Peace at Greenham Common.

Greenham Common is a former Royal Air Force station in the civil parishes of Greenham and Thatcham in the English county of Berkshire. The airfield, once the longest in Europe was southeast of Newbury, about 55 miles (89 km) west of London.

Opened in 1942, it was used by the United States Air Force during the Second World War and during the Cold War, and later as a base for nuclear weapons. After the Cold War ended, it was closed in September 1992. The airfield was also known for the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp held outside its gates in the 1980s in protest against the stationing of cruise missiles on the base. In 1997 Greenham Common was designated as public parkland.
(Source Wikipedia)

In late 1999 the last remnant of the women’s peace camp comprised of an old caravan trailer and a few ramshackle tents. Living here were the very last of an incredible band of women who stood alone against the insanity of Nuclear weapons, the might of the British and American political cold war establishment and the indifference of the very people they were trying to save.

I had the great privilege of spending just a few hours with these last remaining women of conscience as they prepared to leave their camp, shortly before the common was given back to the people. Six months later at the opposite side of the former airbase at Blue Gate, people from all walks of local life came to witness the opening up of the common. A chance for them to see the former nuclear missile bunkers up close, have a long walk on the site of a runway now cleared of the one million tonnes of concrete that had been excavated and reused to help build the Newbury A34 bypass; or perhaps just to take in the beauty of the landscape.

Wishing you fair light and full frames

Giles