5 September: Greenham Common

On this date in 1981 the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp was established outside Greenham Air Base. 10 things you might not know about it:

1. Where is Greenham Common? The air force base which was the focus of the protest was southeast of Newbury, about 55 miles (89 km) west of London, in the county of Berkshire.
2. It was originally intended to be a much shorter protest march by Women for Life on Earth, a group from Wales. They wanted to protest against the decision of the British government to allow cruise missiles to be stored at Greenham Common. On arrival they delivered a letter to the Base Commander which stated ‘We fear for the future of all our children and for the future of the living world which is the basis of all life’. However, it soon became clear that a march and a letter were not going to be enough, so they began camping there and organising more non-violent protests.
3. The first act of resistance by the Greenham Common Peace Camps was in September 1981, when 36 women chained themselves to the base fence.
4. Another thing they'd do was create human chains of women holding hands encircling the base. As many as 30,000 women would take part. In December 1982, 70,000 women formed a 14 mile long human chain from Greenham to Aldermaston and the ordnance factory at Burghfield.
5. Cutting down the fence and entering the site was another thing they often did. On a couple of occasions they did so in fancy dress. In October 1983, they dressed up as Witches so that the police would think they were going to a Halloween party. In April 1983, 200 women entered the base dressed as Teddy bears. This was intended to bring home the message that they were doing all this to safeguard their children's future.
6. Camps were set up near the gates to the facility and were named after the colours of the rainbow. Yellow Gate was the first. Some of the camps had a particular focus: Blue Gate was made up of women with New Age beliefs; Violet Gate had a religious focus and Green Gate was strictly women only (in the other locations, men could join the protest by invitation).
7. One of the symbols used by the protesters was a Spider's web, meant to symbolise the fragility and perseverance of the Greenham women. They would also dress in Black, in mourning for all the children whose lives would be lost to nuclear weapons in the future.
8. Needless to say, the base wasn't happy about all this and neither were the local people. Local pubs refused to serve them. Vigilante groups were set up by the locals to intimidate any of the women who ventured into the town. The media's response was to say that if these women cared so much about their children, why weren't they at home looking after them?
9. The Ministry of Defence invoked terrorism as a means to get more police to the site. Terrorists could dress up as women protesters and infiltrate the base, they claimed. The British government also enacted a set of by-laws in an effort to end the Peace Encampment which allowed for many women to be arrested and sent to prison for trespassing. These by-laws were deemed unlawful in 1990 by the House of Lords, a monumental victory for the women.
10. The airfield closed in 1992 at the end of the cold war and the missiles were removed. Nevertheless, the camp remained there until 2000 as part of the protest against the UK Trident programme. Today, there is a memorial on the site which consists of seven standing stones around a "Flame" sculpture representing a campfire. Beside it is a stone and steel spiral sculpture, engraved with the words "You can't kill the Spirit". There is also a plaque there for Helen Wyn Thomas, a protester who was killed near the site. The old camp was inaugurated as a Commemorative and Historic Site on 5 October 2002.

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