YOU would be hard pressed to find a teenager in Barrow with a “peace pin” on their lapel today but from the 1960s to the 1980s it was the “must-have” fashion accessory as the town became the national centre of protest against Polaris and then Trident nuclear missile submarines.

A reminder of those days has been provided by a collection of Barrow and Cumbrian anti-nuclear badges which have turned up at Pepperland Collect in Scott Street, Barrow.

Many of them have a home made look and messages include “Barrow working for peace”, “Sellafield, Britain’s bomb starts here”, “recycle Trident” and “Toytown Young Conservatives against Cruise and Trident”.

There was a major protest in Barrow on November 4 in 1967 to mark the launch of HMS Repulse, the third Resolution class Polaris missile submarine .

Protesters staged a sit-in on Bridge Road to hamper the arrival of Lady Joan Zuckerman, who was to launch the vessel.

A total of 31 people appeared before the town's magistrates' court on charges of breaching the peace or willful obstruction of the highway.

The Mail noted: "More than 80 members of the Polaris Action Group filled the public gallery."

Trident brought a new generation to the town with their banners — there was even a mass “Die-in” in 1984.

But it was the announcement of Margaret Thatcher’s visit to Barrow in September 1986 which raised the anti-nuclear protests to another level.

This is how the Evening Mail reported the reception given to the Prime Minister on September 3.

It noted: “More than 100 CND supporters chanted ‘Hospitals yes, Trident no’ as the Prime Minister arrived at Vickers today.

“They continued chanting and singing peace songs until the arrival of Mgr Bruce Kent, the vice chairman of National CND, about 10 minutes later.

“And as floods of Vickers workers spilled out into Bridge Road at lunchtime, the chants started up again.

“Mgr Kent, who had travelled from London, said there was no justification for going on with Trident, a project he said that involved ‘mass murder’.

“He said: ‘A substantial majority of people do not agree with the project that is going on in this yard. Britain does not need an independent nuclear weapon. At the end of the day these weapons are wicked and the jobs involved do not justify going on with the project’.

“He said Vickers had got itself into a mess and alternative work must be found for the employees.”