On 5 August 1989, Helen Wyn Thomas was waiting to cross a road near the ‘yellow gate’ at the Royal Air Force’s (RAF) Greenham Common base. In the two months she had been present at the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp, the 22-year-old Welsh activist had been writing home to her parents in New-castle Emlyn, Carmarthenshire. As she waited in the ‘safe zone’ by the roadside, she was clutching two letters she wanted to post. She had not accounted, however, for a passing West Midlands Police horse box, which was being driven to a charity display in Chichester. Thomas was hit by its wing mirror, knocked to the ground, and later died from her injuries. Hers was the only death during the two decades of the Greenham Women’s Peace Camp, but clashes with police and mass arrests were a regular occurrence.
After nuclear weapons were stationed at the RAF base, Greenham played host to a series of women’s camps beginning in September 1981 with the Wales-based collective ‘Women for Life on Earth’ leading the first march. Realizing that a march was just a start and certainly not enough to sway public opinion, women began to stay overnight at the base’s gates. The first blockade took place in March 1982 and was attended by around 250 women. It culminated in 34 arrests. The Greenham Common peace camp finally closed in 2000 and a permanent memorial was erected in October 2002.
A sister camp, however, survives at Faslane on Scotland’s west coast, where Trident nuclear submarines are stationed. In June 2022 the Faslane camp marked its 40th anniversary with a weekend of
