THE MAKING OF A GREENHAM COMMON WAR ACTIVIST

and why it is OK to oppose NATO!

I was 3 years old when I climbed over our back wall and down into the deepest bomb crater in Islington, London. It was filthy but full of 'treasure' that I scrabbled through to build a ramshackle haven for my dollies to sit in and have a fantasy tea party.

I had broken china, shreds of curtains, wooden planks for seats and a few wild flowers in what was once a pretty vase. I was naked, having been smart enough to strip from my clean clothes. Mum always sent me out to play in the garden with a warning, "Don't get dirty, Frances!" So I didn't.

Every day I would beg to be let out into the garden so that I could continue my secret treasure hunts.

When my mum found out about my excursions over the wall, she went ballistic while I cried, "Why not?" until she explained to me what a world war was all about. Being so young, I assumed that the entire world was full of bomb craters and all children had these havens of broken buildings to play in. By comparison, the manicured public parks were dull, uninteresting places.

I suddenly became delirious with a fierce fever. Everything was swimming before my sore eyes and my skin felt like it was on fire. I had developed Scarlet Fever and was very lucky to survive.

My dad explained, "Where you were playing was so far down in the ground that you were playing in the rubbish from London's distant past, Frances! There could also be unexploded bombs down there!" as he worked to build a barrier on top of the tumble down wall. My dollies remained in the crater, sitting at their tea table alone.

When I was 15 years old I heard about the war in Vietnam and I bunked the trains to go into central London and protest at the American Embassy. It was March 1967 by then.

I joined CND, the campaign for nuclear disarmament and I have been protesting against war ever since.

I cannot understand how anyone can feel safe while mentally distorted, thoughtless men in suits can decide to create contaminated and dangerous landscapes from toxic bombs which can dig up all the old diseases and blow kids sky high just for being curious.

Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp.

Nuclear bombs were being stored, ready for use at Greenham Common. A small group of women from Wales marched there to protest in 1981.

The first big blockade of the American army base occurred in March 1982 with 250 women protesting, during which 34 arrests occurred. At the time I was a young mum, living on the Essex coast and studying Chinese Philosophy.

The crowd I belonged to went to Essex University where we were literally recruited to go to Greenham Common. I was so up for that.

We piled into coaches and we went to join the resident ladies every weekend. It was special in a way that I find hard to put into words. Nobody was the boss of us. We took huge bags of old colourful rags to create artwork on the chain link fences. But these works of art concealed our ‘gateways’ into the military compound. We danced on the top of the silos and we ran around screaming and laughing as GIs in jeeps tried to catch us.

We sang until we were hoarse and could barely speak for a week. Only to go back again the following weekend and sing ourselves hoarse all over again.

I slid through our secret hole in the fence one very dark night. I was dressed in a black bin bag and black jeans. I took a bucket of water with me to pour down a silo’s air vent.

On the way back to the fence, I was suddenly caught in the headlights of a jeep which came hurtling towards me and I froze. The GI pulled up alongside me and asked what I was doing. For a split second I stared at my bucket and then blurted, “I am picking magic mushrooms!” Obviously, he did not know that magic mushrooms sprout in October or November, during wet weather. It was June, very warm and dry!

He ordered me to get into the jeep and I was sure I was being arrested. However, he drove to the nearest gate and dropped me off. He spoke to the soldiers there and, as I sheepishly passed through the gate, he called out to me in front of a small crowd of Greenham women, “Hey, can I have your phone number?”

All the women cracked up! “Look at it!” they were saying, “Dressed in a plastic bin bag and STILL pulling a man!” I was embarrassed but just relieved that I was not going to end up in court for trespass!

You can read a lot more about us here.

Life size bronze statue representing the Greenham Women now located in Cardiff City Hall

In 2021 we celebrated 40 years of commemoration and I was thrilled to see how much younger women love to hear our stories and are willing to pick up the baton.

So…

Even though I am now nearly 72, housebound with emphysema, I am still objecting to war, bombs and those men in suits who continue to wish we would just shut up and let NATO get on with their globalist warmongering agendas.

We won’t and I know that there are millions of younger women who feel the same!

ONWARDS!
xx