Atomic Weapons Establishment

Blockade at Aldermaston – 2008

Blockade at Aldermaston: On Monday 27th October 2008 I cycled with Linda from Reading to join the CND Blockade of the Atomic Weapons Establishment, which together with nearby Burghfield makes Britain’s nuclear bombs.

It isn’t a huge distance to cycle – I think around 12 miles taking the same route as the 2004 Aldermaston march. It was good weather for cycling and there was only one really difficult hill on the way. At Aldermaston we cycled around the outer fence of the huge site – over 4 miles – and then I cycled a little to and fro to take pictures before cycling back to Reading, perhaps covering a little over 30 miles in all. A shortish and pleasant ride, though some was on dirt tracks and jumping on and off to take photos also made it more tiring.

The blockades had been an overnight event, with actions beginning in the early morning and we arrived far too late for them. They had closed the main road and several gates of the site for some hours, and around 30 people being arrested. Many of those taking part in them had already left for home by the time we arrived.

Linda had come to demonstrate with Christian CND and was hoping to join them for lunch at the North Gate and continue with them on a procession of witness around the large site, holding a liturgy at each of the 8 gates.

Their procession had started earlier than expected and they had left before we arrived there, so we continued on our bikes making our own circuit of the site. A long hill leads up from Aldermaston Village and we caught up with Christian CND at the Construction Gate.

With them were several Nipponzan Myohoji Japanese Buddhists who had walked all the way to Aldermaston from the Battersea Park Peace Pagoda. Linda joined the group and walked with them to hold short services at each of the remaining gates.

I cycled on to photograph at other places and on to the Main Gate. Here there was a Quaker silent vigil and I found “the mobile bicycle-powered Rinky-Dink sound system and musicians were entertaining a small crowd. Seize the Day’s great Guantanamo number ‘Club X-Ray’ soon had everyone doing the ‘Shackle Shuffle’ to its Latin tinge.”

I went with Rinky Dink back to the Tadley Gate where I met with Linda and the Christian CND ending their final liturgy of the long day of protest. Everyone was now packing up and leaving and we began our ride back to Reading.

*The Christian CND procession around the base ends with the sharing of the peace*

We started back the way we had come, but on reaching the Kennett and Avon Canal north of Burghfield decided to join National Cycle Route 4, a long distance cycle route from Greenwich in London to Fishguard in Wales.

Fortunately we chose the right direction, but it did result in a rather lengthy detour on our way into Reading station as well as slowing our ride on the poorer surface.

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Wool Against Weapons

Burghfield to Aldermarston, Berkshire.

Wool Against Weapons; On Saturday 9th August 2014, the 69th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki – three days after the nuclear bomb devastated Hiroshima, CND organised a large-scale protest against nuclear weapons, stretching a line of pink knitting seven miles to link the bomb factory at Burghfield with the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) at Aldermaston.

The protest came well ahead of a parliamentary vote expected in 2016 to allow the government to spend over £100 billion on a new nuclear weapons system to replace Trident.

Groups from all over the country (and some in France) had been busy knitting and crocheting lengths of pink scarves and joining these into rolls that could be brought to their designated point on the 7 mile route, unrolled and joined up with others to complete the scarf.

The project brought together a large number of people many who had not previously protested against nuclear weapons but were appalled at the amount of money that would be wasted on a Trident replacement which could be much better spent in other ways – such as keeping the NHS running.

*Extra knitting on the fence of AWE Aldermaston*

I had decided the only sensible way to cover this protest would be on a bicycle, and got up to go with my bike on an early train to Reading, from where I cycled to Burghfield, arriving shortly before 10.30. This gave me two and a half hours before the whole scarf was scheduled to be joined up at 1pm.

*People wait to hear that the scarf is linked*

After photographing at this end of the scarf, I cycled slowly along the route, jumping off my bike to take pictures where people were busy laying out the rolls of scarf and joining them up. Eventually I reached Aldermaston and after taking some pictures there rode quickly back to Burghfield to be there well before the joining was complete at 1pm.

*Waiting for the the signal that the scarf is linked along all 7 miles*

At 1pm protesters held up the now joined 7 mile scarf and rang bells – and I ran almost a mile along it taking photographs. I think it was held up for around 10 minutes before people took it down and began to come to a rally at Burghfield which began a little after 1.30pm.

There was music and poetry and speeches, including from Walter Wolfgang and Kate Hudson. It was still continuing after I left to ride back to Reading and take the train home.

Many more pictures on My London Diary at Wool Against Weapons.

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All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
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Serenading the Bomb Makers – 2008

Serenading the Bomb Makers: Given the current increased tension over the possible nuclear escalation of the Ukraine war – something that would be disastrous to us all and totally insane and irrational, but if NATO keep poking the Russian Bear with a stick could be provoked – it seems appropriate to remember the lunchtime tour around the London offices of some of the companies involved in making the UK’s nuclear weapons on Friday 12th December 2008.

I don’t think I can improve on the piece I posted on My London Diary in 2008 – except by adding the odd word that somehow got missed out, so I’ll copy that here, with some of the pictures from the event. I got too cold standing around and left after an hour and went to take a short look at the work taking place on the Olympic site at Stratford Marsh as the light was beginning to fade.

‘Muriel Lesters’ Serenade the Bomb Makers

Serenading the Bomb Makers - 2008 — *Lockheed Martin, Carlisle Place – A man sprawls in memory of the many deaths caused by atomic weapons; security men look bored.*

Ten activists turned up in Victoria, London on Friday for a festive protest outside the offices of the US company behind the production of the UK’s nuclear weapons and the huge expansion of bomb production facilities at Aldermaston – costing £6,000,000,000 – which has never been debated or approved by Parliament.

They were the ‘Muriel Lesters*’, a London affinity group of Trident Ploughshares. Dressed in Santa suits, white nuclear inspector overalls and festive hats they called for an end to bomb production at the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE).

Appropriately, their renditions of festive songs and carols with modified anti-nuclear lyrics were largely less than tuneful (one taking part was hear to say “I’m a Quaker, we don’t sing” and who could contradict him?) They called for a stop to the illegal activities of these companies in making weapons.

First to be serenaded by the group were the offices of the US arms giant Lockheed Martin, makers of ‘bunker buster’ and ‘cluster’ bombs, the worlds largest exporter of weapons and the leading member of the consortium set up to produce the nuclear warheads for the UK Trident replacement at Aldermaston.

After an hour or so of leafleting and displaying banners on Vauxhall Bridge Road just around the corner, the group moved to the front door of the building housing Lockheed Martin and several other companies in Carlisle Place for their half hour carol ‘concert’. It was a site I knew from the ‘Merchants of Death‘ tour by CAAT earlier in the year. A number of people came in an out of the building while this was going on and some took leaflets while others hurried past, often to waiting taxis.

Half way through the performance, a police car pulled up and dropped off two constables who came to talk to the protesters. They asked who was in charge (and of course nobody was) and for a mobile number they could use to contact the group, saying “it’s standard practice for protests“. Oh no it isn’t! They were handed a leaflet with the Norwich details of Trident Ploughshares, but that wasn’t what they had in mind.

The police were informed that the real criminals were in the Lockheed Martin offices, carrying out the vast expansion in UK nuclear arms, a breach of the UK’s obligations under Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and that they were involved in an illegal conspiracy with some groups we could name down the road in Whitehall. The police chose to ignore this vital evidence but eventually they went away, reminding the protesters that while they supported the right to demonstrate, it was important to keep the pavement clear.

As they left, one member of the group stretched out “dead” on his back on that pavement as a symbol of the many victims of nuclear weapons, including those killed in nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, “bomb test veterans, and victims of leukaemias, lymphomas and cancers caused by exposure to radioactive discharges from AWE Aldermaston and AWE Burghfield in Berkshire, Sellafield in Cumbria, Rolls Royce Raynesway in Derby and other sites“

I left the group as it packed up and decided to take a short break before going on for a similar protest at the London offices of Jacobs Engineering and Fluor Corporation, two other US companies who are competing for the stake in the AWE bomb-making contract currently filled by the British Nuclear Group. The third player in the contract – the only remaining UK involvement – is SERCO.

A few more pictures here

Muriel Lester, (1883–1968), born in Leytonstone, was a leading Christian peace campaigner and writer. Among many other things she founded Kingsley Hall in Bow, was a friend of Gandhi, Travelling Secretary of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation and was detained for ten weeks in Trinidad and then several days in Holloway Prison for her activities during the Second World War.

Olympic Site – Stratford

A few more pictures from around the London 2012 site.

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