A protester climbs to the top of Hulme Bridge in Manchester, reportedly between 5:30am and 6:40am. This is not only a major landmark but also a busy road. It was closed. Last Friday around a hundred protesters closed down the bridge via a sit down protest, today it took just one man.
A small crowd gathered mostly to shout support to the protester, and a crew from Granada TV where on hand as was an agency photographer – who said that it was a wonderful sight but there isn’t much demand for anti-war images from the media right now. Passing cars beeped, shouted and some jeered. There were shouts of ‘get a job’ but mostly the mood was one of admiration all round for this man making his brave and extremely photogenic protest.

At midday the man lowered down his rucksack. The Police at first tried to arrest the bag but after awhile allowed the man’s friend’s to take care of it. Men in harnesses arrived and were on standby to go up after the protester.

At around 1:30pm the man began to make his way down, leaving behind him a banner reading ‘No War’. Somebody was heard to shout ‘you’re nuts’, the protester looked around at the Police awaiting him and said ‘not as nuts as they are’.

Halfway down the protester donned a Tony Blair mask much to the approval of onlookers. The man made his way down and upon reaching the bottom (before untying his ropes) he was interviewed by the Granada news team. They asked him at one point if he would be going for a rest after his exhausting protest, he replied in good humour that it looked like he would be resting in a police cell for a while. Police man were seen to laugh: something usually reserved for comments like ‘you should shoot him down’ - as one teenager said, who looked distinctly like the boy who threw a rock at my bus window last week.

The protester was arrested under Section 22 of the Public Order Act – Placing items above a carriageway and causing danger to road users. He was taken to Collyhurst police station.

The Police seemed much better behaved today than over the past week: a result no doubt of the number of cameras recording the event. They told me that the banner would have to stay up on the bridge until the council could get it down. Manchester City Council made a big deal of being Anti-war when it was most popular to do so: but other anti-war messages around the city are being removed alarmingly fast, no doubt this will too.

I don’t know the name of the man, but I really hope I get to shake his hand one day.