[In the following review, Longford favorably reviews On the Perimeter, arguing that Blackwood raises questions about many larger issues.]

It is impossible to imagine a more vivid account of the Greenham Peace Women than that supplied [in On the Perimeter] by Lady Caroline Blackwood after intensive study on the spot. The women had been described to her in advance as 'belligerent harpies,' 'a bunch of smelly lesbians,' as 'ragtag and bobtail,' but from the moment she arrived on the scene she was disarmed and one part of her critical faculties suspended. Her compassion was overwhelmingly aroused. 'I found that nothing had prepared me for the desolation of the camps the women inhabited. At first sight, the camps of the Greenham women looked like derelict piles of refuse that had been allowed to collect on the side of the road. The "benders" they inhabited were like crazy little igloos made of polythene.' As tents and caravans had been forbidden by the local council, 'they had erected these small and eccentric dwellings by draping a sheet of plastic over bending boughs which they had pegged into the mud.' Some of the benders were not more than two feet off the ground and had to be entered on all-fours. 'It was astonishing to see a grey-haired woman going into her bender with the scuttling movements of a rabbit vanishing into its burrow.' From then on, the story is one of unrelieved discomfort and extreme self-sacrifice. None of this one need question for a moment.

When I myself visited one of the camps it was moderately warm and fairly dry. It did not take much imagination to guess what conditions would be like when the weather was really nasty. Lady Caroline abstains from passing explicit value judgements. Her sympathies, however, whatever they may have been before her visits, are unrestrainedly in favour of the women and their anti-nuclear cause. She recognises the possibility that the 'great Powers' might defeat the protest, but she adds the defiant afterthought: 'The glorious victory could only be pyrrhic.' The women, with one exception, are presented as noble characters. The exception is provided by the lesbians, about whom Lady Caroline is unexpectedly sharp. She considers that they have done the anti-nuclearcause no good at all by their provocative gestures and parade, in season and out, of their personal tendencies.

The other characters in Lady Caroline's story are presented in a most unattractive light. The soldiers who, on one occasion, drove past with bare bottoms, show their contempt for the women, the police, the Americans, and the local inhabitants. In one or two cases, the latter revealed a sneaking sympathy but, on the whole, they and everyone other than the women, appear as ludicrous, at best. Frequently, as coarse and unfeeling. She quotes a British ex-magistrate who 'looked at all the hordes of police with a shudder.' She has been described as being sent to gaol many times since she had become a Greenham woman. 'I wonder,' she said, 'if this country can continue to have nuclear weapons without turning into a police state. More people ought to ask that. Who cares whether it's wrong to be lesbian and all that trivial, frivolous nonsense? All that's always only used to camouflage the issues that really matter.'

This must be the same lady who escorted me round, who afterwards had lunch with me and whom I later visited when she was once again in prison. She is a deeply impressive person, a former nurse, happily married, with five grown-up children and an admirable family life. A strong Catholic. But neither from her then nor from any of the other women did I extract any reasoned argument for the course they were pursuing. I am not suggesting that this lady or some of the others would have been incapable of sustaining such an argument, but it is part of the peculiar strength of the Greenham camps that they do not have any 'leaders.' There is an extraordinary solidarity, even more feminist than that of the Ulster Peace Women, with whom I could not help comparing them in my mind. Whether deliberately or otherwise, a united front is preserved by not emitting statements that could prove divisive. The problem of arguing with them becomes, therefore, almost impossible.

I am sure that anyone inclined to sympathise with the Greenham women will be drawn further in that direction by Caroline Blackwood's eloquent portrayal. Those who feel no such sympathy will be fortified in the belief that it is a purely emotional demonstration. But the sacrifice is real enough. Caroline Blackwood does well to give us such a telling glimpse of what it signifies.