Actions like blockading gates when the mobile cruise missile launchers were trying to leave the base, or cutting through the fence to dance on top of missile silos, disrupted military operations and in some cases embarrassed the government.
But in all cases embarrassed themselves, because everybody but they could see that if they’d tried that on in the USSR, they’d have been liquidated.
And yet it was the West they wanted to disarm and they thought only the USSR should have nuclear weapons.
most would say that the end of the Cold War did more to bring that about than the constant presence of women at the camp
They obstructed that outcome and made it less likely by siding with the USSR and encouraging it to believe that the West was too decadent and cowardly to defend itself. They hindered the end of the Cold War and may have contributed to the USSR thinking it might win it. Their contribution was akin to that made to the Allies by Lord Haw-Haw.
They weren’t “peace campaigners”, FGS. They were Marxist capitulards who wanted us to surrender to the USSR. They were regarded as mugs at best, a disgrace at worst and not once did they ever express gratitude for the dole they were still drawing.
My wife was a local and involved on the periphery of all this. When talking about this article said that while a significant number were signing on, the majority she thought were independently wealthy / family money and from the upper echelons of society. I was wondering if this chimed with your experiences?
I did’nt know any of the campers personally so I can’t say. The solidarity walks were made up of all kinds of women; young mothers like myself, pensioners, professionals – teachers, doctors etc, the rich and famous, trade unionists, all sorts. It was of it’s time and brought women together for peace, I think the intention of most was sincere + it was a great day out.
Last edited 2 years ago by Claire D
Claire D
2 years ago
I was there briefly and returned a couple of times to join walks of ‘solidarity’ around the perimeter fence. Needless to say, with maturity and a better knowledge and understanding of how the world works I have revised what I thought in my early twenties back then.
Surely it is fairly clear from the article that romantic illusions as much as naive politics were at the root of what went on. It was like an elaborate game of mummies and daddies (initially) being played under the bushes in the garden. The mummies took over, had different coloured gates etc. Similar experimental life games were being played by lefties all over Britain.
The first time I was there was with my boyfriend, we were just passing through on a camping trip, we had to put up our tent well away from the camps, because he was a man obviously. Near to where we set up there were some gypsy caravans. A kind gypsy lady gave us some water and invited us into her beautifully decorated home for a cup of tea. We had a pleasant and interesting half hour.
To me, looking back, that makes sense, that was real life, the other was just a game.
You have to laugh, really, at how the loony left eats itself. Today you couldn’t have a wimmin’s camp at all because transvestites would turn up and insist they were women. So you could have a women’s camp that was forced to admit men, but you couldn’t have a men’s camp under any circumstances.
I think you mean transgender people, who may or may not have transitioned or have any intention of transitioning. A very dubious category and even concept.
Transvestism isn’t the same thing. It only exists as a concept at all because of strict dress codes between men and women in Western society, even today. It’s funny how so few people are ‘radical’ in challenging these codes. Grayson Perry is one who plays with the issue, while not claiming to be anything other than male.
Clothing is a fairly superficial issue and dress codes can change. While glamour hasn’t been notable for a long time in menswear, except for a few in the 80s New Romantic movement, the Regency dandy was often more spectacularly dressed than his female counterparts.
Saul D
2 years ago
The legacy of Greenham Common is environmentalists who keep blocking nuclear power despite it being the key technology for reducing carbon emissions, and our only hope for cheap electricity.
Francis MacGabhann
2 years ago
Utterly self-absorbed group of complete narcissists. Thought it then, think it now. Even the language of an article bigging them up is like wading through treacle, probably because that’s the kind of deadening effect these women had on everything they came in contact with. Why would anyone think this kind of self-regard is novel or interesting just because it was women engaging in it?
Paddy Taylor
2 years ago
“No such thing as society”
Does this really have to be explained again? It gets trotted out almost daily by people who are either too lazy to set the quote in context, or too dozy to understand it, if they do.
Two or three generations of young people ‘hate’ Mrs Thatcher, not due to any direct experience but via a process of cultural osmosis, because they’ve been fed the narrative that selfishness was baked into the country by Thatcherism. To “prove” this, teachers – in fact anyone on the left – repeat the line “There’s no such thing as society” … one of the most quoted lines of 20th Century British politics.
Yet see it in context and obviously it means something completely different: “I think we’ve been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it’s the government’s job to cope with it: ‘I have a problem, I’ll get a grant.’ ‘I’m homeless, the government must house me.’ They’re casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It’s our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There’s no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation.”
The message (although phrased less elegantly) is very much akin to JFK’s famous line from his inaugural address: “ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country” which, I presume, would be a sentiment many would approve of, particularly at times like these.
If JFK is not their bag either, then perhaps Tony Blair, who (even less elegantly) echoed the sentiment of her comments almost exactly when he called for: ” A welfare state based on rights and responsibility where we gave opportunity to people on benefit to get into work; but demanded responsibility in return. …… We believe passionately in giving people the chance to get off benefit and into work. … But with the chance, comes a responsibility on the individual – to take the chance, to make something of their lives and use their ability and potential to the full. ….. Only in this way will we drive up social mobility, the great force for equality in dynamic market economies. To do all that, ours has to be an enabling welfare state – one which helps people to help themselves. “
Any PM worthy of the job realises that the state should be there to provide a safety net, but not a hammock.
Mrs Thatcher wanted people to become masters of their own destiny once again, rather than subjects of the state, reliant on hand-outs. She believed the pervading culture of entitlement encouraged apathy and a poor work ethic. That is not selfishness.
Contrary to what has become the received wisdom, Mrs Thatcher did not cut back on the welfare state. Instead she was keen to encourage private enterprise to reduce people’s reliance on the state.
Frankly I don’t understand why she isn’t held up as an example by people from across the political spectrum. Here was a lower middle class grammar school girl who, by dint of hard work, determination and vision, succeeded in a male dominated world of entrenched privilege. She believed in a genuine meritocracy (far more than any PM since), and the empowerment of the individual who could achieve their potential without a stifling state. Much of this she achieved, which is, in no small measure, why she won successive large majority election victories.
Last edited 2 years ago by Paddy Taylor
Samir Iker
2 years ago
“The last cruise missiles were removed from Greenham Common in 1991 — but most would say that the end of the Cold War did more to bring that about than the constant presence of women at the camp.”
Just like universal suffrage had little to do with suffragettes who actually hindered the process, more to do with millions of men who didn’t have the vote but still suffered and died in the trenches in WW1 and made it impossible, by their sacrifice, to be denied the vote.
History is not often made by those who shout the loudest afterwards to claim credit for it.
I think there is no question that the suffragettes delayed women’s suffrage by at least a decade due to their terrorist activities. I find it really depressing to have them constantly held up as a marvellous example of courage. Women in other countries across Europe were being given the vote from the end of the 19th century onwards without arson, bombs and criminal damage going on.
O the lies people tell themselves.
The book ” The Strange Death of Liberal England ” looks at the politics of Britain pre and post WW1. How much did the The Suffragette Movement distract The Liberal Party from studying Germany and preparing for war ? Was it women working in factories and serving as nurses at the front in WW1 which really gave them the vote?
Clara B
2 years ago
I’m no fan of Thatcher but that quote (‘there is no such thing as society’), cited to show she espoused a radical form of individualism, is not the complete quote. She actually said: ‘…there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families …. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours’ (italicisation added).
Hersch Schneider
2 years ago
Empty, meaningless platitudes that require no self-sacrifice whatsoever- the hallmark of today’s generation of professional protesters.
Solely driven by vanity and self righteous b*llocks.
Malcolm Knott
2 years ago
The Greenham Common women were a thundering nuisance and achieved precisely nothing. The Guardian adored them, the locals deplored them and the government ignored them.
Last edited 2 years ago by Malcolm Knott
Bill W
2 years ago
The best air shows I ever went to were at Greenham in the 1970s.
Christopher Chantrill
2 years ago
“Activism” is the modern version of the medieval romance.
Back then the ruling class amused itself with stirring tales of noble knights on their chargers rescuing damsels in distress on their palfreys. In between times, these noble chaps would go questing for the Holy Grail.
Even the noble ladies were in on the fun. Eleanor of Aquitaine, I believe, loved a nice medieval romance of an evening.
Activism is a fantasy of revolution, acted out by the scions of the educated ruling class, long after the modern revolutions were decided.
When the current ruling class is shown the exit, it won’t be anything like Greenham Common or Extinction Rebellion.
ralph bell
2 years ago
A moving essay that evokes feelings of nostalgia for me.
It seems definitely a commune type experience for the people involved that had a profound and enriching effect on their lives.
I think they were brave and did mark a change in putting pollical pressure on the powerful from the concerns of ‘the little people’.
They certainly made the media raise the issues.
The dole payments led to lots of positive outcomes, in the arts, music a politics. It wasn’t all negative!
It’s complicated. I think the dole (universal credit) was/is probably necessary in our overcrowded, consumerist society, which is also a ‘liberal democracy’; there is not enough work for the amount of people + the dole is spent on food, clothes, rent and bills, ie, it goes straight back into the economy.
The downside is it’s demoralising on a personal level and that has repercussions on all of us.
If there’s a better answer to dealing with lack of work or the inability to work I don’t know what that is.
A condition of eligibility for the dole is that you need to be actively seeking and available for work. It is clear that none of these ghastly self-centred creeps was available for work so frankly they should have been either denied benefit or jailed for benefit fraud.
‘Going on the dole’ was often nothing to do with need. It was viewed by many on the left as a moral obligation, for example for students during the long vacation. I remember my lefty older brother being rather shocked when I got a holiday job instead.
But in all cases embarrassed themselves, because everybody but they could see that if they’d tried that on in the USSR, they’d have been liquidated.
And yet it was the West they wanted to disarm and they thought only the USSR should have nuclear weapons.
They obstructed that outcome and made it less likely by siding with the USSR and encouraging it to believe that the West was too decadent and cowardly to defend itself. They hindered the end of the Cold War and may have contributed to the USSR thinking it might win it. Their contribution was akin to that made to the Allies by Lord Haw-Haw.
They weren’t “peace campaigners”, FGS. They were Marxist capitulards who wanted us to surrender to the USSR. They were regarded as mugs at best, a disgrace at worst and not once did they ever express gratitude for the dole they were still drawing.
The irony is that if there was no dole they would not have been there, could not have been there.
My wife was a local and involved on the periphery of all this. When talking about this article said that while a significant number were signing on, the majority she thought were independently wealthy / family money and from the upper echelons of society. I was wondering if this chimed with your experiences?
I did’nt know any of the campers personally so I can’t say. The solidarity walks were made up of all kinds of women; young mothers like myself, pensioners, professionals – teachers, doctors etc, the rich and famous, trade unionists, all sorts. It was of it’s time and brought women together for peace, I think the intention of most was sincere + it was a great day out.
I was there briefly and returned a couple of times to join walks of ‘solidarity’ around the perimeter fence. Needless to say, with maturity and a better knowledge and understanding of how the world works I have revised what I thought in my early twenties back then.
Surely it is fairly clear from the article that romantic illusions as much as naive politics were at the root of what went on. It was like an elaborate game of mummies and daddies (initially) being played under the bushes in the garden. The mummies took over, had different coloured gates etc. Similar experimental life games were being played by lefties all over Britain.
The first time I was there was with my boyfriend, we were just passing through on a camping trip, we had to put up our tent well away from the camps, because he was a man obviously. Near to where we set up there were some gypsy caravans. A kind gypsy lady gave us some water and invited us into her beautifully decorated home for a cup of tea. We had a pleasant and interesting half hour.
To me, looking back, that makes sense, that was real life, the other was just a game.
You have to laugh, really, at how the loony left eats itself. Today you couldn’t have a wimmin’s camp at all because transvestites would turn up and insist they were women. So you could have a women’s camp that was forced to admit men, but you couldn’t have a men’s camp under any circumstances.
I think you mean transgender people, who may or may not have transitioned or have any intention of transitioning. A very dubious category and even concept.
Transvestism isn’t the same thing. It only exists as a concept at all because of strict dress codes between men and women in Western society, even today. It’s funny how so few people are ‘radical’ in challenging these codes. Grayson Perry is one who plays with the issue, while not claiming to be anything other than male.
Clothing is a fairly superficial issue and dress codes can change. While glamour hasn’t been notable for a long time in menswear, except for a few in the 80s New Romantic movement, the Regency dandy was often more spectacularly dressed than his female counterparts.
The legacy of Greenham Common is environmentalists who keep blocking nuclear power despite it being the key technology for reducing carbon emissions, and our only hope for cheap electricity.
Utterly self-absorbed group of complete narcissists. Thought it then, think it now. Even the language of an article bigging them up is like wading through treacle, probably because that’s the kind of deadening effect these women had on everything they came in contact with. Why would anyone think this kind of self-regard is novel or interesting just because it was women engaging in it?
“No such thing as society”
Does this really have to be explained again? It gets trotted out almost daily by people who are either too lazy to set the quote in context, or too dozy to understand it, if they do.
Two or three generations of young people ‘hate’ Mrs Thatcher, not due to any direct experience but via a process of cultural osmosis, because they’ve been fed the narrative that selfishness was baked into the country by Thatcherism. To “prove” this, teachers – in fact anyone on the left – repeat the line “There’s no such thing as society” … one of the most quoted lines of 20th Century British politics.
Yet see it in context and obviously it means something completely different:
“I think we’ve been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it’s the government’s job to cope with it: ‘I have a problem, I’ll get a grant.’ ‘I’m homeless, the government must house me.’ They’re casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It’s our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There’s no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation.”
The message (although phrased less elegantly) is very much akin to JFK’s famous line from his inaugural address: “ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country” which, I presume, would be a sentiment many would approve of, particularly at times like these.
If JFK is not their bag either, then perhaps Tony Blair, who (even less elegantly) echoed the sentiment of her comments almost exactly when he called for:
” A welfare state based on rights and responsibility where we gave opportunity to people on benefit to get into work; but demanded responsibility in return. …… We believe passionately in giving people the chance to get off benefit and into work. … But with the chance, comes a responsibility on the individual – to take the chance, to make something of their lives and use their ability and potential to the full. ….. Only in this way will we drive up social mobility, the great force for equality in dynamic market economies. To do all that, ours has to be an enabling welfare state – one which helps people to help themselves. “
Any PM worthy of the job realises that the state should be there to provide a safety net, but not a hammock.
Mrs Thatcher wanted people to become masters of their own destiny once again, rather than subjects of the state, reliant on hand-outs. She believed the pervading culture of entitlement encouraged apathy and a poor work ethic. That is not selfishness.
Contrary to what has become the received wisdom, Mrs Thatcher did not cut back on the welfare state. Instead she was keen to encourage private enterprise to reduce people’s reliance on the state.
Frankly I don’t understand why she isn’t held up as an example by people from across the political spectrum. Here was a lower middle class grammar school girl who, by dint of hard work, determination and vision, succeeded in a male dominated world of entrenched privilege. She believed in a genuine meritocracy (far more than any PM since), and the empowerment of the individual who could achieve their potential without a stifling state. Much of this she achieved, which is, in no small measure, why she won successive large majority election victories.
“The last cruise missiles were removed from Greenham Common in 1991 — but most would say that the end of the Cold War did more to bring that about than the constant presence of women at the camp.”
Just like universal suffrage had little to do with suffragettes who actually hindered the process, more to do with millions of men who didn’t have the vote but still suffered and died in the trenches in WW1 and made it impossible, by their sacrifice, to be denied the vote.
History is not often made by those who shout the loudest afterwards to claim credit for it.
I think there is no question that the suffragettes delayed women’s suffrage by at least a decade due to their terrorist activities. I find it really depressing to have them constantly held up as a marvellous example of courage. Women in other countries across Europe were being given the vote from the end of the 19th century onwards without arson, bombs and criminal damage going on.
O the lies people tell themselves.
The book ” The Strange Death of Liberal England ” looks at the politics of Britain pre and post WW1. How much did the The Suffragette Movement distract The Liberal Party from studying Germany and preparing for war ? Was it women working in factories and serving as nurses at the front in WW1 which really gave them the vote?
I’m no fan of Thatcher but that quote (‘there is no such thing as society’), cited to show she espoused a radical form of individualism, is not the complete quote. She actually said: ‘…there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families …. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours’ (italicisation added).
Empty, meaningless platitudes that require no self-sacrifice whatsoever- the hallmark of today’s generation of professional protesters.
Solely driven by vanity and self righteous b*llocks.
The Greenham Common women were a thundering nuisance and achieved precisely nothing. The Guardian adored them, the locals deplored them and the government ignored them.
The best air shows I ever went to were at Greenham in the 1970s.
“Activism” is the modern version of the medieval romance.
Back then the ruling class amused itself with stirring tales of noble knights on their chargers rescuing damsels in distress on their palfreys. In between times, these noble chaps would go questing for the Holy Grail.
Even the noble ladies were in on the fun. Eleanor of Aquitaine, I believe, loved a nice medieval romance of an evening.
Activism is a fantasy of revolution, acted out by the scions of the educated ruling class, long after the modern revolutions were decided.
When the current ruling class is shown the exit, it won’t be anything like Greenham Common or Extinction Rebellion.
A moving essay that evokes feelings of nostalgia for me.
It seems definitely a commune type experience for the people involved that had a profound and enriching effect on their lives.
I think they were brave and did mark a change in putting pollical pressure on the powerful from the concerns of ‘the little people’.
They certainly made the media raise the issues.
The dole payments led to lots of positive outcomes, in the arts, music a politics. It wasn’t all negative!
It’s complicated. I think the dole (universal credit) was/is probably necessary in our overcrowded, consumerist society, which is also a ‘liberal democracy’; there is not enough work for the amount of people + the dole is spent on food, clothes, rent and bills, ie, it goes straight back into the economy.
The downside is it’s demoralising on a personal level and that has repercussions on all of us.
If there’s a better answer to dealing with lack of work or the inability to work I don’t know what that is.
A condition of eligibility for the dole is that you need to be actively seeking and available for work. It is clear that none of these ghastly self-centred creeps was available for work so frankly they should have been either denied benefit or jailed for benefit fraud.
‘Going on the dole’ was often nothing to do with need. It was viewed by many on the left as a moral obligation, for example for students during the long vacation. I remember my lefty older brother being rather shocked when I got a holiday job instead.
Plenty of proto-trustafarians also, one would imagine.