The Blocked Out Life of Elizabeth Montague

Elizabeth Montague was a good wife and mother. Everyone said so. Always clever and bright, she had only missed university by a couple of points,and indignant at what she considered an unfair selection method, refused a by for which she was entitled, and leaving education completely scuppered any hope of the legal career she had always dreamed about. In her mid teens, angry and gradually burdened with a sense of failure, she turned from a hard working optimist to a lazy and troublesome girl. Eventually, after refusing to cash in on what were pretty decent 'A' level results and taking one of the good career opportunities she was being offered, she instead accepted a low-paid, menial job at the local shirt factory packing men’s shirts. No one was in any doubt that this was an act of protest. She settled in to it though, paying sufficient attention to learn astonishingly quickly the awkward technique of folding and pinning the newly minted shirts and sealing them into polythene envelopes which were then tightly sealed by machines. Although work of mind- numbing mundanity this procedure required dexterity and care and no-one could remember anyone who had picked up the routine quicker than she had. She seemed contented and secure and refused to give way to any lingering sense of ambition she might still have had.
After a few months she met and married Paul, an amiable mechanic and vigorous shop steward who had recently joined the company on promotion. Paul who fancied a stab at local government quite fancied Elizabeth, and the feeling was mutual. Soon they were dating. Over glasses of Taunton cider and endless packets of Embassy Golds,(the cheapest and nastiest option available then),he introduced her to socialism and the principles of Marxism, something that had completely passed her by whilst at school.  In time she quickly earned herself a reputation for being feisty,standing up for herself and others against what she’d quickly realised were quite exploitative bosses who had hunkered down in the backroom offices of the Grant Fenton shirt factory. Pretty soon Elizabeth eclipsed Paul’s knowledge and enthusiasm for politics. After a short while they were married to no great fanfare, and, when Elizabeth fell pregnant with Emily, typical of the 1970s, she left the factory to a supposed life of dedicated domesticity. Paul now settled as a married man, buried any lingering ambitions he had and slumped to work everyday dutifully bringing home the bacon.  
  After a while Elizabeth grew restless and announced that she was going back to college to, as she put it: ‘tie up some loose ends.’ In 1982 having completed her part time politics degree, a few part time students were organising a trip to Greenham Common to make a protest about US nuclear missiles on British soil. She signed herself up and promised Paul and Emily that she would return that evening. One of the other students, Katherine – also a young mother, brought a tent along just in case of a late finish. After an exhausting and, to Elizabeth, exhilarating day, both women stayed that first night, drank copious amounts of wine and sang protest songs about warmongering governments and fascistic police. Both felt intoxicated with life and at some point that night decided to stay on a bit longer. After three weeks of living in the little tent, relying on food parcels and hand outs, reveling in the newly comforted of delighted sorority whilst using the great outdoors as a makeshift bathroom and probably smelling like a couple of old kippers, Katherine decided that she missed her husband and sons too much and told Elizabeth that she was going home, her work done. After a blazing row – Elizabeth decided that the future of the planet far out weighed any pathetic little domestic concerns she herself might have – and stayed. And stayed for seven years..As time passed she grew bitter through the endless battles she had with multiple forms of authority: police, council officials, court staff, politicians,servicemen. All lumped together in her mind as government backed brainwashed shits. She refused to wash, change her clothes and would only eat hand outs. Paul and Emily were always in her mind somewhere of course, but their memory was becoming shadowy, pushed to the margins by this new obsession. Her family had been consigned to the back burner of her life, to be dealt with later.Over the years she broke onto the base numerous times, damaged military equipment, assaulted a female soldier,and set fire to the runway. Throughout this time she attended court, was rude to several stipendiary magistrates and was sent to prison no fewer than 11 times. Always she returned to the 'Peace Camp', as it was now styled and listed as her permanent address by the courts, ready to take part in whatever 'action' was being planned next, whether lying in the road obstructing traffic,painting the gates,or breaking onto the base naked and embarrassing the soldiers and police who had to coyly and self consciously gather them up and escort them to the exit gates.  And then, in 1989 the bombs went. And the inhabitants of the camp disappeared, and Elizabeth, realizing there was nothing left to protest about, wondered how on Earth she could go home.