Papers of Sarah Meyer Relating to Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp

Archive reference: Cwl SMA

Sarah Meyer and Greenham

Sarah Meyer’s involvement in the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp dates from the "Embrace the base" mass direct action in December 1982. Sarah arrived at Greenham with local group Totnes Women for Peace. By April 1983, she had become co-ordinator of Greenham Southwest, bringing together almost 50 women’s groups in Devon and Cornwall. Activities included International Women’s Day for Disarmament on 24 May 1983, a blockade at Devonport dockyard in Plymouth, and a demonstration at Bolt Head nuclear bunker. Sarah returned to Greenham many times to live at the peace camp, and was frequently arrested, for example at Hallowe’en 1983, when thousands of women cut through the security fence in protest at the imminent arrival of the first cruise missiles.

In 1983-1984, through involvement in European Nuclear Disarmament (END) and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), Sarah travelled around Europe in her "Greenham rainbow bus" attending conferences, and joining peace camps and other protests. In January 1984, she was arrested at a women's peace camp in Stockholm, part of an Alternative Peace Conference to coincide with the Stockholm Conference on Confidence and Security Building Measures and Disarmament in Europe. Sarah described her experiences abroad and at Greenham in articles in the magazine Women For Life on Earth and in her own Rainbow Bus newsletter.

Sarah worked as a registered homeopath for many years. In retirement she researched foreign policy and defence issues (especially the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq), human rights and civil liberties, disseminating her research via her blog, Index Research. She sat on the advisory committee of the BRussells Tribunal, which campaigns against American foreign policy in the Middle East and aims to link resistance movements in the region with western peace movements. Sarah was married to Karl Meyer for 12 years and together they had three children. She died on 3 March 2010.

The Archive

This Archive is one of the most visually interesting of the Commonweal Archives. The files contain a mixture of newsletters, circulars, photographs, correspondence, leaflets, posters, postcards and press cuttings. A great deal of this material was created by women living at the peace camp. The correspondence includes letters addressed to the peace camp collectively.

The Archive was catalogued as part of the PaxCat Project, with support from the National Cataloguing Grants Programme for Archives.