{"id":19243,"date":"2026-08-09T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/?p=19243"},"modified":"2026-08-05T11:10:45","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T10:10:45","slug":"wool-against-weapons-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/?p=19243","title":{"rendered":"Wool Against Weapons"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Burghfield to Aldermarston, Berkshire.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Wool
There were 7 miles of pink scarf along the roads between the two atomic bomb factories – and some to spare.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Wool Against Weapons;<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Wool
Some sections had fancy designs, others had slogans – ‘Knitwear Not Warfare’<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Wool
‘Drop Stitches Not Bombs’<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The protest came well ahead of a parliamentary vote expected in 2016 to allow the government to spend over \u00a3100 billion on a new nuclear weapons system to replace Trident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Wool
People were sewing the lengths of scarf together<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Wool
Stretching out the lengths<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Wool<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/
Extra knitting on the fence of AWE Aldermaston<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/
People wait to hear that the scarf is linked<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/
Waiting for the the signal that the scarf is linked along all 7 miles<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/
And people rang the bells<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"\/
One person was getting a little bored<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"\/
One of the French protesters<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Many more pictures on My London Diary at Wool Against Weapons<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Flickr<\/a> – Facebook<\/a> – My London Diary<\/a> – Hull Photos<\/a> – Lea Valley<\/a> – Paris<\/a>
London’s Industrial Heritage<\/a> – London Photos<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All photographs on this page are copyright \u00a9 Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading Wool Against Weapons<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[25092,3893,19011,3895,15692,6410,6552,2158,5108,578,25094,2464,25093,1263,7229,738,25095,83,25096,16,25098,5109,7835,587,5117,9051,25097,6085,5114],"class_list":["post-19243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-own-work","category-political-issues","tag-aldermarston","tag-atomic-weapons","tag-atomic-weapons-establishment","tag-awe","tag-bells","tag-berkshire","tag-bicycle","tag-bike-ride","tag-burghfield","tag-cnd","tag-crochet","tag-kate-hudson","tag-knirring","tag-nhs","tag-nuclear-war","tag-nuclear-weapons","tag-patterns","tag-peter-marshall","tag-pink-knitting","tag-protest","tag-ringing-bells","tag-scarf","tag-slogans","tag-trident","tag-trident-replacement","tag-walter-wolfgang","tag-wasted-resources","tag-wool","tag-wool-against-weapons"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19243"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19245,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19243\/revisions\/19245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}