‘I think we had better walk you home,’ the man says. The pressure of his hand on her arm increases. ‘Which way?’

Vee takes as deep a breath as she dares to keep her in equilibrium, and looks into the man’s face. ‘Please take your hand off me.’

‘We were only trying to help,’ the man says, and turns to walk away, saying to the woman with him, ‘You’d think an old woman would be grateful for help.’

The woman says nothing, and looks back towards Vee, apology on her face.

Vee ignores her. She’s done appeasing. She’s channelling Leonie, who feels closer and closer as the days spin, aching, by.

Part 5: Movement

Part 5: Movement

When you photograph movement, you will have both sharpness and blur. A photograph of a runner, for example, will show intensity of effort in her face, a sense of movement from the lack of sharpness in her arms and legs, and a blurred background. Movement on film requires that some things are sharp and some are lost.

Veronica Moon, Women in Photographs (unpublished)

‘Greenham Common Salute’

Veronica Moon

Exhibition Section: A Protest in Pictures

Camera: OM-1

Film: 200 ASA

First published: Guardian magazine, October 1981

The words ‘Greenham Common’ are now synonymous with the anti-war, anti-nuclear and women’s liberation movements of the late twentieth century. For almost two decades, from 1981 to 2000, women camped, blockaded and protested at the US Army base in Berkshire where nuclear missiles were sited.

This photograph was taken within weeks of the protest beginning, on Moon’s first visit to the peace camp. This was the cover shot of the Guardian Weekend magazine on Saturday 31 October 1981, with the strapline, ‘Greenham Common: A New Generation is Angry’. It was her only official collaboration with author and journalist Leonie Barratt.

The now-iconic image shows a group of women in deep discussion: one has a clipboard, one is pointing; their faces are intent and focused. One woman is holding a sleeping toddler, another carries a baby in a sling. In the background, the chain-link fence to which the women took it in turns to be chained is visible. Only one person has noticed Moon: a girl of around eight years standing next to her mother. She looks directly into the lens, giving a V-sign to the camera. Her face is serious and staring.

The photograph spawned cartoons and comment among the right-wing press which was part of the mockery of the early protest at Greenham Common. However, the peace camp lasted for almost twenty years and claimed victory when the American air base was decommissioned and demolished. Moon returned often and took many photographs, some to form part of the protesters’ official record and some for her own archive. Even when she stepped back from her career, she kept coming back to Greenham Common.

In 1981:

• Baroness Young became the first female leader of the House of Lords