Andy D'Agorne

A 460 mile round trip to Aldermaston, driving a minibus from York makes for a pretty shattering day, but the insanity of spending billions of pounds on developing new nuclear weapons instead of preparing to adapt to climate change demands such actions. Maybe we didnt have the bravery of the Tibetan protestors at the Olympic flame ceremony to get us onto your screens, but we were there at the base 50 years after the first march to Aldermaston. Some of the original marchers, a Hiroshima survivor, and Walter Wolfgang where there to remind us of the sacrifices that some have made to get the peace message heard. Some young people were there for the first time, the bye laws criminalising the act of attaching something to the fence were suspended for the day so that we could decorate the fence like we did in the 80's - The five gates each had a theme of a decade since 1958 and ours had an 80's theme, so some of our relic posters were copied and laminated to adorn the fence once more.

Mrs T and the miners were there too, though far more amenable and in comedy spirit than applied in the 1980s during the miners strike. I pointed out on the way down the motorway bridge that I recall being lined with police on a Monday morning on the watch for flying pickets heading north to the Sheffield pits. The boys in blue were there of course today in their 'acceptable face of the police state' mode, backed up by the 'Evidence gathering team' with their long lenses to spot any new faces for their collection of usual suspects. We were even treated to some music from the 80's protests with a reunion performance of the 'Fallout Marching Band' (not much marching these days)