Catalogue Number
NMLH.1994.62.6.5
Object Name
Photograph
Title
A hole was made in the fence to allow traffic in and out of the air base. Women closed it with their bodies, others keened - then they were arrested. But more came to block the hole and continued until the blockade finished.
Place
RAF Greenham Common
Events
Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp
Date
1982
Description
Colour photograph of a group of women sat on the floor blocking a fence, with policemen either side. The caption reads "A hole was made in the fence to allow traffic in and out of the air base. Women closed it with their bodies, others keened - then they were arrested. But more came to block the hole and continued until the blockade finished." One of a set of mounted photographs from an exhibition about Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp. The Peace Camp protested against nuclear weapons between 1981 and 2000. Thousands of women, many from the lesbian or wider LGBTQIA community, travelled from all over the UK to live at the site for weeks, months or years.
The RAF base at Greenham Common was one of three sites within the UK chosen to deploy US Cruise missiles during the Cold War. The protest started in 1981 when a group of mainly Welsh women chained themselves to the fences that surrounded the base. Shortly after, in 1982, a women's-only protest camp was established in order to resist further deployment of nuclear weapons. Cruise missiles were removed from Greenham Common in 1987, following the signing of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, shortly before the end of the Cold War in 1991. Despite multiple eviction attempts, the camp remained standing until 2000 to oppose the UK government's nuclear deterrent Trident Programme.
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