Seize the Day

It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life....I can't say it wasn't stressful, or that I got even close to enough sleep...but I wouldn't swap those three days for anything...

From the moment we arrived it should have been obvious how things were going to go but its only later that you have time to reflect and really notice....Penny, Mike and Tom had already arrived and had started unloading and were busy making banners before I'd even finished finding out where the cleaning materials were! As people arrived we got more and more functional...there was more to do and more people doing it....It reminded me of some of my best moments at Newbury....It wasn't even a case of asking people to do things, although whenever I did there was always a willing volunteer....No! One of my great joys over those few days was finding someone already doing the thing that needed to happen next,or someone coming and asking me about something before I'd thought of it....Ahhh! ....Bliss....

Monday was the day that North Korea said they had detonated their nuclear warhead.

The South Gate lock-on was 4 people with chains locked together, who arrived in a procession of about 25 people with placards, banners, drums etc. Once they had sat down in the road to the Gate, the others stayed nearby and supported them. Shannon sang "With My Hammer I break the chains" and the blockaders sang along as the police broke their chains. Even after these were cut through by police, and the 4 women were carried away to the police vans, a march to the south gate kept the road closed for another hour!

Between blockades people prepared press releases to their local papers and also emailed photos of arrests etc. One example of the kind of coverage this got us is here.

my funniest moment was when I told the young WPC in our arrest minibus that it had been a long time since I had spent a night apart from my wife. She replied 'I hope she is understanding' and I exclaimed 'I think so, she's on the other minibus'

Everyone arrested was held overnight, some sleeping 3 to a cell, and released at lunch-time the next day. Each was given a letter from the "Procurator Fiscal" saying that they could have been charged with "Breach of the Peace", but he'd let them off this time. This meant that none of our group got court appearances, fines, or a criminal record. This is probably being done to keep the issue out of the courts, and as a 'deterrent' ... .a night in a cell is a daunting experience for most people.

Herald 5th December

One of the things that's hard about blockading is the effect it has on local people trying to go about their lives ... no-one likes sitting in a traffic jam ... (although I wouldn't mind betting there are one or two base workers who don't mind getting to work a bit late!) ... so we rang the local and national traffic lines and told them about the tail-backs.