Staffordshire

This was the first time I’ve taken part in a blockade, first time locking on and my first arrest. On the Sunday we had a White Elephant parade from North to South Gate where police videoed and photographed us. This was based on the idea of Trident being like a white elephant – a useless, unwanted, expensive object. ‘Nellie the Elephant’ and other tunes played on a cycle powered sound system.

Monday just after 7am we preceded to parade again (at least the police thought so) this time as ‘Mutant zombie radioactivists’ and singing our Trident song. We aimed for the North gate but were prevented from crossing the road in front of the gate instead being directed around the roundabout by the police. At a certain point on the roundabout the 12 of us sat down and locked on together. We did it in about 50 secs and as all our lock on equipment was hidden from view the police thought we where just sitting huddled together linking arms. We had chains, and specially made lock on belts (with steel cable through the middle) around our waists, plus padlocks to connect one to another. We huddled close so the links and locks could not be seen. We felt smug as we heard police say ‘they’re not locked on they’re just pretending, just start pulling them out one after another’ - but of course they couldn’t. After sometime with the Police trying to pull one or more us away, one PC found a chain and we heard him say ‘there’s chains, oh no they’re locked on’. At this point we started to sing ‘Chain chain chain, chain of activists (rather than fools)’. It took just 40 minutes for them to clear us away, they moved on us immediately and seemed determined to clear us as quickly as possible. We were pleased with our effort as only two out of the twelve of us had done anything like this before.

Seasoned protester Jennifer Pardue, who has three children and one grandchild, is so devoted to the causes she campaigns for that she is prepared to be arrested.

Guardian 12th December

(sung to the tune of the old Topic advert ‘what has a hazelnut in every bite)

Chester Chronicle 22nd December

GROUP BLOCKS NUCLEAR BASE
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09:40 - 20 December 2006

Twelve protesters from North Staffordshire were arrested amid a blockade at a nuclear base.They were among 40 people taking part in a year-long demonstration at Faslane base, on the Clyde, near Glasgow, against nuclear weapons.