Loitering with a Tent, an ad hoc affinity group established a peace camp in Glasgow Prestwick's main car park for around 11 hours in protest of the illegal military flights that are being allowed through what is marketed as a civilian airport.
At around 6am on Sunday the 7th of August, we arrived at Glasgow Prestwick Airport with some tents, some food, some banners and some old jam jars.
After being interviewed outside the terminal building and informing the police, we were “plane spotters” and refusing to show them our plane spotting books, we identified a prime spot next the exit of the main car park. We pitched our tents and hung a banner. It amazingly took over an hour for the massed airport police to come over and ask us what we were doing and whether of not we were peaceful.
After some hours, we decided to drop our other banner which was a more realistic parody of the airport's sickly ironic slogan “Pure dead brilliant!”This move changed the atmosphere rapidly and an airport official and a police officer finally opened a real dialog with us. The airport demanded our “Pure dead terror”banner be removed from the advertising hoardings. When asked where a more suitable spot for the banner would be, an exchange occurred regarded the message,which airport staff allegedly found offensive- albeit many seemed quite supportive of us.
After a fruitless exchange we decided to parade the offending banner inside the terminal building, much to the ire of the airport management and police. After this, we retired to our camp for tea & biccies. We got a lot of support from exiting drivers and even received £20-odd in donations (which were passed on to Trident Ploughshares).
After around ten hours, the airport spokesperson finally returned with free coffee and cakes, looking for negotiation. We offered that if we got written a statement to confirm the verbal assurances that illegal Israeli munitions and US rendition flights are no longer being facilitated by the airport, we would leave immediately.
The document never appeared and we eventually called it a day and promised to return soon... albeit we didn't mention that we'd be back under the cover of darkness to try ascertain the veracity of their statements first-hand.
After being interviewed outside the terminal building and informing the police, we were “plane spotters” and refusing to show them our plane spotting books, we identified a prime spot next the exit of the main car park. We pitched our tents and hung a banner. It amazingly took over an hour for the massed airport police to come over and ask us what we were doing and whether of not we were peaceful.
After some hours, we decided to drop our other banner which was a more realistic parody of the airport's sickly ironic slogan “Pure dead brilliant!”This move changed the atmosphere rapidly and an airport official and a police officer finally opened a real dialog with us. The airport demanded our “Pure dead terror”banner be removed from the advertising hoardings. When asked where a more suitable spot for the banner would be, an exchange occurred regarded the message,which airport staff allegedly found offensive- albeit many seemed quite supportive of us.
After a fruitless exchange we decided to parade the offending banner inside the terminal building, much to the ire of the airport management and police. After this, we retired to our camp for tea & biccies. We got a lot of support from exiting drivers and even received £20-odd in donations (which were passed on to Trident Ploughshares).
After around ten hours, the airport spokesperson finally returned with free coffee and cakes, looking for negotiation. We offered that if we got written a statement to confirm the verbal assurances that illegal Israeli munitions and US rendition flights are no longer being facilitated by the airport, we would leave immediately.
The document never appeared and we eventually called it a day and promised to return soon... albeit we didn't mention that we'd be back under the cover of darkness to try ascertain the veracity of their statements first-hand.
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