For the most part, the recent 40^e-The anniversary cover for the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp was nothing like my time there. Media coverage never did. These aspic images of women dancing on silos or the massive ‘Embrace the Base’ action were two nanoseconds taken from what, 19? The reality is that there weren’t hundreds of women every day holding hands and singing. It wasn’t an Enid Blyton adventure filled with naive middle-class women with too much free time discussing the bombshell.

But “The Greenham Effect”, which aired on BBC Radio 4 last month, was a more thoughtful analysis and came closer to my memories of the camp. There was an interview with a young woman, who ended by saying that she would rather lose a limb than have failed to live in Greenham. God, yes.

No men at night

Yes, Greenham changed things, and then missiles had to be thrown into the sea, and finally the fence fell. But his influence on me was indelible, overwhelming, revolutionary.

At camp, the “rules”, as they were, were simply that there were no leaders, no men at night (or even during the day at Green Gate), that every woman had a voice and that every woman had the right to be there. . There were no telephones, no walls, no private spaces. Food was kept in strollers so that it could be easily moved and stored during evictions – which were numerous. No safe spaces. A stimulating, liberating, sordid and joyful environment. Your status outside the camp, your job (if any), your class, your education, none of that mattered unless you had other qualities. Like a heart. Support other women, show how to listen. Knowing how to treat ant bites, tips for surviving in prison and getting arrested. Be prepared for arguments and meetings. Even though having a car – and being ready to fetch firewood and water – instantly made friends.

If you wanted women to join you in taking an “action” – going into the nuclear base, knocking down a fence, going to church inside the base, and so on. – it was up to you to persuade them to do so. It didn’t matter what your job was.

Learning curve

At the camp, you were at the reception of the prison, the police, the bailiffs, the vigilantes, and by God, the media – what a nightmare crowd they were! You saw the world from below. Newbury Police were threatening to be arrested for rubbish unless we picked up the stones the soldiers had thrown at us all night. Back in a camp systematically ransacked by the inhabitants – by filling 32 trash bags with waste that they left behind. The freshly arrived soldier from Northern Ireland, a few yards from the camp, staring ahead, swinging a hammer against an iron bar endlessly, hour after hour after hour.

And what a learning curve the prison was. I met so many women there: the old lady imprisoned for stealing cat food, again; the receptionist was jailed for stealing half a ton of sugar from the factory where she worked. (Although the whole company is aware of the deception, only her and the driver admitted it.) She was refused painkillers because she was pregnant and was promised early release only to be told at home. door that there had been some confusion.

Mental Health. The sweet and fragile Dee Sainsbury arriving at Emerald Gate fighting too many demons in her head. Throw all of his new possessions over the fence and walk away. Back in a snowy camp at Christmas 1984, I heard about his murder. Becky, dumped by the police in the “refuge” offered by the camp, traumatized, her arms laced with fresh scars, overturning a kettle of boiling water, unable to cope.