PHILL Jones arrived at the Faslane Peace Camp in the same month as Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s anti-nuclear anthem Two Tribes went to number one in the British charts. The camp had been going two years by then. Margaret Thatcher was in Downing Street, Ronald Reagan was in the White House, the Soviet Union was still in existence and fears of nuclear destruction were the stuff of Hollywood movies and BBC drama.

Mr Jones was one of the original generation of peace protesters. He spent the next nine years on the camp. In that time he rammed a Trident submarine, became a father and even broke into the control room of a fully armed Polaris submarine. "Margaret Thatcher was furious I wasn’t shot, according to Bernard Ingham." As the camp turns 30 a new generation are trying to revive its fortunes.

FOR more than three decades it has been a ramshackle yet passionate presence in the shadow of Britain’s strategic nuclear deterrent, acting as a focal point for peace campaigners throughout the world. But now, having fought off repeated threats of eviction, the constant vigil maintained by demonstrators at the Faslane Peace Camp in Argyll is to end in June.

With only four residents left, the small population of the camp on the shores of Gare Loch say they will be forced to take the “regrettable” action unless they are joined by a fresh influx of recruits in the next three weeks. In an open letter on its website, the remaining activists admit the “symbolism of dismantling the camp” represents the “worst possible timing” given the ongoing debate surrounding a replacement for Trident, and next year’s referendum on Scottish independence.