Sue Lent

Lent was one of the original 36 women (and 4 men) who walked from Cardiff to Greenham Common in 1981. She was with her one-year-old son Christopher, who was in a push chair. Wearing flip-flops she had just planned to do the first stage of the march, from Cardiff to Newport, Wales together with her husband, but by the end of the day she had decided to do the whole 120-mile march. Concerned that this was not ideal when accompanied by a child, she consulted one of the organisers, Ann Pettitt, who reassured her. She then took the bus back to Cardiff and packed, and her husband took her and her son back to Newport the following morning. After the arrival at Greenham she stayed for three days, finding it difficult to break away from the women she had just spent ten days with, before returning to Cardiff. After that, her role was mainly to act as an occasional delivery driver to the camp, although she took part in "Embrace the Base" in December 1982 when an estimated 35,000 women and children formed a human chain around RAF Greenham Common, and in other similar events.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6]}

In 2021 she took part in part of the 40th anniversary march, organised by Scary Little Girls, that followed the same route from Cardiff to Greenham. She said that she was paying tribute to the original organisers who, in the era before social media and mobile phones, had turned up in Cardiff not knowing how many women would be there. She told The Guardian that "I'm proud that I went. I think what Greenham teaches us is that you should never doubt that a small number of people can make a difference. Even if you don't think you can do anything, you should do it anyway.” ^[2][7][8]

Lent was elected to Cardiff council in 1995, serving until 2004. She has said that she is not sure that she would have had the confidence to stand for the council without her Greenham experience.^[6] She was elected again for five-year terms in 2012, 2017 and 2022. She became deputy leader of the council in 2014. Lent is a local authority governor for two primary schools in Cardiff and also sits on council's Community & Adult Services Scrutiny Committee, giving guidance on care for children. She represents Cardiff on the UK and Ireland chapter of Mayors for Peace and on "Nuclear Free Local Authorities". She has been a spokesperson for "Labour Women's Declaration".^{[1][9][10][11][12]}