Taking the Land: The Climate Camp begins.

I’m starring into a plate of lukewarm spaghetti, unsure whether my stomach is still under the skin of my belly or has taken up residence amongst the chopped up pieces of red roasted tomato. I’m starving but can’t eat a thing. Any appetite has been obliterated by anxiety. Rarely have I been so nervous. We are in an insipid pizzeria on the northern edge of Heathrow airport, behind us planes are taking off into the night sky, in front of us lies certain adventure. I never thought our Utopian Journey would begin somewhere like this.

It’s Saturday night, a dozen of us are pretending to celebrate a birthday party. A table has been booked, under the pseudonym – Abbey Hoffman, but it’s all a front. For activists, normally unable to disguise ourselves as smart, we are quite convincing tonight in our jackets and dresses. The illusion is made complete by a large bunch of lilies that we have given to “the birthday girl’ and that now sit in the middle of the long table. White lilies, white for innocence.

Many of us have been working a whole year for this moment. The next few hours will determine whether it was all worth it. None of us sitting here desperately pretending to party know how it’s all going to unfold, but all of us are focused on the same goal, taking the site for the climate camp tonight.

***

The day began with four of us huddled around the morning papers speaking in hushed tones in an east London park. The entire process of the climate camp organising has been some of the most open, truly horizontal and democratic processes I’ve ever been involved in. The monthly gatherings were open to all and every decision was made by consensus, several hundred people were part of this unique process. Working groups were set up for everything from organising the camp food to media relations, medics to compost toilet building. Anyone could be part of a working group, but there was one that had to be closed, the “land group”.

For a year a handful of trusted yet unknown people had scoured the UK looking for a suitable piece of land to hold the climate camp on. For security reasons this group had to be clandestine, so that the police could not have prior notice to the exact location of the climate camp and prevent it setting up. In June the “land group” had presented a thorough briefing paper to the gathering detailing six possible locations. Ranging from oil refineries to the construction site of a new coal fired power station, each place had pros and cons listed and detailed strategic reasons why they were suitable locations for this year’s camp. After an extraordinarily difficult 12 hours of debate trying to decide a favoured location (link to isa) the gathering of 80 people found consensus on Heathrow airport. It was an incredibly audacious choice, some called it “the crazy option” but in our hearts many of us sitting in that circle collectively making the decision, knew that change only happens when social movements have the courage to be audacious. History has never been made by the timid.

Although the general location was public, in fact the day we released it to the press the front page of London’s evening standard declared “Eco-warriors plan massive disruption at Heathrow”, the specific site had to be kept secret till the last possible moment. A few weeks ago, police had recommended that we “cancelled the camp, much to the derision of our police liason working group. They certainly didn’t want it to happen and this morning’s front page headline of the Guardian Newspaper warned that terrorism laws were going to be used against us. (Link article) But none of this was going to deter anybody.

Lying in the park reading the Guardian on a sunny Saturday morning in this part of London was far from suspicious activity, “Only 3 people know where the camp is going to be held” began the the article. We giggled. Under our newspaper lay large scale maps of the site, which we would uncover whenever the coast was clear of dog walkers. This was the first time Isa and I had met members of the land group, and this meeting was so that we could brief a wider group of people who will take the site that night. The secret was going to be spread bit by bit over the next twelve hours to a hundred and fifty people who were going to descend on the site from dozens of different directions all perfectly coordinated so that they arrived before the police noticed anything. It was a stunningly ambitious plan. The camp is due to open to the public on Tuesday, but it takes days to set up a temporary eco-village to cater for 1000 people, so we have to take the land a few days before hand. We imagine the police know this and expect it to happen that weekend, news was already coming through that numerous police vans were circling the area.

***

Next stop a children’s nursery class room in West London. Booked under the auspices of the imaginary “West London Orienteering Club” this is the location for a final big group briefing. It’s two o’clock in the afternoon, we are expecting about 50 people to turn up, bit by bit they trickle in. The time and place has been spread entirely by word of mouth, no emails or phone calls have mentioned it. As a result no one knows how many actually got the message and will turn up, but our nerves are assuaged as more and more folk arrive. As they enter the brightly painted room with its miniature tables and chairs, the security ritual takes place, – check all mobile phones are turned off and batteries taken out (preferably before they left home so as to not have any electronic foot print of the location). This year several climate actions have been busted before they even took place, resulting in pre-emptive arrests and house raids. We are praying that this time there have been no leaks or stray rumours.

There’s a pub on the corner of the road leading to the nursery. People drinking at the tables outside have been wondering why all afternoon there’s been a steady stream of people laden down with large rucksacks making their way to a nursery. “Are you going to a protest?” they ask. As the hour for taking the site nears, the paranoia rises. Are these plain clothed cops pretending to be drinkers? Do they already know about this briefing? Have we been rumbled? Unfortunately not many of the participants had been told about the Orienteering Club cover, and so a variety of responses are offered “No, we’re going to a festival” or “ of course not, It’s a camping convention.”

By late afternoon the same drinkers are still putting back the pints and the mixture of sun and strong larger seems to suggest that even if they are cops, they are unlikely to be much use following us tonight.

***

The briefing begins. “Welcome to operation Roaring Monkey “ everyone laughs, the nervous tension releases a bit, “The police’s operation has been codenamed Hargood, we are already winning on the imagination front. Tonight we are going to make something we have been imagining a reality. Tonight we are going to take the site for the climate camp, determinedly and its with a lot of fun. They tried to stop us with the injunction, they are trying to criminalise us with the use of terror laws, but our resolve hasn’t been bruised and whatever happens, tomorrow morning we are going to be sitting together in a field having breakfast at the climate camp.”

What follows is an explanation of the communications tactic which will be used. I won’t describe it here for the cops to learn from, but it involved a story of how pirate ships organise themselves in battle, a plastic bag full of dozen’s of “clean” mobile phones, a pile of photocopied maps and splitting into different groups of around 10 people each.

Some groups will approach the land via a park, where they will stop off for a “picnic” and then go on a long walk through thick undergrowth and across streams that have already been bridged in preparation for tonight’s jaunt. Others will take public transport or cycle. Some will hide in the back of white vans with drivers dressed as builders, complete with football shirts, a copy of the Sun on the dash board and plaster dust in their hair. And us, well we are the Pizzeria gang.

Then comes the first logistical cock up. The van that should have arrived to take everyone’s rucksacks hasn’t turned up. There is no way we can all carry our camping gear, any hope at disguise will evaporate immediately. A fresh faced young man comes to the rescue. “My mum’s house is just up the road, we can store them there, she’s gone away for the weekend” “That’s over 50 rucksacks and tents. Are you sure?” responds one of the facilitators “Well we haven’t got much choice have we” he smiles “ by the time she gets back home tomorrow morning, we will have either taken the land and managed to get our stuff delivered there in a van or we will be sleeping off the experiment in police cells. In which case she will have other things to worry about.”

Dotted across London there are at least four simultaneous meetings like this taking place. At the moment its easy to blend into this vast city of concrete and crowds, but soon a hundred and fifty of us will converge on open fields, a stones throw from one of the world’s busiest airports, with police on high alert swarming the area. It all seems totally insane, but sitting on these tiny fragile chairs, looking at the children’s scribbled drawings of lollipop trees and smiling suns, it dawns on me that this is an entirely appropriate place to prepare for this adventure and what else would I be doing at this time and place, anyway. After all, if more people don’t put their bodies on the line to try and stop our society careering into catastrophic climate change, it’s the children who spend their days playing in this classroom who are going to suffer the consequences. It’s not insane, this is the only sensible thing to do in this psychotic society.

***

The adrenaline is peeking. It feels as if someone is peeling off my skin. My body has become a hypersensitive mass of raw flesh weighed down by a mess of heavily knotted guts. Eye balls can’t stay still, they dart around searching for danger. We’re on the underground, the train is deafening as its sharp metallic rattle screeches through the tunnels tearing to the edges of the city. Our group has broken down into independent couples for the first leg of the journey. We’ve been doing all the things to make sure we are not being followed – jumping onto the trains at the last minute just as the doors close, walking to the wrong platform and then doubling back on ourselves – but it still feels as if everyone sitting in the carriage is starring at us. I keep looking down at my trousers, are my flies undone? Did I spill food down my shirt? Why is everyone starring? Why do we stand out so much? The guy in the white t-shirt who I’m sure is looking us up and down is reading the Guardian, “please don’t read the front page” I hear myself wishing…

Calm down… Try to remember to breath … Breath in… count… 1,2,3… breath out… 4,5,6… they aren’t looking at us…they really aren’t…

Last week my son Jack and I saw an animal show in a wildlife park entitled “The Wolfman”, featuring a man who had brought up and lived with a pack of wolves. Before the show began and the hungry wolves entered the fenced enclosure, he took a series of deep breaths and explained to the audience that wolves can sense the fast beating anxious heart of a human from ten miles away. Maybe everyone on this train is able to sense the fact that my heart is rapidly rising into my throat and we haven’t even got to the airport yet.

A drink in a suburban pub and a taxi ride later and our group converges on the Pizzeria. Our booked table is right at the front, next to and in full view of the large plate glass windows. Police vans are cruising up and down the street outside – bugger… Quick, think of an excuse why we need the tables at the back of the restaurant. ..No, that will seem even more suspicious. Just sit down, relax, and make sure those of us in the group who are “known” faces sit with our backs to the window. Remember – this is a birthday party!

We order food and try to talk together about anything except the climate camp, or politics, or resistance, or ecological meltdown or anything that might be overheard by the clientele many of whom are wearing ID tags around their necks, which suggests they work at the airport. Mary sitting opposite me mentions that a car has drawn up outside – “ Two bulky guys are sitting in it, they seem to be waiting for something and are drinking coffee from a flask” she whispers “I’m sure they are plain clothes cops. One of them just wound down his window to talk to the passing police van.”

We are stuck here until we get a phone call that tells us that Operation Roaring Monkey is on green light at which point we leave the restaurant, walk up the street 30 metres and then over a fence into a field and head north until we get to the site. That’s the plan anyway. How we walk straight past the plain clothes cops and jump over a fence without them noticing is another matter.

Food is eaten by those whose stomachs aren’t tied in knots. Coffee is ordered. Then it begins. Time Slows right down, to a torturous ticking trickle as we wait for the call that will give us the go ahead. We ask for the bill. Still no call. The restaurant is beginning to empty now. I go to the toilets about four times, to check the phone and to empty the stress from my bowels. No call. The tables are being cleared and the smell of bleach wafts across the room as the staff finish cleaning the kitchens.

The plain clothes are still outside and we are the only customers left. I hold the phone tight in my hand, wishing it to ring. There is nowhere to go, this pizzeria is on the edges of the deadzone which is Heathrow Airport, we walk out of here and there are no pubs, café’s nothing, nowhere to hide and wait. The waitress asks us to pay up. We try to spend as much time working out the bill as possible. Then the lights start to be switched off. Why isn’t the phone ringing? Has everyone been arrested? The police vans are still cruising up and down the street, no sirens or anything, at least that must mean they still don’t know we are slowly converging on the site.

Then at last the phone rings. A voice shouts “GO”. Out of sheer miracle the plain clothes have moved their car. We stand up and try not to run out of the restaurant door. Turn right, keep moving. Don’t look back. Walk, don’t run. Up the road, not far to go. No police van’s, phew. Keep looking straight ahead. There’s the fence. Jump over. Single file through the field. The crops are woody bean plants, as high as our shoulders and brushing our faces. It feels like walking through a shrunken forest, we try to make the least possible noise, but the crunch of foot onto dry crispy branch erupts into the darkness. Keep going north. Can’t see anything ahead. We stop and double check the map, we must be nearly there. I keep expecting to see blue flashing lights whizzing past in the distance, or the search light of a police helicopter scanning the ground. Nothing. It’s so quiet, eerily quiet, feels to easy.

Through never ending crops, then over another fence and we are on a footpath. According to the maps we must be so close now. We strain our eyes towards the horizon. Then they appear out of the darkness. Grey figures up ahead, a dozen or more, ghostly. A few white vans moving. Must be cops, but no blue lights. Are we there ?

David points ahead, “look – tripods” his face erupts into a cracking smile “it’s us!”Sure enough soaring into the night sky are the tell tale silhouettes of two tripod structures, with agile acrobatic figures clambering about on them. Designed to put activists out of reach from cops to claim land or roads during actions, they are hall marks of the UK direct action scene.

We break into a run. We reach the safety of the crowd, see so many faces, smiles, eyes beaming so much happiness. We took the land and there isn’t as single cop in sight! I look up into the sky and see a meteor scratch the blackness. We did it!

Within seconds a large flat bed lorry arrives, marquees are quickly unloaded. Everyone is busy, head lamps and torch beams sweeping the area, planks and poles being carried. All the time more people appear out of the darkness from every corner of the field. The crowd grows and everyone is waiting for the police to arrive, but still no sign of them. A makeshift fence marking out the site is rigged up and ‘section 6’ squatter notices attached to it. Oliver, an archaeologist, is helping mark out the plan of the camp with large rolls of tape. Eva and friends have brought in a large lock on barrel and have locked themselves to it under the tripods. The media team sit in a circle and start to write a press release and make phone calls to announce the good news. As if by magic three marquees rise up like the sails of phantom ships flapping in the night sky.

After half an hour dozens of police vans appear down the lane that borders the field. A commanding officer appears, surrounded by the Forward Intelligence Team with their incessant flash photography and beaming torches. He walks along the footpath on the edge of our marked site and in an attempt at asserting authority says “ I am asking you on behalf of the Landowner to leave the site.”Most people too busy building the camp to even notice him, but the few who have come to greet him simply laugh and he walks back to the vans.

Within hours the police have stopped letting any of our vehicles into the lane, which means the rucksacks stored in the unknowing mum’s house never arrived. So for many it was a cold night without sleeping bags or tents, but it didn’t seem to matter, not tonight. And in one of the marquees a giant collective bed was improvised, made out of one of the long folded canvas sides. It held twenty very tired people, cosily cuddled up together, sleeping off an adventure and perhaps dreaming of another one.