Catalogue Number
Temp.2024.14.27
Object Name
Leaflet
Title
Greenham Widening the web
Place
RAF Greenham Common
Events
Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp
Date
circa 1985
Description
Leaflet with an illustration of women in a circle holding a spiderweb between them, as though a parachute. Text reads "Greenham December 14/15th - Widening the web". On the reverse side is information about events over the weekend.
Greenham Common Women's 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.
Multimedia
