18/10/2011
This weekend saw the delectable women from Aldermaston Women’s Peace Camp descend on Faslane. The theme of the invasion was ‘Domestic Extremists ‘ at large and they did her Majesty’s Royal Navy a service by closing off the North Gate for a few hours on Saturday and giving the Ministry of Defence a much needed lesson in domesticity! A few of us from Peace Camp joined our sisters and, armed with rubber gloves, head scarves and thought provoking banners, like good domesticated women, we gave the gate a right scrub. Of course, we had to stop the influx of NATO army trucks by blocking the road… that’s why the gate was so dirty in the first place! With the gate (and the MoD police car!) sparkling we decided to cause a bit of mischief with some wool but this made the MoD police rather cross… Nevertheless, the whole cleaning operation ended amicably with no arrests and some of us went on to the South Gate to make our feelings on the illegality and immorality of the British Nuclear Weapons Programme known to the base traffic we’d successfully diverted.
Our visit to Coulport earlier that morning also caused a bit of a kafuffle for the gate staff. On behalf of the nation footing the bill for these abhorrent bombs, we formed a team of Weapons Inspectors. We merely wanted to take a look at the warheads that are engulfing so many of the nation’s taxes at the expense of our NHS and community projects, but were denied entry. We love our accountable, democratic state.
Conclusion: Those of us at Faslane Peace Camp greatly appreciated the wonderful atmosphere and engaging conversation that came with our weekend invasion. Our formidable sisters of Aldermaston Peace Camp are welcome to come and make domestic extremist mischief with us any time!