The caravans have lived in the forest for so long that it’s hard to see them from the trees. Faded slogans and cartoons are daubed across their bodies. Signs dangle from the trunks: A for Anarchy, From the River to the Sea, If Not You, Who?
Across the road, behind a two-mile stretch of electric fencing, one of Scotland’s deepest lochs reflects a pallid sky. A metal capsule hovers beneath the surface. It contains uranium-235 and plutonium-239, stabilised by advanced explosives and guidance systems. If released, it would unmake the world.
This is HM Naval Base Clyde, also known as Faslane, arguably the most important military site in Europe. In a military context, it is more strategically crucial than Whitehall.
Faslane is home to Britain’s Trident nuclear arsenal — and next to it, the Faslane Peace Camp, the longest-running inhabited peace camp in the world. First created in 1982 at the height of the Cold War, it was once a nerve-centre for Britain’s anti-nuclear movement. In June 1999, in one of the most famous acts of disruption, three women — Angie Zelter, Ellen Moxley and Ulla Roder — paddled a dinghy across Loch Goil under the cover of darkness. Within an hour they had sabotaged a floating laboratory, sending computer hardware sparkling to the loch floor. They then unpacked a picnic and waited in the sun for the police to arrive.
Today, the camp is more relic than vanguard, a stubborn outpost struggling against the headwinds of a new age. In recent months, British military analysts have warned of war with Russia by 2030. In response, the Government announced a £250 million upgrade at Faslane — part of its pledge to lift defence spending to 5% of GDP by 2035.
Will this rekindle the anti-nuclear movement after decades of relative dormancy? And what of the peace camp itself, still rooted in the same spot after all these years? Are its egalitarian-minded inhabitants still holding the fort?
I spent my teenage years in Stirling, 40 miles inland. At night, the house would shudder as the train carrying nuclear waste rumbled through the countryside. As a child, I never saw its destination. Now, with Nato’s impending rearmament, a revived atmosphere of anti-war protest, and the looming shadow of a new, multipolar world, I packed my bag for camp.
Before visiting, I met Jane Tallents, now 67, at her cottage south of Edinburgh on a drizzly Friday afternoon. A well-known figure from the peace camp, Jane is remembered by former residents as the benevolent matriarch who presided over its heyday.
Become a free member to read this article.