The coconut scent of bright-yellow gorse flowers wafts around me as the gravel path crunches beneath my feet. Darting in and out of my peripheral vision, damselflies and dragonflies dance and dive, battling out dominance over large pools of water.
Life is around me; bees buzz over pink-purple heather flowers, grasshoppers make their presence known across grassland speckled with wildflowers. Overhead a skylark darts straight upward like a harrier jet, its distinctive call, broken and frenetic, echoes across wide-open skies as I watch it climb ever upward.
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Modern farming methods have meant the habitat of these ground-nesting birds has been threatened but here, at an abandoned airbase on Greenham Common, near Newbury in Berkshire, they’re soaring above me. Greenham and neighbouring Crookham is a rare inland heath, the largest of its kind in this part of England. But 40 years ago, this wildlife reserve fringed by pools, reedbeds, rivers, canal paths, streams and ancient woodland was about as far removed from wildlife as you can get.
In the early 1980s, NATO decided that RAF Greenham Common would become one of two sites to house the United States Air Force’s arsenal of ground-launched cruise missiles, all 96 complete with a thermonuclear warhead. If deployed, these bombs would be capable of wiping out millions of lives across Soviet Union-controlled Europe.
Having such destructive power on British shores was not something the population at the time took lightly. Before the weapons even arrived, what would become one of the most talked about protests in the world, the Greenham Common Peace Camps, took up residence just outside the perimeter gates.
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Greenham's history of protest
My day begins in the Control Tower Café with peace camp veteran Lynette Edwell. A woman small in stature but with a big presence and a spark that defies her 85 years. In the 1980s, Lynette lived close to the peace camp and her proximity meant she could offer assistance, such as food, baths and an all-important telephone line. After striking up a friendship with early protestor, Helen John, who stayed with Lynette to avoid arrest, she found herself getting more and more involved with the protest.
Lynette would soon play a key role in the administration of the camp, supporting the women through court cases and assisting communication through a ‘telephone tree’. In a pre-mobile-phone era, this was vital to get the message out if, for example, missiles were being transported and they wanted to mobilise a protest. She would call a handful of people, who would call a handful more until everyone was alerted.
On the surface, the café is quite typical of the kind you’ll find in nature reserves and country properties. There’s tea, coffee, cakes, soups and sandwiches.
Yet all over the walls are reminders of Greenham’s colourful past. Just above the kitchen door you are greeted by the words: ‘You can’t kill the spirit’, an evocative quote from the Women of Greenham. Pictures of military planes hang on the walls and further quotes, including the motto of the 501st Tactical Missile Wing: ‘Poised to deter, quick to react’, a reference to the nuclear deterrent formerly housed here.
Upstairs from the café, a small museum helps unfold the fascinating history of the site. As well as exhibits about the base and the peace camp, there’s even a mock-up control desk with live monitoring of passing planes. Childhood memories of presidential hotlines flash in my mind as I pick up a Cold War-era red rotary telephone.
Turning the dial plays prerecorded messages from the RAF, USAF and even McDonald’s (although there was never a McDonald’s here!). However, its message from the command centre with a practice drill for missile deployment and lock down of the base sends a chill down my spine.
Women for Life on Earth
In August and September of 1981, a group from Wales, called ‘Women for Life on Earth’, a name charged with meaning, marched on Greenham to protest against the proposed siting of nuclear weapons. Some decided to stay to continue setting up the first perimeter camp. This initial camp grew into several mixed-gender camps all around the base’s perimeter.
In 1982, after a spell of what Lynette called ‘bad behaviour’ by some of the men, it was decided to make the camps women and children only. This was to be a momentous decision, making the camps distinct from every protest that came before and serving as a critique and counter of male military power.
The women stayed for 19 years in total and would go on to inspire peace camps across the world. Forming human blockades, the group prevented the movement of weapons, they stopped planes from landing by covering the runway with flammable paint and put sugar in the fuel tanks of military vehicles causing delay to convoys.
Their actions swayed public opinion, with 59% of the British public opposed to the siting of weapons on the base in autumn 1981. Although not all agreed with their methods, they did keep the nuclear disarmament debate in the public eye while putting pressure on the governments of the day.
Many cite the protests as a contributing factor to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and US president Ronald Reagan’s signing of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which eliminated ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles. Years later, Gorbachev vindicated the Greenham women by stating that their pressure was one of the factors that led to the decision to begin disarmament talks between Russia and the USA.
Greenham and the Cold War
Forty years ago, my walking companion Lynette would have only been able to see the control tower through the fence and certainly wouldn’t have been able to freely wander around the base. We head on the path to the west of the tower before arcing south to the former nuclear bunkers in the south-west corner of the site.
These enormous Cold War constrictions tower 10m high above us and dwarf everything around them. Lynette suggests, with a glint in her eye, that if she had a pair of bolt cutters she could get us into the bunkers. Part of me senses this octogenarian protester isn’t entirely joking…
Fans of the Star Wars franchise might find the bunkers familiar. Constructed with two-metre-thick concrete and tonnes of sand and clay, these shelters were built to protect both military personnel and the cruise missiles in the advent of an attack. Being such a unique shape, the location scouts saw the potential of these structures as a ready-made film set.
In JJ Abrams’ 2015 film, The Force Awakens, Greenham became part of the planet D’Qar, home to the resistance base. The bunkers were transformed into hangers for a small fleet of X-wing fighters ready to fight the First Order.
Lynette and I part company after the bunkers, and I follow the path up to the centre of the old runway. When the base was operational, this would have been one of the longest runways in Western Europe. The control tower would have seen iconic V-wing B-47s, large propeller-driven KC-97s and the huge C-5 Galaxy transporter planes all landing here during the base’s 50-year operational history.
A new hope for Greenham
In 1997, the area was returned to the public and became common land. Today, with nature slowly returning, we can see the results of that action. The old runway is mostly hidden by shallow, nutrient-poor soil, which is perfect for saxifrages, mosses and wildflowers. In the open heath and grassland adjacent to the old runway sit swathes of gorses, rare wildflowers, scrubland plants and grasses.
This habitat is important for ground-nesting birds, such as meadow pipits, nightjars and little ringed plovers, along with skylarks and woodlarks. Sticking to the path as not to disturb these nesting sites, I head east toward Crookham Common and soon pass through an avenue of pine, chestnut, beech, hazel, hawthorn and sycamore trees.
Before long I’m in a wetland area before passing through more woodland towards the Kennet and Avon Canal path. This diverse but overlapping habitat of grassland, woodland, wetland and heath is rare and has seen Greenham and Crookham becoming a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).
Nature is thriving due to the efforts of the Berks, Bucks & Oxon Wildlife Trust: there are patches of bare gravel for cold-blooded invertebrates to bask in the sun while ponds, lakes and pools of water provide a place for dragonflies, damselflies, and great crested, smooth and palmate newts to lay their eggs.
Trees, scrub and health provide nesting sites for birds and the range of habitats offer small mammals a place to hide from the kites, kestrels, sparrowhawks and buzzards that circle the skies. Over 120 bird species have been spotted on the commons.
The Kennet and Avon canal
Greenham’s military past and natural geology also make it a unique ecological mosaic. Situated in the Kennet and Enborne valleys, this region is characterised by sandy clays and areas of gravel left over from the retreating glaciers.
Alongside rare acid-loving flowers such as the late-summer flowering, autumn lady’s-tresses orchid, the crumbling concrete of the runway to the west provides an area of more alkali soil home to its own range of plants, including vetches and the rare butterflies that feed on them.
The second half of my walk takes me alongside the Kennet and Avon Canal path. Constructed between 1794 and 1810, this stretch of canal linked the navigable rivers of the Kennet and Avon. At the height of the industrial revolution it became a key trade route between Bristol and London, transporting coal from the mines of the west along with the quarried bath stone used to construct Georgian England.
Today, things are far more peaceful, as pleasure craft, canoeists, walkers and joggers use the path for recreation. The waters are clear, and you may well spot the vivid blue flash of a solitary kingfisher darting across the top of the water.
Following my nose back south, past Newbury Racecourse to the control tower’s car park, I reflect on a day of calm. Recalling the news stories of my youth, my sense of tranquillity feels at odds with a place once famous for turbulent clashes between police and protesters. It’s not unwelcome, however. Give me wildflowers over warheads and butterflies over B-47s any day of the week.
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Top image: Greenham and Crookham Common. Credit: Joe Branston
