A free film screening followed by a Q&A session will be held at the Melville Centre in Abergavenny next weekend with a group of activists who followed the footsteps of the Welsh women to an RAF base to protest against nuclear cruise missiles.

On 5 September 1981 a march led by a small group of women arrived at RAF Greenham Common to protest at a decision to place US nuclear cruise missiles at the base. In the late 1970s, NATO was expanding its nuclear programme as the threats of the Cold War weighed heavy. In 1980s, Thatcher’s government announced it would house cruise missiles in the UK owned by the US Air Force.

Thousands of people would join them at their destination, which would later become known as the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp.

Some of the protesters stayed a lot longer than they had thought they might, celebrating birthdays, special anniversaries and even the turn of the millennium at the camp over the years. The last protesters left the base on September 5 2000, some 19 years after they had first arrived.

Their presence would service as an international symbol of the nuclear disarmament and feminist movements.

A busload of women from Abergavenny joined the first day of a recreation of the march in August 2021, from Cardiff to Newport, so locals can expect to see familiar faces on screen. The white peace doves created by Abergavenny people on their way to the anti-Iraq war demo also have a starring role throughout the film.

The film is centred on a group of young activists who recreated the whole of the original march from Cardiff to Greenham Common, and they invited women to join them along the way. This film documents their walk, and the impact it had on them.

They ask why they hadn’t known about the Greenham Common camps before, and how women’s history is so often overlooked or minimised. One of the three young women, Poppy, will be at the Melville for a Q&A session.