This article examines how banner-making became a dominant factor in women forming bonds and supporting one another at Greenham Women’s Peace Camp. It asks how did banners made at the camp use particular symbols, motifs and imagery to express particular views? Through visual and oral histories of women banner-makers, I consider the importance of creativity in the lives of women activists, to help us understand how it felt to be part of an art collective campaigning for peace. This article focuses specifically on the theme of motherhood, which influenced a large number of banner designs.
Milton Keynes Group Archive, Greenham Women Everywhere.
The Greenham Women’s Peace Camp began in September 1981 as a response to the United States Air Force’s plan to house ninety-six Cruise missiles at RAF Greenham Common in Berkshire. The camp formed after thirty-six women, four men and their children began marching from Cardiff to the Common on 26 August 1981. Over the course of the next nineteen years, tens of thousands of women resided at the camp. Some stayed for years, but most visited and camped regularly for shorter periods of time. The camp was most known for its non-violent direct action, including women ‘embracing the base’, chaining themselves to and cutting the fence, staging ‘die-ins’ and organising blockades. The Common had nine smaller camps at various gates around the perimeter fence, named after the colours of the rainbow and each with a specific purpose (for example, Green Gate was more connected with nature and Blue Gate was mostly for younger women). The missiles left the base in 1991, but the last women did not leave until 2000, after they won the right to house a memorial on the site.
Re-evaluating the history of women’s groups through the lens of creative protest helps to highlight creativity and protest as central components, and we gain a new perspective on the art produced at Greenham Common. Retrospectively termed ‘craftivism’, this activity concerns the practice of engaged creativity, especially regarding political or social causes. Craftivism addresses difficult issues and ideas more easily and expressively. In this instance, Greenham women created banners to reveal their feelings of fear and distrust over nuclear weapons.
Banners were the primary medium for the Greenham women to spread their anti-nuclear message and were a common backdrop across the fences. As the women remained non-violent at the camp, the banners became both a pivotal creative practice for the women and a key attribute in the history of the Common. Describing the camp as a site of ‘experimental, collaborative and richly creative actions’, Charlotte Dew argues that creativity was both an escape for women, and central to their ‘strategies of action’. I argue that the banners were the main focus point in protest at Greenham. Rather than making the banners purely as an activity to pass the time during the long, cold days at the camp, their designs were calculated and planned to promote the cause in a memorable way. There were three main strands the banners encompassed: firstly, the nuclear situation, secondly, poking fun at male aggression, and thirdly, fearing for the future with an emphasis on motherhood.
Motherhood was expressed in other art forms aimed at calling women to Greenham, for example posters which featured images of the sun and stars, and trees with stretching branches and roots. This imagery suggests a sense of playfulness and childishness, which links directly to the emphasis on motherhood and Mother Earth. Because many of the motivations for involvement stemmed from fear for future generations, women were directly comparing the harsh, adult reality of nuclear war with the naivety and innocence of young children. For example, the devasting after-effects of the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War Two were invoked to highlight the dangers of radiation.
Sasha Roseneil argues that one of the key strands of women’s involvement at Greenham was maternalism. Women campaigning for peace was ‘a moral and practical duty of a mother to protect life’. This can be seen in the Greenham banners. Greenham women foregrounded motherhood in their banners and other creative practices for example, baby clothes, toys and pictures were fastened to the fence surrounding the base. Women were also known to dress in black and engage in ‘keening’ – the act of mourning for children who would be lost to nuclear war in the future. Another action saw two hundred women enter the base dressed as teddy bears, contrasting the highly militarised atmosphere of the base with a childlike symbol. The aim was to highlight their fears for the safety of their children.
One example of a specific banner that uses the theme of motherhood is ‘Oxford Mothers for Nuclear Disarmament’, which was made by Celia Chasey for her mothers’ group.
Other banner slogans included ‘Dear Margaret, here’s your Christmas cheque. Don’t spend it on bombs for children. Love Mother xxx’ and ‘I want to grow up not blow up’, which was taken from a children’s handwritten note. Referencing Margaret Thatcher, the women were criticising Thatcher’s decision to invest in the US Trident missile submarine system and promote a ‘nuclear deterrence’ policy. This strategy was controversial as it called for the viewer to consider the nuclear threat from the perspective of both a parent and child. The media often used this to turn the public against Greenham women for their decision to ‘abandon’ their families by living at Greenham. This echoes the anti-suffrage view that women were neglectful mothers, which was most commonly expressed via anti-suffrage postcards. One Greenham woman, Thalia Campbell actually made several banners referencing suffrage women, who similarly were vilified as ‘bad mothers’ and ‘irresponsible’.
My participants who were mothers at the time of Greenham stated in their interviews that they became involved because of their children. Some were fairly explicit: ‘they were quite young then, they were just teenagers, and the idea of them being blown up had obviously always been part of my drive’. It is clear that this woman’s motivations were driven by motherhood and wanting to protect her children. Another felt that motherhood influenced her involvement, although she had been ‘involved in the peace movement [and]…protesting since I was seventeen’, so she already felt passionate about the cause before becoming a mother.
Motherhood was so significant that Red Gate became specifically for women with children, and a place where they could play with toys and objects. One banner ‘Girls Say No to the Bombs’ was made specifically for children, by sewing tactile objects onto the bottom edge for them to play with. Another of my interviewees helped to make the banner below as part of their involvement with Newton Abbot’s Women’s Peace Group. Except for one, all members of this group were mothers of young children, so it is unsurprising that this collective maternal identity influenced their banner-making specifically for Greenham.
Banners were constantly present at Greenham and continued to be made throughout the duration of the camp. It was not about how well-executed they were, but instead about the attention they drew to the cause and the significance of women making them together. For women especially, this form of solidarity was vital. One woman told me how being creative helped her ‘cope with fear and anxiety’ because ‘when you’re creating something, you’re just so absorbed in it’. Women therefore engaged in creative practices at Greenham as a way of alleviating the stress of campaigning.
Banners are imperative to the study of Greenham Common and should be at the forefront of future research on the camp. Paying attention to their history affirms both the study of cultural history as an area for uncovering new research, as well as the experiences of the women engaging in such creative practices. Examining Greenham through the lens of creative protest helps to uncover a seldom researched area and broadens our understanding of the importance of collective art movements for women.