Diary of an Ordinary Woman

by Margaret Forster

  20 September

  Ten days, and at last a call from Connie. She sounded cheerful, and was full of how I’d approve of what was being done in the way of organisation. She says a small village is springing up, and that there is a communal shelter erected out of tarpaulins and branches in which there is a cauldron hanging over a fire for cooking. It sounds ghastly, but she says good stews are made and nobody goes hungry. The local people are being wonderful and several of them have made their bathrooms available and she’d had two baths herself which she was sure would please me with my mania for cleanliness. I asked her what exactly she did all day and she said she was always frantically busy, mainly preparing statements for the media and duplicating posters and leaflets. I had so many questions to ask but she had to go to a meeting. I suppose I must be grateful that she has rung at all.

  1 October

  The weather is dreadful, and of course I think of Connie, sleeping in a tent in all this rain and cold, and not even a proper tent if newspaper descriptions are to be credited. The things they live and sleep in are called tipis, like wigwams, and some of the women aren’t even in these but in ‘benders’, bits of sheeting pulled over branches, totally inadequate to protect them now winter is coming. Connie’s fine words about organisation are belied by the pictures I have seen, acres of mud everywhere and not a sign of any shelter worthy of the name.

  6 October

  I read today that the Post Office says it is prepared to deliver letters to the camp. I like the idea of writing to Connie, though I fear she will have no interest in anything I have to say, and if I use a letter to tell her to keep warm and dry and to eat properly she will likely ignore it. But still, I will attempt to communicate with her. It will make me feel that she is not lost somewhere, out of my reach.

  7 October

  Wrote to Connie, addressing it to the communal tent, Greenham Common Peace Camp. Of course, writing it I could not help remembering when I last wrote to a camp, and how pointless that turned out to have been.

  9 October

  Such a shock today. I opened my newspaper to see staring at me a photograph of Tom, just as he was when I knew him. It was his obituary. Before I could read it, my eyes went straight to the little bit of factual information they always give at the end: yes, he had married, twice, and had two sons and a daughter. He’d gone into the Foreign Office after Oxford. There was a tribute to how he had overcome the loss of his arm and had, in spite of it, been a keen tennis player. His life, in this account, sounded happy, but it made me sad, looking at his boyish face. I wonder if Phyllis is still alive. I wonder if I should write to her, but I don’t have an address.

  12 October

  Connie got my letter, and seemed amused and pleased that I’d written, testing the Post Office’s promise. She wasn’t on the line long, there was a queue behind her for the telephone, but she urged me to go to a rally which is going to be held in Trafalgar Square on 24th of this month. I said I would go.

  24 October

  Being old is a great handicap when trying to cope with crowds. I am not frail yet, I do not need a stick, but even so I worry about being knocked down in a crush and about whether I have the stamina to make my way through it. I went early, knowing I had to be sure to get a position where I could lean on something, and chose the steps of the National Gallery in front of one of the pillars. It meant being quite a distance from the speakers at the rally, so I couldn’t hear very well. My mind wandered. I found myself looking at all the enormous crowd of people, thousands and thousands of them, the most I have ever seen gathered in one place, and wondering how many were there for the entertainment, and how many by accident, and how many out of real conviction. And then I fell to studying individuals near to me, watching the expressions of a young man and woman arm in arm leaning on the same pillar, quite vacant, dreamy expressions, almost bored, indeed both of them yawned a good deal, and I was fairly sure they were only there for the spectacle. I waited for ages, a full hour afterwards, before trying to get home. The dispersing of the vast throng was in fact quite orderly with nothing for the mounted police to do. I was so tired by the time I got onto the bus but felt pleased I had made the effort. Connie won’t see the effort involved, I’m sure, but I hope she will be pleased.

  25 October

  Connie rang to see if I had gone to the rally so I was glad I had. But far from being pleased with me, or giving an 80-year-old any credit at all for braving the hordes, she was annoyed that I couldn’t report what the Greenham woman’s speech had been about. What is the point in going at all if you don’t hear what is said, she shouted. She grudgingly left the subject and moved on to tell me that the camp is growing bigger, with people arriving all the time, which is making the running of it more difficult. There are constant arguments about how things should be done, and a good deal of tension between the men and the women. She wishes a women-only rule had been made right at the beginning. I said I didn’t see why men didn’t have their part to play in a peaceful protest but she retorted that it was men who made the nuclear weapons in the first place and men who would be in charge of deploying them and, frankly, men were to blame for the whole mess we are in. It is when Connie says things like that that I lose patience with her.

  2 November

  Sent Connie a parcel. She will laugh at its contents but I don’t care. I put in some thermal underwear and a scarf I have knitted, and some thick socks, and then a box of her favourite biscuits and some soap. I shouldn’t have included the soap, but it was very nice soap and nice soap is such a comfort, I always think. It was quite a big parcel. The woman at the Post Office saw the address when she was weighing it and asked was it to my daughter and I said no, my niece, and she looked at me closely and said why do they do it. I was about to say I didn’t know and then I thought no, I can’t say that. So I gave her a little lecture and it was rather gratifying to see her nod her head at the end.

  21 November

  Connie is on picket duty. She says pickets are now posted twenty-four hours a day to stop the ‘benders’ and ‘tipis’ being removed by the council. It seems every now and again men appear to clear the common, which they have no right to do. I don’t like the sound of this. Connie could get hurt. She is quite likely to get into fights. She told me not to be silly.

  22 December

  An excited and, for once, long phone call from Connie, all about what she calls the first positive action. It seems she woke up yesterday to find some land next to the camp had been bulldozed ready for some pipes to be laid. These pipes, for sewage, were to go through the camp into the base. She was asked to move the tipi she shares with two other women but she, and they, refused. She says the workmen were more embarrassed than anything. She and her friends then sat down in front of the mechanical digger being used and said they wouldn’t let the pipes be laid because to do so would prolong the existence of the base. The workmen gave up straightaway. Connie was beside herself with joy, seeing this as a great triumph. Well, really. How can preventing the laying of necessary sewage pipes be a triumph? Connie says it is a rehearsal for the inevitable coming confrontation. I asked if she was coming home for Christmas. She said of course not, how could she think about Christmas when all this was happening. I almost said she might think about me, but I didn’t. I would never plead loneliness.

  I January 1982

  A Happy New Year call early this morning from Connie. She’d been up all night, walking round the nine miles of the fence and hanging messages on the fence and on the trees. I asked what on earth these messages said and she rhymed off several, Dare To Hope was one. They also called out to the soldiers in the base, urging them to think about the significance of it and what sin they were being called on to commit. I’m sure all that would be heard would be a general caterwauling which would be much derided, but it seems to have made Connie amazingly happy.

  15 February

  The Greenham camp has become women-only after a violent confrontation between the men and the women ther
e. Connie reports, I think with satisfaction, that the men have all gone. She thinks the policy of non-violence will have more chance of success now, with the police and council officials less likely to use strong-arm tactics against women. I would not be so sure. It is perhaps the very presence of men that has prevented attempts to remove the camp already.

  23 March

  I was waiting for this. I knew it would happen: Connie has been arrested, yesterday. There was a blockade of the base, with hundreds of the women massing in front of the gates and refusing to move. As soon as some were bodily lifted away, others took their place. Connie, of course, returned again and again to the fray and I expect argued with the Americans all the time. She and thirty-three others have been arrested and charged with obstructing the highway and must appear in court. She says I am not to worry, she will not be imprisoned, but I am frantic with worry. What kind of life is she leading, what will happen to her when all this is over? It is not as though she is a silly teenager. She is a woman of 45 years of age who ought not to be spending her days like this, and with worse to come. When I say this to her, she says that at least she will have stood by her principles and tried to do something, and I know that she means to point out that I never have.

  4 April

  Interesting visit from Harry. It is ages since I have seen him and he has changed in appearance, seems much heavier and is losing his hair. But he looked well and is very happy with his wife Joanna and two children, a boy and a girl, whose photographs he showed me. It was a relief to have someone to talk to about Connie. He listened very patiently to my tale of woe about her being arrested and how she was obsessed to the point of madness. He said he rather admired her and all the women there, which surprised me. I asked him why and he said he thought the power of a peaceful massed protest had never, so far as he knew, been put to the test in any kind of sustained way and that it was worth a try.

  Then he changed the subject to ask how I was, and inquired if I needed anything. That was thoughtful of him. He asked about Toby too, and was astonished that I never hear from him, and about Grace and her family, not knowing they had gone to live in New York. In short, Harry showed himself to be almost the only concerned family member. I wish Connie was married and had two children and was enjoying life, like Harry. He invited me to go and stay with him and when I said travel was beyond me now, he said he would come and get me any time I liked. I am almost tempted. I shall think about it. I was sorry to see him go. After he left, I thought how I should like to leave him something when I die, but I have nothing meaningful except this house and that is left to Connie. I must select some memento, perhaps a piece of furniture that belonged to his grandparents, perhaps the two oak chairs actually made by his great-grand-father.

  26 April

  I wonder if Connie knows that we are at war in the Falklands and what she thinks of this ‘victory’ of ours, recapturing South Georgia. I can hardly bear to read about what is going on – war, war, war, and our woman Prime Minister the most warlike of all.

  29 May

  Phone call, at last, from Connie: she is fine, or so she says and, though she was one of those who lay down in the mud to obstruct the bulldozer trying to clear the site, she was not arrested this time. She described the scene vividly, the awful fear as this gigantic bulldozer moved slowly towards her, the ground vibrating as it advanced and the noise deafening the nearer it got to her, spraying her and the others with mud and grit so that they had to keep their eyes tight shut and rely on their other senses to know what was happening. It stopped inches from her and when she opened her eyes she found she was staring up into its metal jaws and she did not dare move for the dread of catching her clothes in them. Then the council workmen came, aided by policemen, and dragged her out, swearing at her as they did so. But her protest had been effective. The camp stays and she is jubilant. She said why do I not come down and visit her. It will change your mind, she said. I find myself wondering if it would. Maybe I should go. But oh, the journey would be so tiresome. I wouldn’t want to go by train and be without my car at the other end, but it is quite a long way to drive, and my car is old. I am not sure I am up to it. I will think about it.

  *

  All summer Millicent goes on thinking about it, with constant encouragement from Connie, but does nothing. Finally, near the end of the year, she feels she should make the effort, even though it is winter and not the best time either to drive or to be away from her home. She asks Connie to try to find a small hotel near the base, or as near to it as possible, because she certainly does not intend to sleep in a tent. She then plans her route meticulously, and goes to her GP and to an optician the week before to check her health (pronounced Ai, except for the arthritic thumbs) and has her car serviced. Then mid-morning on 11 December, she sets off, the car equipped with all manner of emergency provisions. Included in her luggage is the scarf Robert gave her on her birthday in 1939, the last present from him, though she is not at all sure when it came to the test that she can bear to tie it to the base fence (and she later doesn’t mention whether she actually does or not).

  *

  11 December

  I don’t know why I was so nervous about this journey. I arrived perfectly fresh, and not in the least tired, by lunchtime. But still, taking it easy, even absurdly easy, must be a good thing. This hotel is pretty dreary and the food poor, but it is warm and clean and the staff friendly. It was a straightforward journey until about five miles from Newbury, when the traffic began, a long line of vehicles moving very slowly. I got sandwiched between two vans and had to be careful not to stall, which was a strain. The van in front of me was crammed with women, far too many of them. I could see them crouching through the two back windows. They seemed to be singing but, though I could hear them banging on the roof of the van, I suppose in time to whatever they were singing, I couldn’t hear the words. They made me nervous, though. I do worry that this is going to be a rowdy affair. If so, I shall leave. I felt very conspicuous, sitting alone in my car. The women in the van waved at me and smiled and put their thumbs up but all I could do was nod. Had some difficulty finding the hotel and felt quite exhausted by the time I had parked the car.

  There was a message from Connie waiting for me, saying she couldn’t leave the camp, there was too much to do, but that she would meet me at the main gate in the morning at 10 a.m. Her note said not to bring my car but to get a taxi and she would organise a lift back for me. I don’t like the idea of not having my car available. I will be dependent on Connie and have no way of escaping. However, she must have a reason for forbidding the car, so I have booked a taxi. I shall take care to ask the taxi driver if there is any chance of getting in touch with him later. There must be a telephone box somewhere near the camp, because Connie often rings from one.

  12 December

  It is late, I am worn out, but I will not be able to sleep until I have set down something of what I saw and heard and felt today, however much it hurts my hand to write. I am on what Connie calls ‘a high’, uninfluenced I may say by either alcohol or drugs.

  It was a damp, misty morning, with the miles of fencing round the base arising eerily from the ground, the only thing of any height it seemed for miles around. I was surprised by how high this fence was, and how barren the land it enclosed, with nothing but grey cement visible inside it. The taxi driver set me down as near to the main gate as he could get and I stood for a moment looking at all the tents in front of it and the women around them, most holding mugs of steaming tea. Connie was there, waiting for me, and the minute she spotted me rushed forward to embrace me, seeming quite thrilled to claim me. She introduced me to so many women but I didn’t take in any of their names, and then we set off to walk to a section of the fence which was to be ours, though I am not sure who decided it would be, Connie probably. There, attached to the grey wire about four feet off the ground, were photographs of Tilda and Charles and Florence and Jack, all mounted on a piece of white card, and underneath the words ‘NO MOR
E BOMBS, R.I.P. London 1942’. My eyes filled with tears and I could not speak. For so long now I have thought I am beyond tears, ever since Daphne died I have never cried, I have no more tears, they will not come. I have shed too many in my life and always in private, always secretly, but standing there I wept. I was dreadfully embarrassed, but I don’t think anyone noticed my distress, not even Connie. There was too much going on, with women on either side pinning the most extraordinary items to the fencing, not just photographs but banners they’d embroidered and poems they’d written out, and ribbons and flowers, and even teacups. Some women were weaving coloured strands of wool through the fencing, making something ugly into something pretty and others were fixing coloured Cellophane across the gaps so that suddenly, with the light coming through it, it looked like stained glass. There was a little girl not far from where we were who was helping her mother fix some baby clothes to the fence, tiny white lacy garments, and I wondered about their significance.