On Saturday I met 15 Greenpeace activists from across the South from as far afield as Isle of Thanet, the Medway Towns, Canterbury & Bromley at the Shell Petrol Station, St John’s Rd Tunbridge Wells.
It was a great day, the weather was warm & sunny all of my train connections were on time & good old British Rail only charged me £9-90 for a 150 mile round trip. The people of Tunbridge Wells were friendly & supportive.
We met outside of St John’s church which is opposite the garage where the church had a summer fete & the Church Warden came out & spoke to us & was very welcoming. John from Canterbury Greenpeace Group who was co-ordinator for the day gave us a briefing mentioning to be courteous & friendly & to keep to the footpath & not on the forecourt.
We then crossed over to the garage & a police car was waiting for us at the garage. The lone policeman came over & introduced himself, he was very friendly & we told him of our plans & he said he would wait around for an hour or two & if we have any problems to come & see him, a good bit of PR for the Kent Police Force. Then one of the group in the Polar Bear costume & another member our group delivered a letter explaining why we were at the garage, the manager wasn’t around so the attendant said he would pass it on.
We stayed outside the garage from 11am to 2-30pm with placards & banners, one notice saying to passing motorists” if you agree with our campaign blow your horn”, which many of them did with great enthusiasm , they also waved to the polar bear. Passers-by took our leaflets & kids shook hands with the polar bear, people on busses waved & very few people disagreed with us.
Due to us being there not many motorists used the garage, a bad day for their profits, but instead they used another garage up the road.
A really successful campaign with a carnival atmosphere where we were able to get our point over to the public in a positive & informative way, let’s hope the message gets through to the directors of Shell.
Well done Tunbridge Wells you did us proud, well I am a bit biased as it’s my town of birth.
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