Twenty years ago Jodie Lamb joined the Greenham Common protest - as a four-year-old child.

Her Welsh mother took her along to the cruise missile base in Berkshire to join the mass protest against the arms race. Now aged 25, Jodie tells Karen Stephen about the events that changed her young life. PROBABLY one of the most poignant images of the last two decades is that of thousands of women, huddled under tarpaulins, clutching their children and singing about peace.

That was Greenham Common and it was just over 20 years ago that, initially, a small group of women first marched, clutching their children, to a Berkshire airbase to protest against nuclear cruise missiles.

Their campaign soon gained worldwide recognition and became far bigger than they had ever imagined.

Among that small army of women was a young Jodie Lamb, now a 25-year-old outreach worker at Bolton Octagon.

Back then Jodie was a wide-eyed four-year-old who went to Greenham with her mother, Sue, and her 18-month-old sister, Angharad -- now aged 21.

"My mum was always very active," says Jodie in her soft Welsh accent, "so I was used to her campaigning for what she believed in.

"I come from a family of very strong women -- my grandmother was a wonderful, strong lady and she encouraged her daughters -- she had seven of them -- to be the same."

Jodie says her mum joined the Greenham campaign "because of my fear of aeroplanes".

She explains: "It was the noise, it terrified me. I only had to hear a plane flying overhead and it would set my heart thumping. So my mum realised, if that's how I felt about planes, I had to be protected against cruise missiles."

So in August 1981 Sue, Jodie and Angharad set off with a small group of women from Cardiff on a 110-mile, 10-day walk to Greenham Common.

"When we arrived at Greenham we were allocated caravans and the women who had children were given priority.

"We shared our caravan with some friends who we'd gone there with and I remember the vans being warm and cosy -- none of this huddling around campfires and sleeping in draughty tents that so many people believe we did.

"Of course it was muddy, but when you're a child that isn't a problem. In fact it was probably a great deal of fun being allowed to play in the mud.

"Being so young it was all a big adventure for me and one of my memories is of one woman who used to keep hedgehogs there. I thought that was really impressive."

However, Jodie does have one rather sinister memory of her time at Greenham Common.

"I remember standing near the airbase fence and suddenly seeing these huge white cruise missiles being shipped in. They were on top of really large lorries which were moving very slowly into the base.

"I stood transfixed, feeling terrified because I knew what the missiles could do. Even at such a young age it brought home why I was there and made me realise just what my mum was trying to do for me and my sister."

Another memory is that of the "heavy handedness" of the police at the time.

"What the women wanted was peace and they were making a peaceful protest by sitting or lying in front of the entrance.

"Yet as time went on the police became much more brutal with the women and I did see some real heavy handed behaviour towards them. It was quite disturbing to see."

While Jodie spent a lot of time at Greenham, she is keen to point out that she and her sister did not miss any school at all.

"My mum made sure of that and only took us there during the school holidays and at weekends. During term time we were looked after at our home in the Rhondda Valley by our dad."

She admits to being something of a wonder to many of her schoolmates. "It was quite funny really," she smiles, "because lots of kids, and their parents, thought my family were 'weird'.

"They used to call us hippies so when my mum got arrested at Greenham for disturbing the peace she went to jail for about a month.

"I thought it was quite cool at the time but I knew some of my classmates' parents frowned upon it. But I think some of the kids were secretly envious because we were always in the papers and on the telly because of mum.

"But you see, I had the most fabulous childhood. It was stimulating and interesting and as a result I regard Greenham as an education. I grew up in a deprived area where there didn't seem to be any way out but, although I was very young, Greenham broadened my mind and my outlook.

"It's fair to say that my parents also contributed to that in a huge way but being somewhere where everyone was fighting for a common goal was incredibly stimulating.

"I left home at 18 and went to Manchester University and I've never been back to Greenham. I don't particularly want to because it was in the past and this is now.

"My mum went on to do a degree in politics and philosophy. She campaigned for the miners during the miners' strike and also travelled America giving talks.

"I'm incredibly proud of her and she and my father provided me with an incredible and fulfilling childhood." Historic protest THOUSANDS of women, intent to safeguard their children's futures, joined in the peace protest at Greenham Common, Berkshire, which started on August 27, 1981.

The group included magistrates, teachers, nurses and housewives who turned respectability on its head by blocking convoys and fighting running battles with police.

It was a campaign that made history for women's protests and brought the arms race to the forefront of national and international debate.