Lynette Edwell

Lynette Edwell (born 1940) was a member of the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp, which was a protest, between 1981 and 2000, against US nuclear-armed cruise missiles being sited in the UK. Living close to the RAF Greenham Common base near Newbury, Berkshire, she supported other protestors with accommodation, baths, food, and access to office facilities. She played an important role in monitoring the movement of the missiles around the countryside. Early life Edwell was born in Calcutta, India in 1940. She never met her father, a surgeon, who died in the Fall of Singapore to Japanese forces in February 1942. She attended a Catholic school run by nuns, with whom she was often in conflict. Later she was to discover that many of the women at Greenham Common shared her convent school background. After moving to England, she married and bought a house in Newbury in 1978. Her husband was a journalist with the Daily Mail and she worked as a journalist with the Horticultural Trades Association. They had four children.

Edwell took on the responsibility of monitoring the court cases that the women faced. Most of the women decided not to pay fines but to accept prison terms instead. She went to court to support those who had been charged. The numerous hearings clogged up the legal system in Newbury and many were moved to other locations further away. She helped some of the women prepare their defences. Archive Edwell kept a large number of records entrusted to her, which are now held at the Royal Berkshire Archives. The archive, in her name, includes records relating to her activities at the peace camp but also letters, newsletters, and posters from across the world that were sent to Greenham Common by supporters, reflecting the international impact of the camp. These include documents from the anti-nuclear campaigns in the Pacific; from Nicaragua where there were demands for the removal of American troops and nuclear weapons from South America; and from similar camps in Italy, France, Belgium, and Denmark.