And pray... what will you tell them when they ask you why?

 

Stonehenge Festival

Civil disobedience:  What does it mean?  Above the photo taken from Andy Worthington site shows a festival at Stonehenge many years ago.  Something you would never see now, if anyone remembers the 'Battle of the Beanfield' the police soon put an end to that.

Now as part of belonging to a group called Heritage Action years ago I followed the news on various causes.  For instance the 'Hill of Tara'.  A motorway was built below this prehistoric site and the road protestors moved in.  Here they lived in tunnels beneath the surface to keep away from security guards and police but of course in the end lost out.

Yesterday I noticed in the news that an elderly pensioner - Gaie Delap was to be left in prison for a longer time, just because the wrist bracelet for keeping tabs on her was not a good fit.  She was a climate protester, and had been protesting on behalf of "Just Stop Oil".  She was as different  from a dreadlocks young lad as chalk is to cheese.  Should she be in prison? the law of the land says she should but the authorities are running a dangerous risk should she die in prison.

Outlawing climate protest has become a legal and frightening threat against a number of people who feel that we need to take action.

  

Another road protest was at Newbury in 1996.  The BBC have put together a good account of this  you can see quite plainly the use of force against the protestors, they had no chance in the film below.  It is a sentimental viewpoint of the two horses charging down to confront all the people but it makes the story more real and the absolute sadness of watching trees being taken down for the onlookers.

And lastly in 1994.  Solsbury Hill, as the youngsters took to the trees to stop the improvement of the A46, you can see from the link below the photographs of this fight, and by the way a "motorway on stilts' was not built on the water meadows at Bathampton".

All this came to mind when I put the Hippies of Hebden blog post up.  It suddenly occurred had there been any protest up North that had had any significance.  The train service called the HS2, of course never made it up North but was their protest along the way I wondered as trees and properties were brought down.

 

Solsbury Hill - a book about road protest by Adrian Arbib with  excellent photos

Solsbury Hill and the middle class

England what has become of you? 

Edit:

And sometimes the protestors win.  It is useful to have a dog tagging along though.................... news today on the Rosebank case

I suspect Gaie Delap will be pleased at the outcome