50 Years On: Mai Chatham wants you to join her at Aldermaston

Mai Chatham with Rae Street and Pat Sanchez preparing to travel to Faslane in June 2007

Now in her 60s, retired probation officer, Mai Chatham of Timbercliffe, Littleborough, spends much of her time caring for her grandchildren or on country walks with her husband, Mick. But on Easter Monday (24 March) she will again be in Berkshire helping other Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament supporters to surround the Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment demanding that “the bomb stops here!”

In fact, Mrs Chatham has spent almost every Easter for the past 50 years protesting against nuclear weapons and sees no reason why Easter 2008 should be any different. In 1958, Mrs Chatham joined her parents, Winifred and Abe Alman at the start of the very first march from Trafalgar Square to Aldermaston. She remembers her mother’s badly blistered feet and the horror she felt at seeing the effects of atomic bombs in the film, Children of Hiroshima. She joined Youth CND in 1959 and describes the struggle for nuclear disarmament as “an all consuming passion which took over our lives”.

As a founder member of the Direct Action Group, she was arrested three times during the 1960s and spent time in Strangeways and Winson Green prisons, as well as in the police cells at Holy Loch in Scotland, where she was again arrested in June and October 2007 during protests against the current Trident nuclear weapons system. She especially remembers her court appearance in Scotland in 1961, when instead of the usual £10 fine, she was fined £50 because she dared to make a speech explaining why she was protesting against nuclear missiles; a speech which caused much cheering in the court.

Work and motherhood limited Mrs Chatham's anti-nuclear activities in the 1970s, but in 1981, she moved to Littleborough and was soon an active member of the then Littleborough Peace Group, travelling to Greenham Common to join protests against the Cruise missiles which were eventually shipped back to the USA in 1992 and joining the annual Hiroshima Day commemorations at Hollingworth Lake. Mrs Chatham demonstrated against the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and has been a very active participant in the Faslane 365 campaign which blockaded the Scottish nuclear weapons base every day for a year from October 2006 to October 2007.  

Mrs Chatham says: "The issue of nuclear disarmament is as pressing now as it was in 1958 and I remain as committed as I ever was to creating a world where my grandchildren and their grandchildren will not live under the threat of nuclear annihilation. The first step must be the abandonment of nuclear weapons by countries like ours. We need to decommission the Trident nuclear weapons system immediately and to stop squandering billions on weapons of mass destruction which should be spent on social, health and welfare services.

"AWE at Aldermaston and Burghfield is central to the government’s misguided plans to produce ever more dangerous nuclear weapons. Its budget has increased from £340 million in 2006-07 to £420 million for 2007-08 and the sites are being rapidly expanded. Hundreds of scientists and technicians who could be employed developing sustainable energy sources are instead being recruited by AWE to develop so-called ‘mini’ nuclear weapons designed to destroy people but not property. I can think of nothing more immoral. 

I hope that a lot of people will be joining me at Aldermaston on 24 March 2008 and know that they can get details about transport from the Greater Manchester CND office (Email gmdcnd@gn.apc.org or Tel: 0161 273 8283) or by phoning 01706 370117. However, I also realise that many supporters will not be able to travel to Berkshire on the day. I am, therefore, offering to take cards and written messages from sympathisers and shall be pleased to hang these on the fence which surrounds the Aldermaston base. I shall be at the Rochdale and Littleborough Peace Group stall in Rochdale town centre on the morning of 1 March 2008 and shall be very happy to receive messages, there."