A member of East Bristol Greenpeace stayed on at the gates of Hinkley Point nuclear power station to help man the blockade. Here is his first hand account of his experience.
"After the surround and walking/claiming back the land via the public rights of way most of the protesters who attended drifted away leaving probably just over a hundred or so to blockade the main gate. Hay bales were moved into the road and made into a seating area in front of the gates and were occupied by some of the protesters including the Japanese Buddhists who lit lanterns in front of the gates. Others danced to music which had been rigged up using a laptop and large speakers. Two fires were lit by the side of the road using old washing machine drums as fire pits which were kept burning through the night by copious amounts of branches and pieces of wood. Later in the evening the music was stopped and a screen was rigged up using either a tarpaulin or large sheet tied between a road sign and a cane tethered to the ground onto which lots of anti nuclear films were projected. Once all the films had finished the music was put back on and some of the crowd danced into the night. Others, including myself, went with Theo at about 23.30 on another walk/take back the land, but this time in the dark. This did make the security very twitchy - you could see them running around and landrovers were travelling at very high speeds across the fields so that they could follow and watch us, however, as with the previous walk, we kept to the public foot path.
In the morning there was a very surreal moment as the mist was covering the land surrounding the blockade and people were just milling around talking quietly, one of the organisers sat down on a hay bale and played her harp. It almost felt like time was standing still as all that could be heard was the beautiful music from the harp. As the morning progressed more people arrived to support the blockade and by about lunch time I would guess there could have been a few hundred people in attendance. At around 13.15 most of the group (minus a small group left to keep the blockade in place) formed a procession behind the Japanese Buddhists and their followers as we all walked down to the beach where a Buddhist ceremony in remembrance and solidarity for the people of Fukushima took place. Lanterns were placed in a large rock pool and the ceremony was said in Japanese - this seemed to be made even more moving by the fact that we were surrounded by mist.
I feel the whole surround and blockade went very well with everyone including the police in an upbeat friendly mood. The communication between the organisers and the police was excellent at all times even to the point that when EDF's security came into the car park in the early hours of the morning trying to intimidate the protesters and telling them they had to leave (even though it had been arranged that we had the car park until 16.00 on Sunday) the police stepped in and sorted it out and the car park remained in use as planned. I left straight after the ceremony at about 14.30 as I thought it was best that I was not caught in a long queue of traffic, so I did not see the final removal of the blockade." Ian Tippett
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