Tripping without any drugs - a view of Climate Camp 2009

Life can be pretty strange at the best of times but at the end of August it suddenly took a distinctly surreal turn when Climate Camp turned up in our back yard in South East London.

In the run-up to the camp’s mass ‘swoop’ on August 26th, everyone was guessing where the final location might be. The website advised campers to buy a zone 1-6 travel card for the day of the swoop and so, like a lot of others, I scanned potential sites in London’s suburbs. My guess was that it would be somewhere in Epping Forest: an area big enough to fit us all in without upsetting the neighbours and near enough to the City and Docklands for a few forays.

Right on tactics, wrong on location. Two hours after meeting up at the south London rendezvous point in Stockwell, I found myself setting up tent on Blackheath, a 15 minute walk from my flat. This was an extra result when I discovered that I’d brought a tent but no pegs, a sleeping bag with a broken zip and that a bar of chocolate had melted all over the inside of my rucksack.

Surreal feeling No 1: Where were all the cops? Anyone who went to last year’s camp near Kingsnorth Power Station in Kent would have felt strangely uneasy as they walked up the hill to the newly claimed site in Blackheath. Where were the fields of police transit vans, their catering tents, communications units, motorbikes, dogs and horses? Why weren’t we being stopped and searched? Why couldn’t we hear to constant buzz of helicopters and police radios? 

Surreal feeling No 2: Within 24 hours, the balding patch of grass usually populated by dog-walkers and kite-flyers had become a self-sufficient village complete with wind turbines, solar panels, flapping flags, banners along the perimeter fence, eco-loos, community kitchens, workshops, nursery (sorry, kids’ zone), first aid tent, cinema, communications office, stand pipes, showers and a bicycle-powered smoothie maker.

Surreal feeling No 3: The locals are friendly (mostly). As previously mentioned, the only neighbours we had at Kingsnorth last year were of the uniformed variety and they were distinctly unfriendly. At first, the passers-by on Blackheath didn’t sound too welcoming either. My first night (sharing a friend’s tent) was punctuated by blasts from car horns and drivers shouting, ‘get a job’. I wake up feeling the whole world hates us.

To test this theory, I decide to do a survey. I prop myself up against the top of the perimeter fence for half an hour and wave. As a guesstimate, I’d say eight out of ten drivers either waved back or at least smiled. A few were more creative with their gestures. For those guys, we hung a banner along the fence reading: GOT A: JOB, BATH, LIFE – ANYTHING ELSE? A friend suggests stopping the midnight honking with a banner saying: ‘Beep if you love tree-huggers.’

Surreal feeling No. 4: Marrows maketh man. On the evening of day two, I volunteer to go with a small group of campers to a meeting of local residents’ groups. It feels like sitting an A Level in activism. We’re invited into a basement room and asked to sit on a row of chairs facing 30 or so people. They don’t look too pleased to see us.  We begin to answer questions about the camp. At one point a woman put up her hand and said, ‘I’ve brought something from Blackheath that I want to share with you’. She’s holding a plastic bag and my heart sinks. What’s she found? A human turd? A trashed bog orchid? The bag reveals a shiny oversized courgette. As she gets up to pass it to us, it’s like a peace offering across the divide. The atmosphere warms. Things improve. Many of the locals stay and talk to us at the end. By the time we’ve walked back to camp, four of them are already at the entrance waiting for a tour. We glow with camaraderie.

Surreal feeling No 4: There are still no cops about.  Apart from a police cherry-picker parked opposite the camp with a cluster or cameras at the top of it, there is very little sign of police activity. A female commander is occasionally seen patrolling the perimeter fence. On day two she sends in a request to visit the site once a day to talk to the legal team. After heated discussion among the various ‘neighbourhoods’ in the camp, the consensus is to keep the channels of communication open but for the legal team to meet the commander outside the camp fence. Some of us fear a police clamp-down. But nothing changes. The calm continues.

Surreal feeling No 5: Camping’s OK. Despite my poor preparations, I enjoy my time on site so much that the urge to retreat to my flat gradually disappears. The food’s good (Vegan isn’t as scary as it sounds), I’m learning a lot of interesting things, the sun’s holding out, the people are generally great and I keep bumping into friends I haven’t seen for years.

Surreal feeling No 6: My local friends like the camp (mostly). By and large, my friends are wary of visiting the camp: they don’t want to be preached at. But those who bother to check it leave smiling. Some actually have a good time. It’s not the ordeal they were expecting. A few said they were put off by the self-righteous undertones in some of the discussions taking place. For me, the bottom line is that the camp houses a broad church and if you take the time to suss it out, sooner or later you’ll find people who have a similar outlook to yours. Or to put it more simply, the more you put into the camp, the more you get out of it.

Three of us from the Greenwich Active Supporters’ group are off to help out at a Greenpeace fundraising fair in Suffolk this weekend.  It will be interesting to see how it compares in terms of infrastructure. This time I’ll be checking out my camping kit a bit more thoroughly before I set off.

CB