Civil Unrest, Armthorpe Doncaster

A rare film of an early anti-nuclear bomb protest taking place outside RAF Finningley, near Doncaster in July 1960, organised by the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War (DAC), supported by CND. Hundreds march through Armthorpe, with groups from around the country waving banners bearing various anti-war slogans. A group of them, men and women, sit down in front of the gates of the base, refusing to budge, before being passively carried off into police vans.

The DAC was formed in April 1957, prior to the formation of CND in November of the same year. Other organisations opposing nuclear weapons already existed, but it was the DAC which organised the first of the Aldermaster marches for Easter 1958. The DAC worked alongside the CND, with overlapping membership, only taking a more direct action approach than some in CND wanted. This protest took place prior to the Labour Party conference in October of 1960, when they passed a resolution supporting nuclear disarmament, contra Gaskell, only to be reversed the following year. RAF Finningley was closed between 1955 and 1957 to be re-fitted for the storage of nuclear weapons and a base for bomber aircraft.