Was anyone else involved in direct action/protests in their yoof? How do you feel about it now? Just wondered 'cos ten years ago this week...

[AnarchyAunt]

...my 17 year old self was dragged out of the entrance of a tunnel in a derelict house on the Birmingham Northern Relief Road protest, arrested, kept in police cells overnight, and charged with obstruction of the undersherrif (some pics on my profile for a while).

We lost and the road was built - 27 miles of privately run toll motorway, destroying 40km of greenbelt land and 2 SSSIs, and perpetuating the madness that we can tarmac our way out of traffic chaos and environmental destruction.

I'm still damn proud of trying though.

Yes i did and still do!, The protests i usually take part in are animal based ones, so anti hunt, brightlingsea live exports etc, I feel proud to have done them, but can also see that som of the stunts i pulled weren't really that great or safe.

I am also proud that i have raised my 6yo Ds to stand up in what he believes in and not to be a sheep and follow the crowd, which he does with great confidence.

Yes, many. Usually anti- nuclear stuff, poll tax scuffles that sort of thing.

Anyone remember the Newbury bypass protests? As a VERY skint student I accepted some security work and didn't get told where until the minibus dropped us off...at Newbury!! Needless to say I spent the next 3 hours cringing with a load of other equally shamefaced students. The next night a group of us piled in a car waved goodbye to the minibus and spent the night on the other side of the security fence!!

yup me too, though un the further distant past. Not compatible with motherhood, IMO, but as they say, this too shall pass.
Well done, AA, I think raising the next generation is an honourable alternative way of changing the world.

veedub - its not unheard of for the security to defect. I think a lot of them are, like you were, just young people looking for a job and end up having to try to defend the indefensible.

I am just having a little reminisce this evening I think - ten years have flown by, but so much has changed... Getting arrested is not compatible with motherhood but we still visit protest sites and lend what support we can. DD is quite voluble in her outrage at the idea of building roads through woods!

yep, anti-fascist demonstrations in the late 1970s, where we faced a bunch of really angry skin heads ( fascists these days are much more image savvy), against the David Alton abortion Bill, Clause 28 of a local govt bill making "promoting" gay lifestyles illegal (wtf?), and CND stuff.
Proud of them all, though a fair bit in the past.
Usually all in the pissing rain!!

and role modelling for little ones is soo important. Not to go out and protest necessarily, but to be critical of what they are told, as morethanyou says.

Oh absolutely, children need to be able to question things.

Just not when I say them

Tell me about the pissing rain - when I was living on the protest site it was so cold at night that the five litre water bottles we kept inside would freeze solid Hey ho though, 17 and fancy free and feeling indestructible

Nice to see that others are still proud of their actions

I was in the swp. You know they are at every demo going Looking back, I think I was a twat, really.

I mainly went for the beer after the meetings though.

My brother was at the Twyford Down camp for some time - he was shooting a C4 documentary but ended up going native. He had a blast AFAIK.

no i had to go to work

went to a couple of anti fur rallies

When I was a student I did the anti-nazi league and anti-vivisection. I also went on the anti-war marches. I am not as militant as I used to be though

I was in the Troops out Movement and Amnesty - went on trillions of Irish demos and was tenants' leader and local councillor in my twenties

All seemed very important at the time and still does now but am too lazy busy with kids to get involved in stuff nowadays

Would encourage my kids to question and hope they will be politicised adults, rather than adults who claim not to be interested in politics

Can't really understand adults who turn blank when politics is discussed

I still get sad when we drive by Twyford down.. Was a bit young for that one, but marched against tuition fees, and am very proud of the news clippings I have, I was on the BBC news for that one too. I also went on the march against the Iraq war. I'm glad I stood up and was counted, sad that it didn't achieve anything.
I plan to politicise my dd, and try to interest the kids I teach in politics.

my dh was a typical leftie student... hunt sab, protested against the animal expts on the univeristy campus, in the animal rights soc, went and stood in front of bull dozers etc at Twyford Down....

anti thatcher (had a 'medical card' that he kept in his wallet that said along the line 'if i am injured and in hospital no way do i want thatcher so come and do thepolitician visiting sick people thing'.. he was also in the poll tax riots and was even quoted in The Times newwspaper! i wonder where he has put that cutting!?

although he has mellowed a lot (lost the angry yoof thing!), i just think he is more aware that there are now two sides to every story excpet all the thatcher stuff... still very strong 'ahem' feelings about that!

he used to pass my window when i lived in halls and tooted his hunt sab horn on sat mornings (v. early) on his way to a sab!!!
it was part of the reason why i fell for him.... he was a bit of a hero! an anarchist and very passionate about the rights and wrongs of the world!... and he said rude things to people in the conservative soc

My dad discovered the best way to wind up conservative students was to sing the Welsh national anthem. Because back in the 60s, Tories would always stand for the national anthem... really neat trick for disrupting Young Conservative meetings.

I used to demonstrate outside South Africa House in the grim days of apartheid. Went on the Miners' marches in London. And a few others - can't actually remember what they were about but probably some anti-fur stuff.

Couldn't go on the Stop the War march as I was heavily pregnant but my Dad, bless him, represented the family.

Greenham

Anti-nazi league stuff

Hunt Sab

Miners

Reclaim the night

Quite a CV, me.

AnarchyAunt, love your photos, though I confess my first thought was to wonder if I've met you - I know someone whose daughter was in road protests and now has her own dd. But I think she's probably not you.

My parents met on the Aldermaston marches. Mum's younger sister also met her dh there. One of my favourite baby photos is of my mum carrying me on a Japanese march against the war (in Vietnam I think) with a line of Japanese riot police behind her. Though it looks like a rather scary place to take an under-1 year old. She's never told me I shouldn't do something with ds, if she did I might ask her about that pic! My parents aren't as radical as they used to be but have turned up to the occasional demo, as have my aunts.

dp and I also met on a protest about an earlier threatened war against Iraq nearly 11 years ago. I'm rather sad that we've only managed to take ds to 1 anti-war demo and that still hadn't marched off by the time we decided we were going to die of boredom and went to a cafe with friends. We;ve also taken him to a union demo which did at least do a little wandering round central London.

I wrote "Meat Is Murder" using chip fat, on the window of a butcher's in Colchester. Though I berate myself now - I sometimes wish I still had that passion for a cause.

Goodness - how pathetic do I sound? Hardly direct action!

Yup. Marched against local hospital closure aged 10, got into trouble at school aged 14 for starting a petition against lowering the abortion limit, also got into (lesser) trouble for suggesting that the school's adopted Good Cause for charitable donations that year should be the local women's refuge rather than the RSPCA, have been on quite a few anti-censorship and pro-sexual-freedom demos. I would go now if there was something I thought I could make a difference by doing, but only if I could get someone else to look after DS (because I really don't like to see under-5s on demos: they are not old enough to understand and it can be scary and dangerous for them).

sallyhollyberry - I bet that butcher was quaking! (you're kind about my name - though I can't take the credit as it was chosen for me by other MNers when I first joined!)

Hunt sab
Anti-Nazi demo Halifax and Plumstead Heath
(big nasty riot!)
SWP - but yes looking back I was a twat, but my heart was in the right place
Anti-circus stuff
Did pro veggie stuff at school etc

Less proactive nowadays... but saying that I do have direct debits going to charidees (childrens society and guide dogs) and invested in an ethical child trust fund thingy. Also RSPCA and Help the Aged get all dd's old toys / clothes and my stuff too.

Have had a recent involvement in the 'green movement' e.g. worked at Northern Green Gathering this year in the healing field.

So maybe I'm not a TOTAL sell out