"I didn't know what a cruise missile was, but it did get under my skin that Americans were putting their weapons in my country ... I'd never been involved in anything more dramatic than the Women's Institute. However, this niggled away at my mind and eventually ... I went up to see what was going on ... Just outside Newbury I pulled into a lay-by and said "You don't want to do this, this means trouble", but somehow or another I found myself going on."
Kim Besly was just one of thousands of women who found themselves in similar circumstances 25 years ago this week, joining the protest at Greenham Common against the siting of US nuclear missiles at the base in Newbury. Her story, along with those of other protesters, as well as air force personnel, can be read or heard on the Imperial War Museum's website.
The missiles arrived in 1983, two years after the protest began, and weren't removed for another eight years. The camps remained until 2000 as a general protest against nuclear weapons.
The women, though now dispersed, are still campaigning, this time to raise money for the Greenham commemorative and historic site to be erected on the original camp site in memory of "the work that the protest achieved".
Many, such as the actor Julie Christie, who participated at Greenham Common, felt the protest achieved much more than simply deterring nuclear weapons: "They showed people that however the odds were stacked it was possible to protest and survive".
But others thought the women-only camps did not reflect the peaceful society they were trying to achieve. Orwellsghost, posting on a blog by the Guardian columnist George Monbiot about his eviction from the camp, wrote: "... these women were repulsive and rather sad and pathetic individuals latching onto a cause in order to rationalise their neurotic and embittered hatred of men".
Orwellsghost might find some solace in this article which, in considering how women's aspirations have changed in the past 25 years, finds that a large proportion of the female of the species still just wants to look pretty.
For those seeking perhaps a more considered and detailed insight into the protest, the bookshelves offer two options. One comes from the very heart of the protest: Ann Pettit, who founded the peace camp, has written a memoir of her protest days, called Walking to Greenham. While the former defence journalist David Fairhall's book, Common Ground, traces the development of the protests from the summer of 1981 through the climax of the cold war.
More immediate historical gratification can be found at the photographic exhibition, Greenham Common 25 Years on, at the Guardian Newsroom, which is
trying to trace women involved with the camps.
Away from the protest movement, the common itself is still of considerable interest. The airbase, which was bought in 1997 by the Greenham Common Trust, and the surrounding area has a history which dates back to prehistoric times and this site provides a wealth of images and stories from past to present.
