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Greenham Common heroine dies
Helen John: September 1937 – November 5 2017

In 1982 Peggy Seeger wrote a song called Carry Greenham Home in tribute to the Greenham Common women who for 19 years camped around the nine-mile perimeter of the RAF base where the US stored cruise missiles.

Seeger wrote the song sitting in a caravan installed outside the base. The caravan was the protest headquarters of peace campaigner Helen John — the first full-time peace camper at RAF Greenham Common in Berkshire.

Helen, who died on Sunday aged 80, was one of the four women who first chained themselves to the fences surrounding the base, inspiring a mass protest involving thousands of women, which was to last 19 years.

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