| Location: | Totnes |
| Story Number: | Story-037 |
| Themes: | 1980s, Direct action, Greenham Common, networks, nuclear |
| Listen: | |
| Transcript: | Transcript by Jayde Stevenson It was 1980… or ’81 – I can’t remember exactly… um, my mother had gone on ahead – she’d gone on in 1980. Um, and she rang and told me the whole story about the women from Wales who’d gone to Greenham and set up a camp outside… um where the missile base was. Um, and she said ‘I want to go because I need to protest, it’s important’. She was sixty-five I think, yeah… yeah I mean I visited her from time to time but I didn’t stay. And then I stayed a little while, I never stayed very long cos I was working all the time. I think some of the actions she said were… she really enjoyed the fact that the meetings were all women and that decisions were made very quickly. Um, you know there wasn’t sort of umming and ahhing – people… with a shared aim came to the conclusion pretty quickly what they were going to do in terms of actions: cutting the fence, climbing the fence – whatever they were going to be doing. Um, and that sounded really bit scary to me from London and my cosy home up there. I thought ‘oh my god, you know, what is she going to get herself into some serious trouble’ (laughs). Um… but of course you know, she was very committed so… yeah. Once I realised the full implications of the whole thing there was no stopping any of us really. You know, the… most of the family were there a lot of the time and I took my daughter down and um… it was important to keep it in the press all as long as we could. I’ve got some photos here – and yes here she is climbing the um… the the wire at Greenham on New Years Eve ’83… ‘82/83. And um… that was done at midnight and no one was told, I mean she kept it completely secret from us. The first I knew was a policeman knocking at my door the next day… in London saying ‘we’ve got ya mum’ (laughs). All the women that climbed over – and I can’t remember, there were about thirty of them, I can’t remember how many. Anyway, they were all obviously charged. They all went up, climbed the silo and danced on the silo. There’s quite an iconic picture of it somewhere. And then she went to court and this is what one of the women wrote to her as she was giving – just given her testimony ‘dearest Ursula, you were amazing… were really compelling. Love Rebecca’. That was passed to her during the trial. Oh I’ve even got my um… charge sheet here (shuffles papers). This is the women who went to prison with my mum – that’s’ a whole list of them. Here’s my charge sheet. ‘Fiona Lennick Green, date of birth, and then my address, the charge on the 11th December 1983… on 11th December 1983. At Greenham in the county of Berkshire without lawful excuse damaged a perimeter fence at Greenham common airbase of a value unknown belonging to the Ministry of Defence, intending to destroy or damage property belonging to another or being reckless as to whether property belonging to another would be destroyed or damage contrary to section one, Criminal Damage Act. Do you want to say anything in answer to the charge, you are not obliged to say anything unless you wish to, but whatever you say will be taken down in writing and may be given in evidence.’ And I wrote ‘no I do not want to say anything’. And… and… I feel sorry about that because then my mum did… handed them a full… an A4 sheet of paper with all the reasons why she was there. Notes: Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenham_Common_Women%27s_Peace_Camp |