Diary of an Ordinary Woman

by Margaret Forster

  More and more women arrived until we were two deep next to the fence, and then someone began singing and simultaneously hands were held out and grasped and we all pushed along to make room so that this great line of women were soon holding hands in an unbroken cordon round the base. At least, we couldn’t know it was unbroken but after about half an hour a woman came running behind us shouting, It’s complete, it’s complete, we’ve done it, we’ve done it! No one wanted to let go. Slowly the line I was part of began to move to the left, I moved with it, supported by Connie who held my hand in such a way that my elbow was held too. The ground was uneven but nobody fell. I don’t know how far we walked, but eventually we came to another gate where a blockade was going on and the movement, the lovely, swaying, gentle progress stopped. The line was not broken, but we stood still because there was a fight, or what looked like a fight, going on. I didn’t want to see it, and kept my face towards the fence, but Connie twisted round and yelled ‘Bastards’ at the men trying to drag some women away. I think if she had not had me with her she would have broken away and joined in. I saw, in the distance, inside the fence, some men come out and stare, but they did not come near. Connie asked me soon after the line had begun moving again and we had passed the gate, if I wanted a rest. She said we could leave the line and come back to it, and so I decided that it would be sensible if I did sit down for a while, though I had not thought of doing so until that moment. She took me to a tent she seemed to know, where there were some plastic garden chairs grouped outside and I sat there, my legs feeling suddenly shaky, and she disappeared inside and brought out a flask of tea. Oh, it was delicious! I was quite revived and eager to return to the line, but Connie wanted me to see what she called her home before we returned. Again, I felt tearful, though this time managed to prevent the tears escaping. It was so pitiful, that tent, the canvas sodden from all the recent rain so that if touched anywhere it dripped, and the horrible squalor of sleeping bags and dirty-looking blankets, and an unpleasant, bad smell, fuggy and close, hanging inside. And here Connie lived, it had been her home all these months. We went back to join the line but after another hour of slowly circling the fence Connie said she would have to leave it to do some important planning. She wouldn’t tell me what this planning was for, but since it meant her going off she thought I should go back to my hotel or she might lose me and I’d have to get myself back, which might prove difficult. So I was brought back by a young woman going to Newbury to pick something up. She drove like a maniac, but I arrived here in one piece. There is a television in this bedroom and I have just watched the coverage of the Greenham event. It showed the base entirely encircled by what is believed to be nearly 30,000 women of all ages from all over the country. And I was one of them.

  13 December

  Just as well I booked in here for tonight too. Couldn’t possibly have driven home today. I feel drained. Yesterday, I felt elated and, until the very end, hardly tired at all, but today I am worn out and stiff and my back pains me. I think of Connie and others in their awful tents and wonder how they stand it. At least in the war we had dry huts to sleep in and proper beds and hot showers and baths available.

  I didn’t go out to the camp today and didn’t really expect Connie to come to me, but she did, briefly, mid-afternoon. She had a hot bath in my bathroom here and looked much the better for it, especially after she’d washed her hair. She seemed excited about something. I thought at first it was a kind of retrospective excitement but no, it wasn’t, it was because of something planned for New Year. She says that whatever it is will be spectacular. I begged her to be careful. We parted good friends. She asked if I understood more now and I said I did, coming had made the difference she had said it would. And I told her I was proud of her and that if I’d been forty years younger I would have stayed and joined her. Now I am bothered by having made such a boast. Would I have crawled into that ghastly tent and endured all the privations simply to join in this protest? I suspect not. Connie is the stuff of heroines, and I am not.

  14 December

  Home, and glad to be. An invitation to spend Christmas with Harry and his family was waiting for me. He encloses details of which train I could get and he will meet me, or offers to drive up and collect me. Well, I wouldn’t put him to such bother. I think that if I really wanted to I could probably drive. I had no need of that stop on the way to Newbury, and with a rest could easily have managed another hundred miles, I’m sure. I will think about it. Connie will not be coming back, that’s certain, so I have no need to think of her.

  *

  Rather to her own surprise, Millicent does decide to accept Harry’s invitation, though she doesn’t drive but goes by train and is met by him. She spends five days with the Kings, from 22 to 27 December, and is enchanted by Harry’s wife Joanna and his two children, Martin, aged 8 and Frances, aged 6. Their family life deeply impresses her and, inevitably, she records in her diary the contrast with Connie’s Spartan existence. She feels guilty sitting in front of a roaring log fire, waited on hand and foot, after a magnificent Christmas dinner, thinking of Connie. Harry and Joanna seem so content with their lives, though she doesn’t think them smug, and she knows they would never do what Connie is doing. They are more like her, she thinks, ordinary people who, though they care about others and about the future of the planet, are too wrapped up in their own lives to want to make public protests. She realises, too, that she is mentioning Connie all the time, and talking too much about Greenham. Afterwards she feels ashamed and, when she gets home, records that she has written in her letter of thanks that she is sorry to have done so. But it sticks in her mind, the huge difference between Harry’s ideal family life and Connie’s lack of one, and she comes near to deciding, rather unfairly, that her niece’s involvement arises out of discontent and a desire to give herself some sense of purpose. Harry and Joanna, she reflects, don’t need that. Their own family gives it to them.

  *

  31 December

  Oh, heavens. Connie phoned to tell me to be prepared for dramatic events. She said that I was to tell no one – as if I had anyone to tell – but that she and some other women are going to climb over the fence and enter the camp. The press has been alerted and there will be full coverage. The action will start at dawn tomorrow, so I should listen to the wireless and watch television later on. All I could think of as she talked was that horrible fence, so tall, so strong. How will they get over it? She says they have got ladders and hidden them in the bushes and it will be easy. Will it? I don’t think so. And how will they get over the top? I can’t remember if there is barbed wire or spikes on top but I do recall long prongs bending outwards at intervals. I asked what they were going to do if they got over and she said paint slogans on the silos, that kind of thing. She doesn’t seem to have thought that the fence may in some way be alarmed. I have visions of alarms going off and armed soldiers rushing out, or dogs. Oh, I wish I had not been told until it was over, but Connie seemed to think I would appreciate this advance information.

  1 January 1983

  Connie has been arrested, again, and for something far more serious. This time she will be sent to prison. I am sure of it. I am so agitated I can hardly bear to take in what happened. All I can absorb is that Connie was one of the women who climbed the fence and then danced on top of the silos before the police arrived and arrested her and forty-three others. I should go down there at once, but she says there is no point and I am not to think of it. They are to appear before the Newbury magistrates in two days’ time. I feel she should have her own solicitor but she maintains she has no need of one. All she wanted to talk about was how glorious the break-in had been. They had had to be so quick getting the ladders up and then flinging an old carpet over the top so that they could safely get over. No one spoke, everyone concentrated on negotiating the fence, but once over they all yelled as they went up the muddy slopes of the silos, yelled and sang, elated to have done it. Eventually they were forcibly hauled down by policemen an
d ejected. It was pretty rough but she had no complaints and she’d expected to be manhandled. For some reason, she has given a false name to the police, lots of them have, to cause confusion. She has promised to ring me after the 3rd.

  3 January

  Connie and the others have not been charged under the Official Secrets Act, even though they penetrated into a high-security area, but with a breach of the peace. I am relieved to hear it. Maybe now she won’t be sent to prison, maybe she will just be fined. I suspect she will refuse to pay a fine but I will pay it for her. It will make her angry, but I cannot have a niece of mine going to prison. I have not told her what I intend to do. Instead, I am going to go to the trial next month. I am quite determined to be there.

  6 February

  I don’t think Connie saw me. I had some difficulty getting into the courtroom. It is not large, but I managed in the end, my age and respectability doubtless helping. It was all very interesting and I quite forgot to be anxious.

  But today my head spins with the strain of trying to take in everything I’ve heard, much of it distressing since it consisted of details of radiation sickness and death through nuclear fall-out. The defence case seemed powerful to me, but not, alas, to the magistrates. It was so upsetting, watching a dozen policemen march into the courtroom before the verdict to pen in the women in the dock, no need for this, surely, they have not murdered anyone and were not likely to try to escape. I saw Connie and others climb onto chairs so that they stood above the policemen. She was found guilty of a breach of the peace, as they all were, and sentenced to prison for fourteen days. I had been prepared for the worst, though not expecting it, but even so I was shocked and felt quite faint. I tried to get near to Connie but she was herded off very quickly into a van and I had no chance to speak to her. I asked a policeman where the women were being taken and he said to Holloway, where they belong. I beg your pardon, I said, my niece is one of those women and she is from a good family and has done what she did for all our sakes and should be thanked for it and not imprisoned. I don’t know what came over me. Move along, grandma, he said, laughing.

  20 February

  Never did I think that I would go through the gates of a prison either as a prisoner myself or as a visitor. I found it hard. The building itself intimidates me and I felt weak and nervous going into it. Because of my age, the warders were kind to me, one of them taking my arm to help me along though I had no real need of it. I suppose I simply looked frail. Connie was cheerful and not at all intimidated. She said I looked dreadful and told me to sit down and relax and she would do all the talking. She is in a cell with three other women, one a companion from the camp and the other two in on drug charges. Her main complaint was how long they’d been kept in reception when they arrived, three hours sitting in nothing but a dressing-gown, and they were all so tired. She’s still tired, and finds sleeping difficult because of all the noise at night, endless bangings and crying out, occasional piercing screams, and the seemingly endless patrolling of the warders. She said the days pass quite quickly and of course there are only eleven more to get through. I dared to ask what she was going to do when she was released. She looked astonished at my question. She is going back to Greenham, of course. So, it will all begin again. But there was no point arguing. Before I left, I pleaded with her to come and spend at least one night with me, in comfort, before going back to the camp. She has said she will.

  2 March

  Connie is free. It hadn’t been certain at what time she would be released so I did not meet her. She arrived here quite flushed and triumphant after some sort of reception party outside the gates of Holloway. The press were there and she’d been presented with flowers and someone had given her a lift, telling her they felt privileged to have the opportunity. Quite the star, I must say. She was on the telephone instantly, making lots of calls and sounding over-excited, I thought. I looked at her while she was talking and thought how she had aged. No doubt about it. In the last two years, she has aged about ten. Greenham has done that to her, dulled her skin and etched these lines and made her lovely hair lank. How she would shout at me if I said this aloud. I suggested that while she soaked in the bath I might wash her clothes, as she seems to have no others with her, and she could wear some of mine till they are dry. She said if it made me happy, I could go ahead. So I did. Dear Lord, those clothes! I washed them by hand, since most seemed to be woollen, and the dirt and dye which came out of them turned the water black. Her undergarments are disgraceful, in tatters, and the woollen tights she wears under her trousers so full of holes they are useless as coverings. It was a fine, windy day and I hung everything in the garden to dry but felt pangs of embarrassment at the thought of neighbours seeing such doleful garments. I said nothing about their state of course. I know only too well what the answer would be. Then I cooked a splendid dinner, plenty of meat to build her up. I know most of the women at the camp are vegans or vegetarians and Connie gets no meat even though she still eats it. Strange how, unlike me before I went to Italy, she has never been a vegetarian. She tucked in very satisfactorily. We had a bottle of claret, Harry gave it to me and I have been saving it, and then whisky afterwards, in front of the fire. Connie became very mellow then, not surprisingly. She thanked me, said it was always a comfort to know I was here and that she could always come to me. But then she asked did I still keep my diary. She wanted to know if I’d recorded what was happening at Greenham. I said naturally I had. She nodded, said she was glad. We’re making history there, she said. I didn’t quite like her tone, but made no comment, though I was tempted to remark that Greenham might at the best rate a footnote and at the worst be forgotten if overtaken by greater events. But Connie was in full flow, carrying on to declare that Greenham would be seen to represent ordinary women everywhere. I think I have heard this before, but then anyone living as long as I have is bound to have heard most things before. She said I was very quiet. Was that because I was not admiring enough? We sat up till midnight, though I was ready for bed long before. She hugged and kissed me before she went, in a way she hasn’t done since she was a little girl but then Greenham has seen a growth in such embracing. You are so small, Aunt Millicent, she said, I always forget how small you are, and I’m sure you’ve shrunk. I said very probably, old women do. You’re not old, she said, and I told her not to be so silly, of course I am old and my time is nearly up. She seemed shocked, and held me at arm’s length and examined me minutely. No, she said very firmly, your time is not nearly over, you have a diary to keep up. So we parted laughing.

  5 March

  Connie stayed three nights after all. There was some urgent phone call summoning her to a meeting and she came back from it very self-important, saying she had things to organise here in London before going back to Greenham. But we had no more cosy evenings. She was out each night and I hardly saw her. Now she has gone back, loaded with all kinds of things needed at the camp. I ran her to the station and couldn’t park and so our farewells were hurried. I watched her stalk down the concourse, full of confidence and with never a backward look.

  *

  After this, Millicent does not follow Connie’s fortunes at Greenham quite so intently – it is as though she has become weary of the subject. But she does describe in some detail Connie’s second arrest, when she is one of the 187 women who cut through sections of the fence round the base with bolt-cutters in October 1983, and then writes intermittently about Connie and the others who carried on right up to 1987, when NATO finally agreed to get rid of the missiles. The diaries from the end of 1983 to 1987 are thin. Partly this is due to Millicent’s arthritis, which for years had been bad in the joints of her thumbs, and partly to a growing loss of interest in recording her own life ‘up to the end’. She worries about what this ‘end’ will be like, what is going to happen to her, how she is going to manage in old age if she goes on living until she is 90 or even older. Her general health is still good, as it always has been, but she catalogues failing faculties ruthlessly.
In 1988, she gives up driving which distresses her greatly, and makes a significant difference to her much-valued independence, but she is forced into this after two dizzy turns while at the wheel. Nothing happened, she didn’t have an accident, but she feels nervous afterwards and thinks of these ‘turns’ as a warning she ought to heed. The dizziness is due to raised blood pressure, quite easily corrected, but she doesn’t resume driving. In 1989, she has a fall, nothing serious, but her left arm is never quite right afterwards – she wrenched it in the fall and it remains painful though nothing is broken or fractured. Her eyesight begins to deteriorate in 1989 and for the first time she has to wear spectacles, and in 1990 she suffers a partial hearing loss in her left ear. The writing in her diary is still quite clear, but from being neat and small it grows large and runs over the lines of the pages. Also in 1990 there is a particularly poignant entry about her teeth.