“We will meet your violence with a loving embrace”: Remembering the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp.

By Jesse Anderson

In the sweltering late summer of 1981, a group of women marched from Cardiff to the Royal Air Force Base at Greenham Common, Berkshire, England. Collectively identifying as Women for Life on Earth, these women (and four men) embarked on a nine-day journey to protest the housing of ninety-six U.S nuclear cruise missiles at Greenham Common, a previously public space that was being loaned to the U.S military. These women saw politics and feminist issues as inextricably intertwined, but their approach was one which pushed the boundaries of political activism. The women of Greenham Common negated violence, instead cultivating a communal environment of “ebullient spirit, daring, and creativity.” Identifying as mothers and carers, the women of the Greenham Common peace camp fought for the protection of future generations, and for the establishment of a more equal society which championed women’s voices.

            The decision to camp at Greenham Common was spontaneous, evolving over the course of their journey from Cardiff to the military base. On the first night, four women chained themselves to the nine-mile perimeter fence surrounding the military base in an action reminiscent of the suffragettes. Unknowingly, these women were the founders of a peace camp which lasted nearly twenty years, the last women departing the camp in 2000. Over this period, the group developed an arsenal of methods which frustrated police and military who arrested or evicted them. Despite repeated attempts at displacing the women, they had nationwide support: in 1982, they sent out a call for 16,000 women to join action at the base. Over 30,000 women arrived to partake in “Embrace the Base,” an action whereby the women held hands, surrounding the nine-mile fence which stood between them and the base itself. Clearly, Greenham had captured the support of women across Britain. Artmaking at the peace camp became common practice: banners became especially popular, combining the historically traditional feminine materiality of needlework with the unapologetic, rebellious tone of protesting women. Thalia Campbell’s iconographic banners were representative of the way the Greenham Common women were utilising their roles as mothers, carers, and community builders in protest. Greenham Common Womens Peace Camp (fig. 1, 1983), a banner by Thalia Campbell, depicts the Greenham women’s methods of resistance: among which, were wire cutters for breaking the fence, a group of women holding hands suggestive of the “Embrace the Base,” protest, and the radical symbol of peace embodied by the doves and peace-sign.

Figure 1: Thalia Campbell, Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp, 1983, Greenham Common Peace Camp Banner, FSC certified paper and wood, 114 x 163 cm, Thalia Campbell Design, The Peace Museum.

Greenham Common became a space where women could “gain a glimpse of their own power to resist the violent structures of patriarchal control.” Several months into the camp, men were asked to leave, allowed back only to support by “making sandwiches” or helping with childcare. This established the peace camp as Women only, a separatist movement which Katrina Howse, an activist who camped in Greenham Common, described as “for once, just once – giving women a chance, including women.” The women only space created a community of shared meaning, where masculine symbols of militia could be effectively undermined. While there were still internal tensions, as with any long term political activism, the women were intent on creating a space which negated hierarchy, prioritised community, connection, and activism.

            As visualised in Thalia Campbell’s banner, NO, (fig. 2, 1981), the fence became a symbolically powerful as that which divided the camp from the military base. One of the main symbols of contention was the fence that divided the camp from the military base. Foremost an overt symbol of Imperial power on British public land, the fence also came to stand for all boundaries which problematise progress: the boundaries between men and women; public and private domains; and military versus civilian space. Chris Mulvey, a woman who joined the peace camp from Dublin, described her desire to fill the holes of the fence “with colour and with life, to transform it, so that when I looked again I would see Life and Beauty not threat and cold sterility.” Greenham women could appropriate the fence by “darning it,” covering it with beautiful, colourful, hand-sewn banners such as those of Thalia Campbell. Darning the fence became an act of destabilisation as banners literally obscured the aggressive symbol with images of community, peace, and feminism. The banners combined art and activism in a manner that became archetypal of the Greenham Common women. Campbell recalls making NO with whatever material she had to hand, evocative of the sense of immediacy felt in the peace camp.

Figure 2: Thalia Campbell, NO, 1981, Greenham Common Peace Camp Banner, Cotton and synthetic fabric, 165 x 121 cm, Amgueddfa Cymru - Museum Wales.

Alongside the banners, the women encouraged campers or visitors to attach symbols of ‘real life’ to the fence: photographs, nappies, children’s toys, dried flowers, drawings. These ‘real life’ symbols opposed and exposed the illusory world which the military base represented: the fence, previously an oppressive symbol of separation, became a ‘women’s collage of life’. Their interaction with the fence continually destabilised it, especially when they decided to attempt to take it down. In 1983, the peace camp women decided to attempt to cut down the fence altogether. To distract police, women arrived dressed as witches, so they would be thought to be attending the peace camp Halloween party. Before they were stopped, the women had cut down four miles of the nine mile fence, demonstrating the unique blend of perseverance, humour, and grit which characterised the Greenham women.

            Photography, alongside banners, also played a large role in the documentation and dissemination of women’s activities at the peace camp. The Format Photographers Agency, a women’s only photography agency found in 1981-1982, documented much of the activity at the peace camp, such as wire-cutting. Using the wire-cutting tool Campbell depicted in both NO and Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp, protestors captured by a Format photographer in 1983 actively destabilise the fence, thereby weakening the military base by physically exposing it. Women working for Format Photography became integral to the establishment of a visceral visual language which complemented the colourful expression of the banners.  In black and white, the images have a documentary feel, capturing the community atmosphere of spontaneity, adventure, and protest. While the banners suffered weather damage, the photographic documentation of women at the peace camp preserved their legacy. The documentary style images are suffused with the daring and resilient energy which fuelled the peace camp for the twenty years it was active.

Figure 3: Joane O’Brien, Format Photographers. Greenham Common, Peace Camp Activist, 1983.

Women at Greenham Common remained resilient. Their multifaceted transgression continually pushed the boundaries of how we understand protest, and their activities informed similar protests across the globe. Utilising traditionally femininised material techniques, like sewing, to reappropriate and destabilise the patriarchal military structure of the base, paved the way for new, alternative methods of protest which prioritised women in a way seldom before possible. At first dismissed by the British Government and the Commander at the military base, in 1989-1999 all missiles were removed from the base. The U.S military left the base in 1992, closely followed by British military forces. Ten years later, the last women of Greenham Common decamped, concluding nearly twenty years of communal living, art, and protest. Now, Greenham Common is public parkland where wildlife (and a small business park) flourishes. Nearly forty-five years following the establishment of the camp, the legacy of the peace camp remains with us as a stark reminder of our collective power in resisting violent structures.

Bibliography

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“Collections Online.” Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales. Accessed March 22, 2025. https://museum.wales/collections/online/object/c9aafdf3-669a-3881-b001-405958ee155c/Banner/

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