What do you think?
Rate this book
On the Perimeter
Page edges tanned and a previous owner's bookplate. Orders received by 3pm Sent from the UK that weekday.
- GenresNonfiction
128 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1984
About the author
Caroline Blackwood
18 books252 followerswas a writer, and the eldest child of The 4th Marquess of Dufferin and Ava and the brewery heiress Maureen Guinness.
A well-known figure in the literary world through her journalism and her novels, Lady Caroline Blackwood was equally well known for her high-profile marriages, first to the artist Lucian Freud, then to the composer Israel Citkowitz and finally to the poet Robert Lowell, who described her as "a mermaid who dines upon the bones of her winded lovers". Her novels are known for their wit and intelligence, and one in particular is scathingly autobiographical in describing her unhappy childhood.
She was born into an Anglo-Irish aristocratic family from Ulster at 4 Hans Crescent in Knightsbridge, her parents' London home. She was, she admitted, "scantily educated" at, among other schools, Rockport School (County Down) and Downham (Essex). After a finishing school in Oxford she was presented as a debutante in 1949 at a ball held at Londonderry House.
A well-known figure in the literary world through her journalism and her novels, Lady Caroline Blackwood was equally well known for her high-profile marriages, first to the artist Lucian Freud, then to the composer Israel Citkowitz and finally to the poet Robert Lowell, who described her as "a mermaid who dines upon the bones of her winded lovers". Her novels are known for their wit and intelligence, and one in particular is scathingly autobiographical in describing her unhappy childhood.
She was born into an Anglo-Irish aristocratic family from Ulster at 4 Hans Crescent in Knightsbridge, her parents' London home. She was, she admitted, "scantily educated" at, among other schools, Rockport School (County Down) and Downham (Essex). After a finishing school in Oxford she was presented as a debutante in 1949 at a ball held at Londonderry House.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 23, 2013
his thin book from 1984 is a reportage of a few days spent at the peace women's encampment near Greenham Common in England. Since 1981, there had been a continuing presence of women camping near this Cruise missile base, protesting against the politics of nuclear deterrence (the camp would ultimately be in place for 19 years!) Caroline Blackwood visited both the camp and the nearby town of Newbury and spoke with peace women, supporters and detractors alike. She reports on the women's deeply-held conviction that protesting nuclear warheads is an act of conscience, a feeling that is strong enough to make women leave their families and spend months, years in inadequate and improvised shelters. She describes the daily taunts of the military on the other side of the barbed wire, the twice-a-day evictions by the bailiffs, the incredible tedium of sitting for hours on a log in the drizzle, with nothing more exciting than a cup of tea to look forward to. This movement, at least in 1984, seemed to be leader-less, a spontaneous aggregation of like-minded women who just decided to do what felt right to them.
Caroline Blackwood is clearly sympathetic to the women, but never sentimental. She has a dark wit that pierces right through all the rhetoric. She seems particularly attuned to the irrationality that sometimes seems to take hold of those who want to break up the camps, such as the Master of Hounds who seems so intent on intimidating the women by charging through the camps on his horse during a not-quite-foxhunt, that he forgets to take charge of his hounds. When the confused dogs end up running hither and thither through the camp and onto the military roads, it is the animal-loving women themselves who take charge of the dogs to prevent them from being crushed by military vehicles. She also describes a surreal courtroom scene during which the lawyer defending some peace women accused of having cut the barbed wire, grills the soldiers providing the evidence with such polite insistence on arcane detail ("was the gap 2 or 3 inches in diameter? ) that the author just gives up and flees the courthouse.
I found this book illuminating. If the only thing you know about the Greenham Common protests are the pictures from the 1980s, and its astonishing longevity, then this book will bring the early years of the protest into focus for you.
Caroline Blackwood is clearly sympathetic to the women, but never sentimental. She has a dark wit that pierces right through all the rhetoric. She seems particularly attuned to the irrationality that sometimes seems to take hold of those who want to break up the camps, such as the Master of Hounds who seems so intent on intimidating the women by charging through the camps on his horse during a not-quite-foxhunt, that he forgets to take charge of his hounds. When the confused dogs end up running hither and thither through the camp and onto the military roads, it is the animal-loving women themselves who take charge of the dogs to prevent them from being crushed by military vehicles. She also describes a surreal courtroom scene during which the lawyer defending some peace women accused of having cut the barbed wire, grills the soldiers providing the evidence with such polite insistence on arcane detail ("was the gap 2 or 3 inches in diameter? ) that the author just gives up and flees the courthouse.
I found this book illuminating. If the only thing you know about the Greenham Common protests are the pictures from the 1980s, and its astonishing longevity, then this book will bring the early years of the protest into focus for you.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 4, 2020
What I liked about this book: The insights into the lives of local people in Newbury as well as the women in the camp. Blackwood has a good eye and when she isn't over-narrating there is a really good sense of camp life and struggles at the point she visited.
What I didn't like: I don't think Blackwood understood more than superficially the kind of feminist social transformation Greenham was imagining and embodying. For example, the complains that the lesbians were kissing too much, as though lesbianism and freedom to express queer sexuality wasn't also a big part of the movement for Women's Liberation at that time. Ultimately, this isn't a very feminist or queer- sympathetic account but it's interesting nonetheless. Time for Roseneil!
What I didn't like: I don't think Blackwood understood more than superficially the kind of feminist social transformation Greenham was imagining and embodying. For example, the complains that the lesbians were kissing too much, as though lesbianism and freedom to express queer sexuality wasn't also a big part of the movement for Women's Liberation at that time. Ultimately, this isn't a very feminist or queer- sympathetic account but it's interesting nonetheless. Time for Roseneil!
March 27, 2023
A really important journalistic look at the experience of women protesting at Greenham Common.
Caroline Blackwood presents the information in a largely impartial fashion but it soon becomes clear that the media portrayal of The Greenham women was a deliberate attempt to demonise and denigrate women who were making a peaceful protest in deeply unpleasant conditions. It was horrible to hear about the nightly verbal abuse they endured from the military and the brutal treatment they received from the bailiffs. This is a vital document about the harsh reality of peaceful protest in the UK.
Caroline Blackwood presents the information in a largely impartial fashion but it soon becomes clear that the media portrayal of The Greenham women was a deliberate attempt to demonise and denigrate women who were making a peaceful protest in deeply unpleasant conditions. It was horrible to hear about the nightly verbal abuse they endured from the military and the brutal treatment they received from the bailiffs. This is a vital document about the harsh reality of peaceful protest in the UK.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews