KEY POINTS:
Geoff Lamb had to shout to be heard over the drone of the police helicopter.
The 63-year-old former petro-physicist had worked for more than 40 years in the oil industry, but yesterday he was marching next to a banner that read: "It's your great-grandchildren's planet too - stop wrecking it for them".
"I've spent a lifetime on the wrong side of the fence," he said. "We need to radically alter the way we live our lives. Our environment is being ruined and yet it's business as usual."
Flanked by a phalanx of police officers, Lamb's group of Aberdeenshire protesters were on the move. They, like hundreds of others from all over Britain, had come to take part in the climax of the Climate Camp - 24 hours of direct action at Heathrow Airport.
After a week occupying a barren stretch of scrubland bordering the northern edge of Britain's busiest airport, environmentalists, veteran campaigners, local residents and part-time activists had gathered to make their point more forcefully than ever before.
Their mission: to highlight the link between global warming and aviation emissions - and to do it with posters, banners and purposeful rebellion.
As promised, yesterday's protest involved more than marching and shouting. Camp organisers had always said they expected those gathered between the villages of Harlington, Sipson and Harmondsworth to take part in direct action.
They are the three places that would be wiped off the map if Heathrow's owner, the British Airports Authority (BAA), goes ahead with plans to build a third runway.
Just talking about climate change, the camp's inhabitants said, was not going to make people or the Government listen, and if they had to break the law to make the world take the issue seriously, they would.
The protest plan was straightforward. At midday, a column of marchers, mainly local residents, would walk through Sipson and mark out the route that a third runway would take through their homes.
Meanwhile, those wishing to take part in direct action were encouraged to walk to BAA's headquarters, a nondescript block of offices north of Heathrow's perimeter fence, and blockade it.
The residents' protest would join them there and stop anyone going in or out of the offices for 24 hours.
But the police were taking no chances. Waiting for the protesters at BAA were about 1500 officers.
Phil Sutton, a resident of Harlington for more than 40 years, was one of those on the first march. If BAA is allowed to build that runway, he and his disabled wife will have to move.
"A lot of people say we shouldn't complain, that if you don't want to be moved you shouldn't live next to an airport," he said.
"But not everyone had a choice. I've lived here since 1963 and my wife has lived here all her life."
Would he be willing to break the law to highlight his case?
"Why not? We've been taken for a ride long enough. We've protested peacefully for years against the expansion of Heathrow and it's made no difference. We've been forced to resort to direct action. I just hope no one gets hurt."
For the early part of the afternoon, the atmosphere in the residents' protest was cordial and at times even jovial.
One 21-year-old man was arrested for assaulting a police officer, but the march was non-confrontational.
Police said they made only three arrests in total - the assault accused, a person allegedly carrying Class A drugs and another for allegedly being equipped to cause criminal damage.
Protesters laughed and joked with their police escorts even as they were penned in on Sipson Rd for more than an hour. Children dressed in carefully constructed, brightly coloured costumes marched alongside their parents, who walked next to heavily pierced hippies. Sipson had probably never seen such a varied crowd.
But at two o'clock, a very different crowd emerged from the camp's tent. Heading south towards the BAA offices and Heathrow Airport, a second column of 200 to 300 activists left the camp and began walking across a field.
Here were the protesters who organisers had promised would blockade BAA at all costs, and it was not long before the police helicopter returned and circled overhead.
For much of the next two hours, activists fought pitched battles with police in waist-high brushland as they tried to reach their target.
Communicating by text message and radio, the protesters tried to find a way through the police lines. Many were forced back by police batons and at least one woman was seen nursing a bleeding head wound.
Yvonne Deeney, a 20-year-old protester who claimed she was beaten by police, said: "We were standing peacefully next to the fence and then suddenly the police came on to the field to push us back. We were trying to talk to them but they were having none of it."
Police officers on site said they could not let anyone leave the field, as protesters doing so would be trespassing on private property.
Although the majority of activists were beaten back, small splinter groups were able to make it through the police cordon and by late afternoon there were reports that a sizeable number had made it to the BAA car park.
Organisers of the march claimed the day had been a resounding success, despite critics' assertions that the turnout - thought to be about 1400 - had proved a disappointment.
To the relief of holiday-makers, fears that flights from Heathrow would be delayed proved unfounded.
- Independent
