Amongst the 'terrorists' at climate camp

A banner flies over the camp, alongside a plane © Kristian Buus

I got the train from Paddington to Hays and Harlington Station on Wednesday, and then the 140 bus to the corner of Harlington High Street and Sipson Lane. A nice fellow I met on the bus showed me some of the alternative entrances I could use if the main entrance is blocked, and then we strolled down Sipson Lane to the main entrance.

I’d been super-cautious, and left my wallet and anything else I didn’t want to be seized as evidence at home. I wasn’t planning to do anything which would require evidence to be seized, but what with our heightened state of something-or-other, I thought it was best not to take any chances. I was gutted when no-one searched me.

There’s a welcome tent where they give out colour programmes listing the week’s activities. Colour. Programmes. There’s a map showing how the residential areas of the camp are divided on geographical lines - London, Scotland, West Country etc. so you can find your fellow countrymen and women and camp with familiar accents.

There are toilets and kitchens and comfy sofas and flowerbeds. Comfy. Sofas. I’d read in the papers that these were some of the most organised activists the reporters had ever seen – I thought it was probably nonsense to scare the public but it’s true – these people have created a great free festival where everyone there is, well, really cool. I recommend a visit even if you don’t give a stuff about the climate.

I met a chap I recognised as a Labour Party organiser. He gave me a bottle of whisky. I’m not sure why, but at the time it seemed quite normal. I met a notorious activist who claimed he’d been given a can of special brew by a riot cop – this is a nicer, kinder, gentler world, and even government agents want you to have a good time.

There are workshops about decentralised energy networks, sustainable gardening and Argentine Tango (no, that isn’t code for making petrol bombs – activists love tango almost as much as samba). The speakers’ voices rise and fall with the rumbling planes.

There are children riding around on bicycles and playing on trampolines, there are sculptures and fancy dress and music, there are grannies and pregnant mothers planning daring crimes against the state in a desperate attempt to save their children’s futures, and there’s some hope – maybe more will come, maybe the people watching this on telly will come next year, maybe the riot cops will start to understand who’s really on who’s side, and who’s the real threat to society. Maybe someone in the Treasury will wake up one morning and realise that wiping out most life on Earth can’t really be all that beneficial to the economy, ring BAA and tell them what they can do with their third runway. Maybe. It all depends on whether you have time to come down.

Paddington, Hays and Harlington, 140 bus, Sipson Lane.