'It would be wrong to watch all this nuclear traffic and not do anything'

"The really big issues take a long, long time to sort out. Look at slavery, for example, you are looking at years upon years upon years. The important thing is to never give up," Ms Tallents, 51, a farm labourer and mother of two, said yesterday.

Fellow protester Eric Wallace, 73, a retired seaman with the Merchant Navy, dedicates most of his free time to campaigning against the presence of cruise missiles in the shores around his home town in neighbouring Helensburgh.

"I can't look out my window and watch all this nuclear traffic and not do anything about it. That would be completely wrong. For me not to do something about it would be unacceptable," he said.

It is this same nuclear traffic, however, that Helensburgh residents said was vital to the wellbeing of the small town economy. With 4000 personnel at the base at present there is no doubt that it supplies customers to shops, pubs, restaurants and services.

Taxi driver Tony Brodie, 65, welcomed yesterday's Royal Navy announcement that up to 1000 more personnel could be brought to Faslane and the surrounding area over the next six or seven years as it becomes home to more submarines with nuclear warhead capability.

"We would be lost without it," Mr Brodie said of the base. "It is just so quiet in Helensburgh at the moment but when the base fills up it changes. There is an exercise coming in tomorrow, there are two boats out there just now, but when they come in we will get busy again.

"The base is pretty vital for the town and if more personnel are coming here then I would have to say it was a good thing."

His sentiments were shared at The Imperial Bar, a traditional Navy pub that at around 5pm had one customer at the bar sipping a bottle of beer.

He said: "To have more personnel would be good for the economy. It feels like Helensburgh has been dying a death with several shops closing down. More people in the area will bring more money with them."

Faslane took its first nuclear vessel in the 1960s.

The location was selected, in part, for the relentless wet weather that provided natural shelter for the controversial vessels.

Naval Base Commander Clyde Commodore Chris Hockley said: "First of all, the location gave almost immediate access to deep water, and of course for submarines that is always a good thing.

"The weather was also a factor. In the days when you weren't dealing with advanced Google positioning systems, the cloud and the rain gave us very good cover. It was part of the deal that you couldn't really see what was here."

It took almost two decades for the peace campaigners to make their permanent home at Faslane. They first arrived in 1982, a year of mass international protest against nuclear weapons that in Britain coincided with the government's announcement that a new Trident missile system was to be built.

The camp still exists despite numerous attempts to evict the protesters. Yesterday, despite the landmark government announcement on the future of the UK's Trident capabilities, there was a distinctly mellow atmosphere there. Only around eight people now live there amongst the ramble of caravans, one of which is home to a new litter of pups.

Camp residents have, in the past, occasionally breached the security of the Naval Base by getting inside the fence or by canoeing or swimming into the base.

Road transportation of the Trident missile warheads has also been successfully disrupted. Faslane 365, an effort keep a year-long protest in place at the base using groups of 100 people, first took root in October 2006.

The North Gate, the heavily fortified entrance to the base, was closed for six hours by the protest in January 2007. This is described as the most successful sit-in of the Faslane 365 movement. Figures on actual arrests over the year-long protest vary, but estimates sit between roughly 350 and 470.

While Jane Tallents and Eric Wallace were yesterday the sole two protestors in a very quiet but persistent demonstration, this summer is likely to see an upsurge in activity.

The first Astute class submarine, built by BAE in Barrow-on-Furness, will arrive at Faslane on an undisclosed date over the summer months.

It will be the first of up to seven new "Hunter Killer" vessels, each capable of launching Tomahawk cruise missiles.

Four Vanguard vessels, each fitted with 16 ballistic missiles, will remain for now but will eventually be replaced by the more powerful Astutes.

The three Trafalgar Class submarines to be transferred from Devonport in Plymouth to their new HM Clyde base will bring forward the Royal Navy's vision that Scotland will be the sole home to the UK's fleet of nuclear submarine weapons. Faslane HM Naval Base Clyde, at Faslane, pictured, is home to the UK's Trident-armed nuclear submarine force and the headquarters of the Royal Navy in Scotland. RNAD Coulport, eight miles from Faslane, is responsible for the storage, processing, maintenance and issue of the Trident Weapon System and the ammunitioning task for all submarine-embarked weapons. The base serves as home base to the UK's fleet of Vanguard-class nuclear powered and nuclear-armed submarines, as well as conventionally-armed nuclearpowered submarines, supported by the Fleet Protection Group Royal Marines. Faslane was first constructed and used as a base in World War II. During the 1960s, the UK began negotiating the Polaris Sales Agreement with the United States regarding the purchase of a Polaris missile system to fire UK-built nuclear weapons from five specially constructed submarines. Four submarines were built and permanently based at Faslane. Faslane itself was chosen as the base at the height of the Cold War, due to its geographic position, which formed a Bastion, on the relatively secluded but deep and easily navigable Gare Loch and Firth of Clyde. It enabled swift and stealthy access to the submarine patrolling areas in the North Atlantic, through the GIUK gap to the Norwegian Sea. One boat was always on patrol at any given time. In times of political instability, sometimes two boats would be deployed at sea. A permanent peace camp has been in place close to the main base gates since 1982. Other UK bases

PORTSMOUTH Home to almost two-thirds of the Royal Navy's surface ships, including the aircraft carriers, Type 42 destroyers, Type 23 frigates and a mine countermeasure squadron, as well as fishery protection and training units. More than 17,000 people work there. The Naval Base covers 120 hectares, takes in three miles of waterfront, 62 acres of basins and 15 working dry docks. Around 1.5 million ration packs for the Armed Forces are assembled at the naval base every year. Portsmouth Naval Base is the centre of VT's shipbuilding industry. VT is currently building, for the Royal Navy, sections of the new Daring-class destroyers. HMS Clyde, the first complete warship to be built in Portsmouth Naval Base since the 1960s, was commissioned in 2007. DEVONPORT A military presence was established in Plymouth when the English Navy set sail for the Spanish Armada in 1588. In 1689 Prince William of Orange demanded the building of a new dockyard. A few miles around the coast from Plymouth a suitable plot of land was identified. Devonport, pictured, is home to HMS Ocean, the largest ship in the Royal Navy, at 21,000 tonnes. There are 14 Type 22 and Type 23 frigates. Three of its seven Trafalgar class vessels will be moved to Faslane and the remaining four will be decommissioned.