Catalogue Number
NMLH.2021.116
Object Name
Postcard
Date
09/1983
Description
A postcard depicting a protestor from the Greenham Common protest camp in 1983. This postcard shows a black and white photograph of a women using bolt cutters to cut down a fence surrounding the Greenham Common RAF base. The photograph was taken on the 29th October 1983 by David Hoffman, an independent activist and photographer, and was produced by Planographic Limited.
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 upcoming Trident Programme.
