Greenham Common

I once joined the local Labour Party as a friend suggested it could get me a job with the local authority. Realised after 6 months, I had nothing in common with them and it was a mistake. ( I was actually a Thatcherite for a time as a student, but by the nineties, I'd falled out with the Cons). Never bothered again, although I did have a blazing row with a former member in a pub a few years afterwards.

Well, they seem to still be taking part in protests and look at Greta Thunberg and all her supporters.

Maremia

Wonder if young people now would consider taking part in such a protest?

Yes, they would.

for those who talk about the break-up of marriages, and children left when talking about the past Peace Movements, just to tell you the absolute opposites.

I joined YCND back in 1961 just after a break up with the man I had been supposed to be getting engaged to (I was 20 years old then). We were in Hackney (the old Hackney as it was then in East London - not the up=market Hackney of today). We were a good sized branch meeting weekly and some of us also joined the Young Socialists (youth members of the Labour Party), also meeting weekly. We all still lived with our parents, either in council housing or in rented rooms. Not one of us had parents who owned their own home.

Most weekends (we were either still at school or working), we were involved with some sort of political activity, anti-war, anti-apartheid, Colonial Freedom, etc.etc. As time moved on many of us developed relationships and a few years ago I organised a fiftieth anniversary for those of us still alive - the majority of us had not changed our political opinions over the years. Nearly all of those who got married to people they met through those groups were still married to the same people, we showed piccies of out g.children, etc. Obviously we had met and married, pursued our careers, brought up our families and continued (some more actively than others), with fighting our political corner. I can only remember one of those marriages that had failed, although both remained good friends, and both had re-married and had stayed with those partners.

S0, for our generation probably stronger and more long-lasting relationships were forged than in the majority.

Also with jobs, Whilst I was engaged I worked as a temporary shorthand/typist as I preferred it to working in the same place week after week. Started one Monday at a new job and sat with other ladies in the 'pool', when the big boss phoned thru asking for someone to come his office. Evidently his own personal PA had recently left which is why he was using the pool. The girls there all looked so worried about him that I said I would go, as I had nothing to lose and if I did not like him could just walk out.

When I got to his office, there was this elderly man reading the large daily newspapers, most of which had photos of the previous days large CND demo in Trafalgar Square.

He looked up, asked who I was, then asked how I had spent my weekend. Feeling I had no reason to lie I told him, I had been at that demo. Turned out he had been part of the socialist movements for many years -, and from that moment onwards I could do no wrong in his eyes. So, I did eventually accept his offer to become his new PA.

Met my hubbie at that YS group, Married in 1964, he died two years ago, never had any other partner.

My suspicion re the government is we used to think there was some chance the Government would remember we are a democracy and have the right to freedom of speech.

In recent years it feels to many of us like the Government of the day has absolutely totally forgotten both those facts and it feels like it's the World Economic Forum and those huge companies (like Black Rock) that are trying to run our country - rather than our elected representatives.

2020 onwards has been an absolute lulu for feeling like we have to fight our own government (as opposed to convincing them they are wrong and reminding them we are a democracy etc). Amend the word "feeling" to "knowing" in fact. I think a lot of us are honestly swinging round from they're "mistaken" to they're "evil".

Previously I think many of us (including me I guess) felt "They make mistakes....we have to convince them they have". But it feels a LOT like we've moved on from there to "Everything they do is, at best, a mistake and they very rarely remember we are a democracy. In fact - they're coming over as evil. That's evil - rather than mistaken or deluded".

It's very very clear they do not have our best interests at heart and they swing with lobbyists, huge companies and the New World Order. We the people are coming absolutely nowhere in their calculations basically.

The world has changed so much.

Wonder if young people now would consider taking part in such a protest?

I fear we are in the day after and no amount of handholding is going to deter Putin.

What changed was Russia had a new leader called Gorbachev who wanted better relations with the West, and President Reagan found a Russian leader he could work with. By 1989, the Cold War was over and the missles were removed in the early nineties. CND and Greenham Common went into the hisory books.
I do temember seeing the peace camp on the news, but it was nevet something I was that bothered about. Still got a bit scared watching The Day After, though.

America thinks a lot of countries are its 51st state - but yep....I guess we probably head that list up. It's one heck of a mind twist when one realises just how much of the world America thinks is it's 51st state - and interferes accordingly.

Oreo

I do understand why women who were there for a few days, or weeks or even years feel they need to validate their actions now.It’s hard to admit that it was all pointless isn’t it?
It seems to be a mix of CND activism and women’s liberation and reading some posts on here, the enjoyment of rebellion against the man ( authority) as well.It’s interesting from a social history perspective.
Holding hands in a circle and singing We Shall Overcome may have felt wonderful but ribbons and singing never helped any country to defend itself against invading armies did it?

I don’t expect the women expected singing during the hand hold round the base would stop an invading army. The hope as ever with peace campaigners is to try and avoid war.

We ( mr and ms I) wrote to President Reagan asking him to remove his forces from Greenham. We pointed out having the base could make us look like the 51st state. We got a lovely letter back, including a photograph of the President on his horse. The current Potus would probably responded with less humour or irony

I'm quite envious of you for that M0nica - as my father did believe in equality - but my mother certainly didnt and she was the one that was around most. It's very very clear to me now that my mother was trying to slot me into staying living near her, living my life a similar way to what she had done (that when the woman she called her "mother" was two generations older than her - because she was her grandmother really), have a "just a job" rather than a career, and be lined up to be a carer to her later on, etc. My father was too easygoing to deal with that "pushing" by her etc. It was all part of why I went off to Denmark and it probably only took me about two weeks flat to "modernise" when there...

It impacted and I felt like I had to "struggle my way out" to be a person/rather than a "woman" iyswim. That was actually one of the blessings of being in a huge CND group in a university city actually - as it pretty soon struck me that "How come the women I come across socially all seem to be doing 'female' type jobs?" when I was then (thanks to CND - and the Labour Party I was in at the time) mixing with a much wider range - teachers/University lecturers/etc and getting some very different (and beneficial) takes on life.

So the peace movement didn't wreck everyone's "life they had already set up". It helped some of us "break out into OUR life to at least some extent".

silverlining48

There is a huge age gap between posters on this site. Some are young, decades younger than others of us who lived through the period of women’s subjugation and their efforts at emancipation during the 60 s , 70s and 80 s and can have no idea of how different life was fir women.
Just one example of women’s place was Marital rape was not a crime until the 90 s. Police would do nothing if abuse was reported by a woman by her husband, and it was written up as ‘just a domestic’.
It was a totally different world, when brave women stood together for change and to have their voices heard.

I think the difficulty is within a community there can be so many relatively large groups of people all with completely different experiences of life in the same broad society at the saame time

I came from a home where the idea that i was not equal to any man and did not have complete freedom to make of my life what i willed, never even passed the front gate let alone got into the house. I went to an all girls school. I went up to university to study what was then a predominantly male subject and I never expected to meet prejudice against me and, generally I didn't. Nobody had ever asked or expected me to defer to men, so I didn't. I treated them as if they were my equals, which of course they were.

Most of my friends were similar to me. But, as I said, I was one of many large groups and there were others whose experience was very different.

I feel very uneasy when i see these sweeping statements about how women lived and what they experienced, as if all women experienced the same. Fo r me the 60s, 70 and 80s, were a time of expanding horizons and opportunities, marital rape not an issue.

silverlining48

Oreo what a strange question. The connection is obvious.

That is the point.

It's to try and discourage people from doing anything similar in the future.

Oreo

Am sure it all felt wonderful and virtuous and visionary….but you know what? It was a gigantic waste of time and energy and really did break up many families.And achieved nothing in the end.

I quite agree.

Oreo what a strange question. The connection is obvious.

Miss Thunberg is a pain in the a…e.

Principles very often demand sacrifice.
They have to be very strong to uphold them.
I think there would have been a lot of regret and possibly recriminations.

While we are on the subject of demonstrators, the queen of them all, one Greta Thunberg, has been banned from Venice after she tipped green dye into the Grand Canal, stating that she’s not happy with Italy’s continuing use of fossil fuels.

The only Greenham Common woman I knew left her husband with 4 young children and gave up her medical career, which she never got back on track. The marriage struggled on but finally ended in acrimony. Difficult to watch the husband and children coping.

How strange, I don’t mind in the least any posters having a different opinion to me and don’t think for one minute that those holding opposing views to mine are trying to shut me up.
It’s a forum for views, and on any given subject there will be varying opinions.

Oreo

I do understand why women who were there for a few days, or weeks or even years feel they need to validate their actions now.It’s hard to admit that it was all pointless isn’t it?
It seems to be a mix of CND activism and women’s liberation and reading some posts on here, the enjoyment of rebellion against the man ( authority) as well.It’s interesting from a social history perspective.
Holding hands in a circle and singing We Shall Overcome may have felt wonderful but ribbons and singing never helped any country to defend itself against invading armies did it?

One of the things I've noticed over the years - in many different contexts (not just this one) is people of the opposite opinion on something do their darndest to "shut the other opinion down". They try to ensure the "other opinion" doesnt have a voice and, if they can't manage it, then they turn to belittling (ie "Oh well.....didnt/isnt having any effect anyway").

That's when you know you are "getting through" - ie when they're trying to shut you up/say your contribution got nowhere etc.

It's a naughty tactic to use - but it ain't the first time by any manner of means that I've encountered it.

Grantanow

I wouldn't be surprised to see another radical peace movement now Putin has become threatening. Russia is quite capable of manipulating anti-war, anti-nuclear people for its own ends.

Yes, Corbyn and pals will be popping up any minute.

What, not was.

silverlining48

There is a huge age gap between posters on this site. Some are young, decades younger than others of us who lived through the period of women’s subjugation and their efforts at emancipation during the 60 s , 70s and 80 s and can have no idea of how different life was fir women.
Just one example of women’s place was Marital rape was not a crime until the 90 s. Police would do nothing if abuse was reported by a woman by her husband, and it was written up as ‘just a domestic’.
It was a totally different world, when brave women stood together for change and to have their voices heard.

Was has that to do with the American base at Greenham?