Catalogue Number
NMLH.1994.62.5.1
Object Name
Songbook
Title
Chant Down Greenham
Place
RAF Greenham Common
Events
Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp
Date
1980s
Description
Printed lyrics for "Chant Down Greenham" with a collage of illustrations forming a border. The illustrations include policemen and people in military uniforms; barbed wire fences with "Keep Out" signs; cruise missiles and mushroom clouds on the left side of the border. To the right are drawings of a dove of peace, a spiderweb (the symbol of Greenham Common Peace Camp); a snake among leaves; and a group of women and children with a banner reading "Women For Peace". On the back cover are lyrics for songs 33 Down by the Riverside, 34 Picket for Peace, and 35 You Can't Kill the Spirit.
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.
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