Greenham Common women
1980
Bridget said how proud she was of the Greenham
Common Women, (a camp set up at an American base which was using it as a nuclear
base) “There was lots of protest going on about nuclear war and missiles being
used. Women camped out there for several years, and lived in tents, broke into
the base, stopped vehicles etc. It moved from being those terrible women, to
being a core of respect and support for their commitment, some women lived there
for years, some from Birmingham used to go, there was a photo a few months ago
of Trisha and others in one of the papers, the Guardian did it, some sort of
anniversary, almost the same ilk as the Suffragettes, it went down in history as
a massive movement for change and it did bring about change as they stopped
using it as a nuclear base. That was a radicalising process for a lot of young
women, started off with old feminists and lesbians but it wasn’t just the
academics, there were a lot of working class women and anarchists and new age
women and others along the spectrum down there.
Contributed by: Barbara Carter, 53, Bridget Malin, 62