We'd started the board off with a few wordy comments from politicians, Church leaders, retired military generals and suchlike. The 'speech bubbles' that were added by passers-by through the afternoon were, for the most part, much more succinct and to the point than our public figures had managed, even after we'd helped them out by editing their lengthy speeches! Our participants, meanwhile, didn't beat around the bush at all (examples above).

We had some interesting discussions with people at the stall and there seemed to be a greater awareness of the Trident issue generally in comparison with previous stalls we've done; no doubt this was due to recent mainstream news coverage of contradictions in the ConDem coalition position on Trident, the expense of Trident in the context of government spending cuts and the proposed fudge of delaying any decision on replacement. Most of our supporters seemed to be opposed to Trident per se, although there were some who seemed to be objecting to replacement primarily on the grounds of costs in the current economic climate.

One lad who'd been in the army for four years said to us that he didn't think Trident needed to be scrapped because Britain doesn't really have nuclear weapons. While he was still serving in the forces, an army Major had apparently told him this, claiming that Britain has all the bits which could be put together into a nuclear weapon if it became necessary, but doesn't actually have any assembled nuclear weaponry. The lad seemed to have taken this statement as fact and looked quite shocked when we told him that Britain has at least one nuclear submarine armed with nuclear warheads constantly out on patrol. Makes you wonder what other lies squaddies are told...

While we may be sceptical about the impact of petitions, we've found that having something to sign brings people over to the stall, at which point there is an opportunity to start a conversation or supply more information. Those of us handing out leaflets can also point people to the stall to sign the petition. Since the aim of the stall is awareness-raising, the more people we talk with the better.

It's likely that the mere presence of a stall raises awareness, although this weekend we were completely overshadowed by the young people a few yards away, who took on the BNP and kept up a demonstration right in front of them until they packed up and left. Respect.