Greenham Common march from Cardiff recreated 40 years later

Women are marching from Cardiff to Greenham Common's former airbase, recreating the protest of 40 years ago.

The eight-day march marks the anniversary of the protest which began in 1981 against US nuclear missiles being stored at the base in Berkshire.

The Nato deployment followed fears of the threat from new, longer-ranger Soviet missiles.

Greenham Women's Peace Camp was established following the march, and remained there for 19 years.

The recreation march is being split over nine days and will be over 100 miles (160km) long, ending in Greenham on 3 September.

At its height Greenham Women's Peace Camp had multiple protest sites around the base

Cardiff councillor Sue Lent, who was at the original march, said it was important it was not lost to history.

"What Greenham means to me is how powerful women can be when together, and how a small group can effect change," she told BBC Radio Wales.

The original marchers set off from Cardiff forty years ago in August 1981

Ms Lent said she was paying tribute to "original organisers who had that vision, who literally turned up in Cardiff not knowing how many women would turn up".

"We didn't have social media in those days, we didn't have mobile phones, it was all a bit uncertain for them," she said.

The US air force left the base in 1993 and it was decommissioned in 2000

Nuclear weapons were withdrawn from Greenham in 1989 following the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty signed by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and President Reagan two years earlier.

The women's peace camp continued as a general protest against nuclear weapons until RAF Greenham Common was decommissioned in 2000.

The site has now been redeveloped as a peace garden in honour of the protest.

• MOTHERS, MISSILES AND THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT: The story of Greenham told like never before

• ARTS AND HERITAGE: Lose yourself in Welsh creativity and culture