thealmightyprophetgitboy
The Heart of the Beast
Saturday night, we volunteered for copwatching duty - following the cops around the camp and making sure they didn't leave the main firebreaks or harrass anyone - and were assigned the two to six shift. Not wanting to risk going to sleep, we cast around for something to keep us occupied in the small hours.
By this time Flik was the only member of the Northants bloc who hadn't been searched, and was feeling a little left out. To provoke some cops into stopping us, we headed out of the camp and towards Heathrow. Quite reasonably, we expected an immediate reaction, or checkpoints, or patrols, or something. Instead, we walked through the village unimpeded. We reached Heathrow. We wandered around the perimiter road, looking at planes, and being quite scared by one flying low over our heads.
Unable to believe the ease with which we had got this far, we took a turning into Heathrow proper. A patrol car overtook us. Within a minute, three riot vans had pulled up next to us in convoy, and the cops poured out en masse like something from a film. They quickly surrounded us and demanded to stop and search us. The reason? My form said that I "was of protestor appearance", whereas Flik's accused her of the far more serious offence of "paying attention to the fence"!
After some initial confusion, a female cop was located to search Flik, who looked over to where I was being searched by an astoundingly polite and professional cop, and called "Hey, Dave, Pull a Copper day's going great! I'm being felt up already!" The unfortunate WPC in question apparently went stiff and finished the search as quickly as she could whilst focusing rigidly on a point somewhere on the fence...
The search concluded and everyone well satisfied, I asked my lovely cop what the quickest way back to the camp was.
"That way, I think." Said he, pointing the way we'd been heading. A few seconds of silence passed whilst I waited for the punchline.
"Are we... allowed to go that way?"
"Well... we didn't find a reason to stop you..."
Five minutes later, we were lost. The same cops pulled up again and gave us different directions. We got lost again. They offered us a lift back to the camp, which we politely declined. They pointed us finally in the direction of the bus station, and I was about to dig through my wallet to see if I had money when the guy who searched me reminded me that i had a fiver in there. Bless them, always around when you need them :)
We followed their directions, and soon came to the promised bus stop, right outside... Hatton Cross Station. A direct link to the very heart of Heathrow, and the police had directed us here. Something was very, very wrong with the world.
We waited uncomfortably for a while, surrounded by an increasingly vast number of police, until the bus came along.
"Two tickets to Harlington, please," I asked the driver, pulling out my wallet.
"No charge," he said, "BAA pay that."
In august 2007, people from all over the UK gathered to protest plans to add a third runway to heathrow airport. Heathrow already produces more CO2 than most countries, and adding more flights at a time when climate change threatens the entire planet is nothing short of madness.
We were joined by locals from the village of Sipson, which is due to disapear under the new runway, with little compensation or consideration for the displaced residents.
The Heart of the Beast
Saturday night, we volunteered for copwatching duty - following the cops around the camp and making sure they didn't leave the main firebreaks or harrass anyone - and were assigned the two to six shift. Not wanting to risk going to sleep, we cast around for something to keep us occupied in the small hours.
By this time Flik was the only member of the Northants bloc who hadn't been searched, and was feeling a little left out. To provoke some cops into stopping us, we headed out of the camp and towards Heathrow. Quite reasonably, we expected an immediate reaction, or checkpoints, or patrols, or something. Instead, we walked through the village unimpeded. We reached Heathrow. We wandered around the perimiter road, looking at planes, and being quite scared by one flying low over our heads.
Unable to believe the ease with which we had got this far, we took a turning into Heathrow proper. A patrol car overtook us. Within a minute, three riot vans had pulled up next to us in convoy, and the cops poured out en masse like something from a film. They quickly surrounded us and demanded to stop and search us. The reason? My form said that I "was of protestor appearance", whereas Flik's accused her of the far more serious offence of "paying attention to the fence"!
After some initial confusion, a female cop was located to search Flik, who looked over to where I was being searched by an astoundingly polite and professional cop, and called "Hey, Dave, Pull a Copper day's going great! I'm being felt up already!" The unfortunate WPC in question apparently went stiff and finished the search as quickly as she could whilst focusing rigidly on a point somewhere on the fence...
The search concluded and everyone well satisfied, I asked my lovely cop what the quickest way back to the camp was.
"That way, I think." Said he, pointing the way we'd been heading. A few seconds of silence passed whilst I waited for the punchline.
"Are we... allowed to go that way?"
"Well... we didn't find a reason to stop you..."
Five minutes later, we were lost. The same cops pulled up again and gave us different directions. We got lost again. They offered us a lift back to the camp, which we politely declined. They pointed us finally in the direction of the bus station, and I was about to dig through my wallet to see if I had money when the guy who searched me reminded me that i had a fiver in there. Bless them, always around when you need them :)
We followed their directions, and soon came to the promised bus stop, right outside... Hatton Cross Station. A direct link to the very heart of Heathrow, and the police had directed us here. Something was very, very wrong with the world.
We waited uncomfortably for a while, surrounded by an increasingly vast number of police, until the bus came along.
"Two tickets to Harlington, please," I asked the driver, pulling out my wallet.
"No charge," he said, "BAA pay that."
In august 2007, people from all over the UK gathered to protest plans to add a third runway to heathrow airport. Heathrow already produces more CO2 than most countries, and adding more flights at a time when climate change threatens the entire planet is nothing short of madness.
We were joined by locals from the village of Sipson, which is due to disapear under the new runway, with little compensation or consideration for the displaced residents.