1984 revisited: The nick

As I commented in Monday's post, 27 women were arrested at the demo outside the American base at the beginning of 1984. As darkness fell and the majority of the demonstrators headed for the ferry through the snow that was beginning to fall, the women from Dunoon & Holy Loch CND decided that we couldn't abandon those now in police custody and agreed to meet at the local police station in an hour or so. Just time to go home, get warm, eat something (and in my case cook something first, for my chaps were panicking) and find something warmer to wear.

And so I ended up spending that Saturday evening outside the doors of the police station, wearing Mr B's duvet coat, singing loudly to encourage those held within. Every so often, the doors would revolve and spit out one of the women, released for now, uncertain of whether or not the ferries would still be running but glad to see us waiting. We took it in turns to ferry carloads to the pier, gave out chocolate, reassured them about timetables. The snow continued to fall, and we scuffed huge CND symbols on the grass. Learning that if we made enough noise the women still held inside could hear us, we made a great deal. There was in immense sense of family and responsibility. After all, these women had travelled from the south of England to demonstrate at our base - the presence of which had turned Dunoon into a garrison town, a chunk of Ardnadam into foreign territory and the Holy Loch into an obscenity - and we were grateful.

By eleven o'clock we were informed that the four women still in custody would be remaining in police cells till Monday morning. We should go home, the duty sergeant told us, not unkindly. Come back the next day if we liked - we could visit. So there I was, having my first ever chance to visit those in prison, turning up on the Sunday with cartons of orange juice, some toothbrushes, toothpaste, books. And my first ever time locked in a cell - brown gloss painted brick walls, bright red gloss on the door, bench on two walls, plastic cushioning in blue. Funny, I can't remember the individual people I visited - only their gratitude, their smiles, their resolve. They didn't seem to me worthy of incarceration, but they must have upset someone.

As the weekend ended in a raw thaw, I contemplated work, normality, and a return, as it were, to Thatcher's Britain. I knew that I felt completely alienated from the government - and that normality seemed more strange than what I had just experienced. 1984 looked like being an interesting year.

1984 revisited: The Demo

Remnants of a demo
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

1984, the year of the Miners' Strike, the year Thatcher showed conclusively who ruled Britain, began with a month of wild weather. Thunder, gales, snow - the lot. And on January 21, 500 women turned up, on a raw day which brought snow by nightfall, to protest at the US navy Site One: the nuclear submarine base on the Holy Loch.

At the time, I was heavily involved in the local CND. Moving to Dunoon and living there with two young children had galvanised a political activity which had been lacking in my complacent youth; my comparatively recent discovery of God had made it even more important and I was heavily involved in the preparations for this demo. Most of the women travelled up from the peace camp at Greenham Common; the rest of us were local.

I feel a burst of dramatic present coming on ...

It is bitterly cold. The gritting lorry has passed along the shore road at the gates to the American pier - and back again - and then back in the other direction: three loads of grit. The base ship, which only sails if there is a threat of war in normal circs, has gone - on an exercise, we are told; we know better. When I arrive, there is already a fire on the pebble beach, and women - in shawls, in bundles of coats and jackets, draped in blankets - are huddled round it like refugees. You can spot the locals, as we tend to wear waterproofs and overtrousers and climbing boots, but we all look like survivors of some nameless holocaust. The only men in sight are in police uniforms, apart from two nattily-dressed gents. I approach the one in the lambskin coat and burberry scarf. He admits that he is a "posh policeman" - we decide Special Branch. It turns out that many of the police have been drafted in - from Dumbarton, we think.

We spend the day doing the crazy things one does on a demo: country dancing in the road, a great deal of singing ("Whose side are you on?", into the ear of a policeman I'm embracing at the time); there is a die-in on the road with appropriate painted outlines (they don't really take, in the grit). Some Greenham women charge the fence and are hauled away; others sit several deep to barricade the entrance and are also dragged off. The grit makes a dreadful mess of backs exposed as clothes are hauled up in the process, and my pal Winnie, in an absurd orange woolly hat, carefully notes names and times and constable numbers in her little book. She is a designated observer for the day, with instructions to avoid arrest.

Later, not having been arrested, I clamber down to paint the rocks holding up the car park. (The photo shows me sitting there, months later: I wasn't so into photography in these days, and I feared for my camera should anyone not like what I did with it). I am interviewed on film, though I'm not sure who's doing the interview, and I speak to someone from The Times - the respectable face of the demo. I marvel at the courage of some of the women - moral and physical courage. The younger ones are magnificent, and I feel middle-aged and staid.

By the time darkness falls - about 4pm on this gloomy day - there have been 27 arrests. My mother (in Glasgow) is sure I will be locked up, and Mr B, seeing my sister alone at the door in the dark, is appalled at the thought that he will have to cook the dinner for the family. By the time I get home, I am frozen and exhausted, but there are 27 women, none of them local, in the local police cells and I know I shall have to go out again.

But that, as they say in all the best tales, is another story.

Binning the Bomb in Glasgow

Slight change of tack today - I went on a demo, a protest march, a rally: whatever you call it, a goodly crowd assembled in George Square to march round the city centre on a dreich Saturday to make the point that it is a lousy idea to replace Trident missiles with the beta version - or whatever it is that you replace big bombs with. I last marched in Glasgow in the big "Not in our name" anti-war demo, and a fat lot of use it was too, but old habits die hard and you can always say you tried. (I just mistyped "tired" there; pretty appropriate in that the pace of your average march is about that of a stroll round an art gallery, and we all know how that affects the legs).

There was the usual mix of old people (like me, or older, even), school kids, students, anarchists (you can always tell an anarchist - black flag, black clothes, bit of drumming, wee dance, veggie food) clergy, church groups, a man with a Rottweiler, trades union people - and a host of Nationalists with saltires. I overheard an interesting snippet of conversation behind me about the connection between the peace movement and gay solidarity, and remarked the poverty of the song repertoire - I'm sure we sang better songs in the early 80s.

Some of the speakers were excellent. I was pleased that the Moderator of the Kirk and Cardinal O'Brien spoke, and delighted to hear Bruce Kent again, totally undiminished since I last heard him many years ago. He and Alec Salmond really have the popular touch - I love a good rabble-rousing speech. We clapped and cheered as the rain poured down - the benefit of being in a crowd is that it keeps your legs dry - and left when the pangs of hunger grew too strong to be ignored.

There were many police around - including a couple on bicycles - but everyone was terribly well behaved and all they had to do was hold up the traffic. (I think: I've not heard any news reports yet.) I wonder what will happen if the present government insist on lumbering us with newer and shinier missiles; I wish they wouldn't.