London: Several thousand people have staged a protest at Aldermaston, west of London, against Britain's nuclear weapons programme on the 50th anniversary of the first such demonstration there.

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, which organised the protest yesterday, estimated there were some 5,000 people demonstrating outside the headquarters of the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), which is responsible for producing and maintaining Britain s submarine-based Trident nuclear deterrent.

According to a spokesman for the defence ministry, however, there were approximately 1,600 protesters at the demonstration.

It was at the Aldermaston base that around 10,000 people marched to the site from London, protesting against Britain's first hydrogen bomb test on Easter Monday 1958.

Walter Wolfgang, 84,who was an organiser of the 1958 march, declared to the crowd outside the AWE's main gate: "There is a general realisation now that there should not be Trident and the nuclear arms race should be ended."

"On the one hand, we have made progress, but on the other hand, because of US and UK foreign policy, the danger is greater today than it was during the Cold War  at least then we were vaguely aware of what the other side was doing."

Source : PTI