Prologue

The personal is political

Atomic by Donna McLean

The personal is political

For Greenham women everywhere

In 1981, prompted by the arrival into their kitchens of the survival manual Protect & Survive which had been issued by the Home Office in case of nuclear war, four women in Wales gathered a small group of like-minded people and marched from Glamorgan to Berkshire.  They wanted to raise awareness of the nuclear weapons policy of the British Government, specifically the plan to site cruise missiles at an RAF base near Newbury as part of a defence policy known as Mutually Assured Destruction, or MAD for short.  In the run up to the march, the group had done their best to alert the media but finding no press waiting for them when they arrived at RAF Greenham Common, and only a security guard who mistook them for cleaners, they chained themselves to the gate, thinking surely this would arouse some interest.  Amazingly, nothing happened, so they decided to stay until something did, and a camp was set up at Main Gate, which would become known as Yellow Gate.  A year passed and still the media yawned and said their readers would rather know about Mark Thatcher lost in the Sahara and Princess Diana giving birth to a boy so the women agreed that if they were going to raise a protest movement, they had to do it themselves.  The first mass action was planned for December 12^th, 1982.  Embrace The Base on Sunday, Close The Base on Monday was spread through word of mouth and leaflets passed hand to hand.  They had no way of knowing if anyone would turn up, but on that damp winter morning thirty thousand women arrived to link arms around the nine-mile perimeter fence.  Many never went home and Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp was born. This is where the story begins.

Tune in next week for chapter one.