Aldermaston Anniversary

At Easter 1958 the recently formed Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) organised a march from London to the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment close to Aldermaston in Berkshire, England. On March 24 2008 CND marked the anniversary of this event by returning to the base.

In 1958 the marchers took four days getting to Aldermaston from London. Nottingham and Leicester CND organised joint transport, taking a coach and two minibuses, and made the return trip in a day.

Among those travelling from the East Midlands was Alice Beer, who at 95 is Leicester CND's oldest campaigner. Another Leicester CND member dressed as Thomas Cook (in a frock coat and top hat), famous for setting up the travel agency of the same name, but also apparently an active campaigner in his native Leicester.

The plan was to have people from across the country surround the base in a human chain. This was coordinated by assigning different gates to groups from different parts of the country. The Notts delegation were grouped in with the east of the country and were assigned to the Boiler House gate.

By the time we go there, hundreds of people had already arrived and the fence surrounding the base was covered in banners and flags.

Those of us from the East Midlands milled around, taking in the atmosphere. Somebody (from where I don't know) set up a keyboard and a band soon formed playing anti-war songs. A small contingent from the clown army organised games to keep people warm, which proved increasingly necessary as the snow blew in (mercifully briefly).

At 2pm everybody started to fan out so that we there was a human chain around the base. I didn't wander far, so it's hard for me to assess how complete this chain was. There were certainly gaps between people, but according to the police (who obviously wouldn't lie) there was a reasonable spread of people around the entire base.

Tape was put across the gate in order to symbolically enclose the base. At 2.30pm we were encouraged to make as much noise as possible, which happened with some success, although it didn't seem to last all that long and people soon began to drift back to the gates.

It was shortly after this that the speakers, who had been travelling to the various gates on a lorry arrived. I for one will never forget the image of several pensioners dancing to the pounding techno being pumped out of the vehicle's impressive sound system when it first turned up.

The list of speakers was something of a usual suspects roll call. Jeremy Corbyn (Labour MP) as Master of Ceremonies opened proceedings and went on to introduce John McDonnell (Labour MP and failed party leadership challenger), Caroline Lucas (Green MEP), Walter Wolfgang (veteran campaigner most famous for being thrown out of the Labour party conference a few years back) and a delegation from Japan including a lifetime campaigner and a Hiroshima survivor. All made the correct noises about the evils of nuclear weapons and were well received by the large crowd which formed around the lorry.

After the speakers had finished the days events quickly wrapped up and we all made our way back to our coaches for the journey home.

I can't say it was the most exciting action I've ever been on and I wonder if we couldn't have done more with 3,000 people outside a nuclear base, but hopefully those involved won't just go home feeling they've done their bit. With the replacement for Trident still only at the earliest stages this is still a fight we can win. But only if we're really prepared to fight for it.