camp blog

11 March 2008

Cakes welcome

Before our next 'scheduled' monthly camp in April we will be convening as part of the mass anti-nuclear protest planned at the Atomic Weapons Establishment, this Easter Monday, 24th March 2008. This is the 50th anniversary of the first Aldermaston peace march so we will be at Aldermaston along with a variety of other groups, to protest at the continuing production of nuclear bombs, and will be hosting a fabulous party at our historic home, Falcon gate. Cakes welcome. Fortunately, in a wise and timely move, the High Court has quashed a byelaw prohibiting the “putting of any thing on any surface”. We can therefore once again hang banners on AWE’s fence, alerting the public to the nuclear weapons factory. We celebrated international women's day outside AWE Aldermaston in spite of a front page story in the Independent reporting our demise.

happycamper

17 January 2008

Strike for donuts! Down with dampness! We love Tadley-ites!

January camp was wet and windy (again), but we survived ;) (actually, Saturday daytime was quite nice ... it just went downhill from there on in .. all flappy banners and weighing things down). We tried out "betty" our new brazier, very good but she is hungry for more coal.

The MDP are being sulky and ignoring us, but Hampshire and TVP went round the magic roundabout a few times. Good news is that AWE personnel are considering strike action ... go on .. permanent strike now! We will lend you a brazier and a tarp for the picket line. We also have the knowledge when it comes to placards and demonstrating in general, so if you folks need any advice...

Bad news is the prosepct of Fluor and Jacobs (two US companies) taking on one of the three stakes in AWE Ml - which would make it a 2/3 US run operation. Mind you, I guess British WMD profiteers are no better than US ones ("some of my best friends are Americans"...)

On Saturday we participated in a national day of action for the right to freedom of assembly (see pic). Other demos took place across the country - see http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/01/389354.html). No-one was arrested at Aldermaston (though they were in other places).

Sunday got off to a good start with a delivery of hot donuts from a local driver and was follwed up by good wishes from a woman and her kids who were walking along the fenceline. Local support - very nice and always welcome (come and visit, we don't bite ... unless its in the middle of the night!). We had lots of nice visitors and progressed a bit with our fantastic major motion picture ("coming to a screen near you soon").

jk