Police Blockade Marine Barracks

It was a lovely sunny morning when we started up the hill towards Lympstone Barracks (on the main road between exeter and exmouth). We were expected, thanks to a misinterpretation of a press release by the Exeter stop the war coalition

There were seven of us, and uniformed officers who were successfully blocking the gates to the base on the other side of the road. For a whole hour no one entered or left the base.
Ho hum, we’d decided to do a publicity stunt last week, so the national and local press were contacted and a scrappy banner was made: CANNON FODDER FOR WHO? NOT IN MY NAME!

It was all good clean fun: the police wanted to know who was in charge (!?) so they filmed us all anyway; we smiled and waved at passing motorists; photographers took photos, and asked us to storm the base, which we politely declined; we decided to call it a day after 50 minutes. The banner was rolled up and we started back down the hill, just as a TV camera man from Carlton TV turned up. …so we sauntered back and didn’t chant anything specially for the cameras.

Overall a roaring success:
base ‘blockaded’ by the police,
lots of photos taken by the press,
no one arrested,
everyone still cheerful.