons about talk to them and exchange any sort um well they they weren't they they weren't really up for that yeah yeah yeah um i i obviously um

00:51:18.700 - 00:51:51.780

the last convoy that left we very much celebrated that um and um it was a gradual process as well as well of removing the security infrastructure around the base um when the police withdrew they took to locking the um the perimeter fence up in the security box at night um and we went in for sawing the chains off and removing the main gate and fully opening up in the common do you think

00:51:51.780 - 00:52:20.980

the women were particularly imaginative of the things because i've heard so many stories and some great putting honey around locks yes yeah yeah we also did things like on Salisbury plain when the um missiles were being exercised we would dress up as sheep and give our names as larry jacobs which yes but it it's a it's a communal imagination i think um did they laugh when they

00:52:20.980 - 00:52:51.580

saw you as sheep and giving your name as larry whatever did they see the absurdity of it all um i think on some level they did i find it hard to imagine that anyone wouldn't um but they they kind of suppressed it because they were in a role where yeah yeah oh gosh any other things like that uh we we wrote a book i don't know have you managed to get hold

00:52:51.580 - 00:53:17.560

of a copy is that the one that has every single action yes it's going through right from the beginning yeah i've learned my copy to someone i think it's the one that you have it's from 1983 to 1994 rose is just getting her book

00:53:24.180 - 00:53:47.640

oh that's the one yeah i've got this because i it's very useful yeah well i found it very useful not in just from sort of chronology it was to see the range of actions yeah that were taken um and the persistence yeah that was required it was um i don't remember those photos in line

00:53:48.940 - 00:54:14.280

i think it's a different edition no there was only ever one edition yeah yeah quite a limited print run which sold out on a book oh okay i thought it um all right where else yeah we're talking about um the international or international women that um from all over the world there um

00:54:15.360 - 00:54:49.640

was there any racism at greenham that you know not necessarily when you were there but uh yes there was um i i think the racism was aligned with um there was a bit of a split in the peace movement about non-alignment uh yellowgate was strongly non-aligned um and very critical of soviet nuclear missiles um and there there was women at yellowgate felt there

00:54:49.640 - 00:55:23.540

was quite a bit of racism towards um a black woman involved at yellowgate called wilmette brown and there was a who was wilmette brown so wilmette brown was working um with the kings cross women's center um and there was a campaign called wages for housework um and um that's that's that was her focus at the time um uh and yes women at the 1987 soviet peace conference there

00:55:24.120 - 00:55:54.180

there was um a verbal racist attack on wilmette which women yeah yeah yeah also i'm not sure if she was she wasn't living at greenham i don't think but she was associated with greenham yeah do you know what form that i mean just a verbal yes yeah yeah yeah yeah it's but it's possibly something that could have been resolved at the time but it wasn't it wasn't it that was 1987

00:55:54.180 - 00:56:32.240

which was obviously before the time that i was involved it did it did well after 1987 um the peace movement um cnd uh the quakers in newbury completely withdrew support for yellowgate no financial support no using of the shower facilities at the quaker meeting house yes yeah but but yeah but um as a whole they withdrew as well after 1987 so yeah yeah so then

00:56:32.240 - 00:57:07.240

we as a camp we very much went it alone yeah gosh so what do you think precisely is um greenham's legacy really for future for now and for future generations um so the immediate legacy is no nuclear weapons um on the common the people of newbury have their common land back um and people outside of newbury can enjoy it as well i gather there are

00:57:07.240 - 00:57:41.840

there's a nature center and ponies grazing on the land um never again i think can a land-based nuclear weapon system be used in the uk because the the essence of um cruise was that it would melt into the countryside nobody would know where it was and it would go all undetected um not so not so um so whatever nuclear weapons there are they i think they can't be land-based

00:57:41.840 - 00:58:15.440

so they would have to be sea based um unfortunately we haven't managed to stop the production of trident um there weren't enough people aware at the time that trident was being produced not enough people felt the same sense of urgency as during the cold war um to make them get up and do something about it um so the next effect i would hope is the huge inspirational effect that a group

00:58:15.440 - 00:58:41.880

of non-violent women fought um the world's probably most powerful superpower at that time and won just through non-violence um if people aren't really mindful of greenham's legacy and what women did how we did it um how we achieved that victory at the moment there may well be another time in history when people do remember i think

00:58:44.440 - 00:59:10.220

history isn't linear it's circular sometimes history and uncovered stories are very much forgotten but then i believe there'll be a time when people are looking for inspiration um and may well come across the story of greenham again people are still aware of greenham or do you think or do you find millennials

00:59:10.220 - 00:59:47.220

know about green are millennials young people so no i i don't think they are aware of it um but i i think the tradition of non-violent direct action very much persists at the anti-fracking camps um definitely carry on in the tradition of greenham and there will be some women who

00:59:47.220 - 01:00:18.880

you say that's one of green's legacies yeah yeah yeah the newbury road protests they were around during the end of the camp as well um so possibly the the awareness of the camp at the moment isn't as much as it used to be um what do you think that is it's part of british history 20th century british history why are these young people

01:00:19.980 - 01:00:54.200

lacking awareness of it well i think it's partly to do with each generation has its own kind of existential threat an existential thing that it has to deal with and come to terms with in the 80s it was the cold war um and now it's very much climate change so i i think the if you're talking about a protest movement or some kind of force for social changes climate change

01:00:56.820 - 01:01:28.360

the question of how to relate to people coming from other poorer parts of the country that um have every right to live here and settle here the refugee kind of question i think that's much more in my in people's minds um the nuclear weapons yes yeah yeah um and it's probably something to do with the way that people's minds having never fully appreciated what greenham was

01:01:28.360 - 01:02:03.800

about and what it did i think probably people see the fact that there aren't nuclear weapons on the common anymore it's also because of reagan and gorbachev so it's a whole mixture of factors but nonetheless the legacy still lives on um and i i think greenham was an internationally recognized movement and um will be so again how do you um inspire these millennials to take part

01:02:03.800 - 01:02:31.640

do you think in more direct action rather than just clicking something on well whatever i don't know i put i probably am not the person to ask about that i have i was very politically engaged for a long time after i left greenham but i think you probably need to um head over to sweden and ask greta tunberg who's the the 16 year old who's kind of kicked off a whole environmental movement

01:02:31.640 - 01:03:01.620

so you are you still pretty old involved in actions against things not at the moment no so after greenham um i um i worked with a charity called bail for immigration detainees which um got people released from immigration removal centers there was one close to portsmouth called hasler um i did that for seven years that's that's no longer the portsmouth office

01:03:01.620 - 01:03:31.620

is no longer going i was very active against the build-up to the iraq war and the iraq war um and then i had a daughter settings but yeah yeah yeah yeah i i did i campaigned for remain during the eu referendum um and i was for a while involved with the labour party after jeremy corbyn

01:03:31.620 - 01:03:59.540

was elected but i'm not quite so active now yeah and what do you think your experiences that green gave you in terms of going forward into those different involvements if anything um oh yeah no they they definitely did give me a lot um probably quite good not necessarily legal training but an understanding of how courts work the kind of

01:03:59.540 - 01:04:29.940

language that you need to use to do a good court case so that was directly useful for when i was preparing and presenting bail applications at immigration courts and obviously i'd had the experience of immigration tribunals with janet when she was removed um an understanding of the way that groups work as well um in terms of the the group you lived with yes yeah yes yeah yeah

01:04:30.680 - 01:04:58.920

um and um an unshakable belief even though i'm not putting that into practice at the moment but an absolutely unshakable belief that individuals when they get together to take on an injustice or um a state authority that they can fight and win excellent and i'm just going to turn that tap yes

01:05:03.180 - 01:05:35.120

torture what do you think we even did for women in a broad sense well interesting question uh some women got careers from the back of the work that they did at greenham um it was an essential part of the women's movement so it gave it gave women a personal sense of empowerment i think um i'm not sure about the whole women thing at the moment there seems to be very much a

01:05:35.120 - 01:06:11.920

backlash against women being strong powerful individuals um i it's given women a very good model for um getting together and speaking out um about um big major political issues um anything else do you tell your daughter about green i don't know how old she is so my daughter's nine yeah we know yes i i can't help myself i i can't stop myself from discussing politics and

01:06:11.920 - 01:06:43.600

kind of um does she ask you the stories though about green no no yes yeah yeah yeah and she knows that i've been to prison um maybe when she's a bit older i'll take her there um but yes i mean my um just on a very um tiny level when when she was very young and asking for pink things i would say why do you have to have pink things and she's known from a very early age that

01:06:43.600 - 01:07:15.300

all colors are for everyone um so but i think i think the way the feminist movement went it did kind of it didn't go down the route of really challenging the way that power structures are set up and who benefits from them and maybe trying to make redistribute things a bit more it kind of went down the route of there were some top jobs to be had why can't some of the women

01:07:15.300 - 01:07:43.120

have those which you know i i guess that's that's a kind of valid yeah but it's not it's very much not the whole story and it's not the route that i wanted to go down either if you could go back yeah that is something i do frequently ask in myself um

01:07:45.560 - 01:08:16.600

i'm gonna have to say no because i had a lot of choices available to me at the time i i did have agency that was green was very much where my heart was at and even though it was hard and leaving the camp was hard i think i would still do it again yeah yeah definitely what was i mean there were so few of you living at the gates could you have not lived there and still achieved

01:08:17.200 - 01:08:43.720

no no no so place was absolutely absolute not just place but structuring your daily life around um non-violent resistance it's very hard to do that that's why the um occupy movement i think was so successful and generated such an energy because you're it's not just the same place it's like well we're yes we're all in the same place but there's nothing else to do so

01:08:43.720 - 01:09:13.800

let's do that job of work direct witness is important as well being there and seeing things yes yeah yes yeah yeah yeah oh absolutely yes yeah um well because i think i think the state always does a very good job of putting its view across and saying this is what's happening it's like this but you absolutely need people to say no i've been there i've seen it and that's

01:09:13.800 - 01:09:17.940

actually not what's happening so yeah yeah